Showing posts with label Natural Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Natural Law. Show all posts

Friday, August 3, 2018

Why the Gods Aren't Subject to Natural Law or Fate

The Gods rule over things. For example, Zeus rules lightning. If He were the subject of the lightning and dictated by it, He wouldn't be its God. Instead, He would be its servant. However, He hurls the bolt where He chooses, and therefore the roles are the exact opposite. The natural order of things bears no dictation over Him, or any other God. Otherwise, they wouldn't be Gods. The entire idea behind Divinity is that it rules over the things which directs us and the universe. They can't rule over that direction if they are dictated by that direction; the direction would be ruling over them. 

Not only did the Gods, in their stories, rule over the natural order of things, they also changed it at their own will. It is not the natural order that a woman be turned into a spider, but Athena did it without lifting a finger. It is also not the natural order that time and space be broken and shifted in order to bring someone into a different realm so they can help fight an aggressor, but Zeus did it to Herakles in the Giantomachy. Natural Law, time and space mean nothing to the Gods. They don't even have to fight or work to break it open and change or direct it to their liking. They merely decide that it will be done, and it is.

The Gods are also not subject to fate, given what one even considers to be fate. Some may not even believe it exists at all in the sense that every single thing has already been written for us. But fate means you have no control over what happens, that it's already preordained and there's nothing you can do about it. To say that the Gods have no control over something, is to say again that they are not Gods. We can go back to the lightning example. If the bolt is preordained and there's nothing Zeus can do about it, it means He is powerless over the lightning, and thus not its God. The fate of the universe and this world also dictates that all things eventually die. The Gods, however, are deathless. They never die.

But perhaps someone means to say that nothing can stop the inevitable. Such as the fact that, one day, I will die, and that cannot be stopped. Maybe this is what they mean by saying that the Gods are subject to Natural Law and Fate. However, this was also created by the Gods themselves. My time was established when the Fates spun my thread. My life did not start, and is not drifting, haphazardly. The reason the Gods won't interfere when it is my time to die, is because that time is also made so by their own will. When the thread is spun, it is done so by the hands of Goddesses. The Divine Ones are therefore mapping out my life. They are creating for it what they choose, and thus, have complete control over the fate. While one may argue that not everything upon that thread has been preordained, it still shows the massive amount of dictation the Gods have over Natural Law and fate itself. You cannot be subjected to fate when you are fate. And the thread does not break on its own either. Remember, it is a Goddess who cuts it, and thus brings my life to an end. In short, things are started, directed, and ended by the hands of Gods.

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Chris Aldridge.