Dumbledore and the Death of God
Mike Gray
interested.
* * * * *
There was a pre-DH Time article in which claimed that The Potterverse
is a universe without God. Obviously there's something to that -
certainly, no one ever talks about God - or any other personal being
comparable to him.
Unless you mean the whole Love thing, which the article's author
dismisses as psychobabble. I'll get to that later.
For now, just a question: if there were one character in the books
that you could cut out of the series and paste onto the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel - who would it be? I mean Dobby would look kind of
cute, but there's only one reasonable candidate: Dumbledore.
Dumbledore is the old man with the long, white beard. Dumbledore is a
bit mysterious and unimaginably powerful and wise and knowing and
loving. Dumbledore has a plan - just trust him and everything will
work out OK.
But wait - Dumbledore can't be God!
Why not?
Because he isn't all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing, all-loving!
We've had our doubts all along, and in HP he says so himself! He
screwed up and hung out with Grindelwald. Besides: Rowling killed him
at the end of the Half Blood Prince.
Well, yes - exactly. In fact, theologically speaking, that's the very
interesting point about DH. The God figure turns out to be very human
after all. It's almost as if Rowling first blew God into the series,
then changed her mind and let the air out.
What's so interesting about that? Well, this act of deflation mirrors
a lot of Christian thinking over the last century or so. The "Heavenly
Dumbledore" figure has certainly been the standard conception of God
throughout most of the Christian history; however, many Christian
theologians - feminists come to mind as do less known movements like
liberation theology and process theology - have objected to it.
Christians of these kinds have argued that the "Heavenly Dumbledore"
image is overblown. They have pointed out that this sort of thinking
about God has some dangerous aspects (people who think they're best
friends with an all-powerful God have a weird habit of trying to be
all-powerful too). Often they have simply insisted that to describe
something like God is far more difficult than we realize (there's an
old theological tradition called negative theology, but I won't get
into that!) Even the Death of God movement back in the 60s and 70s was
connected to some of these issues.
Oddly enough, however, the idea of a mysterious force that we call
love - something that is at once impersonal and indescribable (after
all, it's a force!) and yet deeply personal - human, in fact - and
tangible (after all, it's love!) is a kind of thought pattern that
would fit remarkably well.
Oh - and, btw, a very human Christ figure, who can't do it alone but
relies on his friends - a figure who makes the world a better, safer
place but doesn't actually turn the entire course of human history on
its ear - that kind of Christ figure fits in remarkable well.
Any of that sound familiar?
What I'm shooting for is this: I think there is A LOT of theology
going on in this book - even if it isn't the kind that a lot of
readers were expecting.
Mike Gray
_______________________
"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have
been bravery...." JK Rowling, The Goblet of Fire.
http://aberforths-goat.livejournal.com/
http://www.research-projects.unizh.ch/p8199.htm
http://groups.google.com/group/fantasy-and-religion
Libby
Yes! (That's my short response...)
Again, when I first started teaching the first HP book, I remember
thinking that Dumbledore=God, Harry=Jesus worked relatively (only
relatively) well. If we see DD as a god-figure/father-figure who
seemingly abandons "his son" -- for his own good and the good of the
world, though no one knows it at the time --then a lot of parallels
become quite clear. And the fact that he is not omnipotent fits in
nicely, as you say, with process theology (something I'm just learning
about): he's got a plan, but it's not fully worked out, it will change
based on human actions, etc.
So, yes, I do think there's a lot of theology going on!
--Libby