Cosmic horror is moreso than more general horror about things pertaining to the nature of reality. Instead of just focusing on human antagonists or threatening variations of everyday situations, this subgenre is about the terror or trauma of discovering grand truths or entities that are not accounted for in the typical person's worldview. These realities are frightening to characters because of just how enormous the ramifications are, how unexpected the revelation is, or how hostile to human existence or wellbeing the universe and it's inhabitants--or supernatural beings--are. Lovecraftian horror, with its incredibly powerful interdimensional or extraterrestrial beings, is one of the most prominent examples of cosmic horror, although the common misconception of logical axioms being false in Lovecraftian tales is still an inherent impossibility in all of fiction. There is also the false notion that moral nihilism is true in the context cosmic horror stories, but this is not necessarily a part of them at all.
In fact, the Bible has plenty of genuine cosmic horror elements, and it espouses a highly moralistic philosophy. Yahweh is a very Lovecraftian being, the supreme being who could create and destroy at will, bringing new planets and life into existence with mental abilities alone or reducing traitorous creations to nonexistence (Ezekiel 18:4). The very concept of an uncaused cause, something which can be demonstrated to exist by logical necessity since every other alternative is intrinsically false, has the potential for cosmic horror. It is just that the Christian deity has other aspects to its nature that outshine or balance its truly Lovecraftian side. Aside from the fact that Yahweh is the most foundational being of all since it can exist independent of other minds and is responsible for all the others existing (directly or indirectly), there are numerous explicitly horror-tinged parts of Christian theology.
In the book of Job, God mentions his creation the Leviathan, a creature that he says is feared by many humans for its incredible durability, ferocity, and ability to breathe fire. Despite the futility, people might attack it and survive to never attempt such a thing again (Job 41:8); human weapons of the era are useless against the beast's skin (41:26-29). In spite of its power, as the Leviathan's creator, or at least the being that could will the Leviathan out of existence, Yahweh would be even more fearsome than this creature that is described like an aquatic dragon: "'No one is able to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me?'" (41:10). Again, God is very Lovecraftian in one sense--a being very metaphysically alien to humans on one level but relatable and benevolent in another. To create and then hold up such an animal to express a far superior power has elements of cosmic horror even if the God behind the Leviathan is not malicious.
What of the angelic servants of God, who inspire such terror in some observers that they have to tell humans to not be afraid? The angels of Ezekiel do not even look like conventional portrayals with almost perfectly human bodies other than wings or halos. A wheel intersecting a wheel and multiple animalistic faces are the true nature of various angels in Ezekiel. Biblical angels are certainly Lovecraftian as well, foreign beings in appearance and power who serve an entity that could remove all other creatures from existence with a thought (like a Lovecraft's Azathoth with benevolence [1], omniscience, and intentionality). If this is what the servants of Yahweh are like, the malevolent fallen angels would relate even more to cosmic horror.
Able to possess biological hosts like humans and even animals like pigs (Matthew 8:28-34), they are in rebellion against the creator and intent on pursuing their own ends that do not favor human flourishing. Demons moreso than angels are Lovecraftian in the sense of having hostility or disregard for people, whom they would treat as pawns or cosmic enemies. The torment of hell was prepared for them (Matthew 25:41), though its fires bring a final end to the very life of humans who are damned to this realm (Matthew 10:28). The same aforementioned demons that indwelt a herd of pigs asked Jesus if they would be tortured by him before "the appointed time" (Matthew 8:29), and it is somewhat ambiguous as to whether demons, as opposed to fallen humans whose fate is eventual, permanent nonexistence, will be tormented forever. Hell itself, even as a place where many beings are destroyed and not tormented eternally, is brimming with cosmic horror as a way that justice, an afterlife, and human powerlessness before divinity all meet.
All of this is very heavily Lovecraftian, not because metaphysical concepts and the nature of those concepts are invented by Lovecraft, but because they already related to the themes that Lovecraft focused on so much. However, there is more to the cosmic horror of Christian angelology and demonology: there are the people of Revelation 9 who long to die and cannot for five months as they are tormented by what seem to be demonic locust-like entities from the Abyss (Revelation 9:1-10). Not even suicide can escape the rampage of these torturing demons, though the passage specifies that those suffering under them will still wish they were dead. In addition to this, Revelation describes other calamities like hailstones weighing a hundred pounds falling to Earth (Revelation 16:17-21), cataclysms of such an extensive scale that their supernatural origin alone is a source of cosmic horror for the people who curse God even as they suffer.
The type of Christian or pseudo-Christian that comes to mind when many people erroneously think of what a Christian is/should be like would likely despise cosmic horror's concepts, imagery, and darkness. Nonetheless, the Bible is full of cosmic horror that is largely overlooked by comparison to Lovecraftian stories because there is moralistic, soteriological optimism alongside the terror. The idiotic naturalism of Lovecraft himself, which his work does not actually reflect in one sense (Azathoth is a deity, an uncaused cause), might be another reason why so many people think cosmic horror and Christianity are antithetical to each other, even though cosmic horror does not have to be nihilistic at all. Its only requirement is that the deep nature of reality is what prompts the fear, and if Christianity is true and even if it was not, there are many things in Biblical philosophy that would be extremely terrifying to many people.
No comments:
Post a Comment