Philosophy of Dr. Manhattan
Well gamers, I want o talk some philosophy with you. Not just any philosophy, I thought I would take a whack at a comparison of Dr. Manhattan and God. You may remember that I have never actually read the graphic novel, Watchmen, but I have taken a few classes and thought about God alot. So, I’ll give this my best shot, and hope that you don’t go away with an bad taste in your mouth.
In the Beginning
Most religions of the world believe God was at the beginning of everything, Dr. Manhattan was not. But in a way, Dr. Manhattan, as the big blue guy, not the puny human Jon Osterman,created himself from nothing. God, at least in the Christian perspective, created the Universe in 7 days from nothing physical, only words. If we view Dr. Manhattan’s creation like God’s, then both Dr. Manhattan and God were able to create miraculous things from something that had not existed previously. Some may argue that Dr. Manhattan’s mind was just manipulating energy and the space/time continuum to create himself and that’s a valid view too.
View of Time
Dr. Manhattan views all time as one event. The past, present, and future are all one event. In some explanations of God it is thought that God views all time as one event as well. This leads to the idea of omniscience. Now if Dr. Manhattan can see all time as one event, he too is all knowing and even expresses this a number of times in Watchmen. Now for some of us, this raises the question of free will and whether we really have any or if our lives are predetermined even before our birth. While that is outside the scope of this article, let’s just say that it is very confusing subject.
Human Interaction
Dr. Manhattan, while attempting to be personable, has a difficult time being so because of the fact that he sees everything on an entirely different level than humans do. His view is so complex that his friends and co-workers cannot understand him at all. His attempts to reconnect with them, over time, fail. His girlfriend leaves him because of his detachment, and he eventually leaves the planet to go off on his own.
Now God, in some perspectives, attempts to be personable, and has a difficult time doing so. How can God create so much evil in this world? How can God allow bad things to happen to good people? Just which race is the right race, if we are all created in God’s image? All of this takes an especially interesting twist when you remember that some think God is omniscient and knows all things at all times. The lack of intervention drives some people crazy! There is also a the view by some that God has basically given up on the human race and has left us to our own whim much like Dr. Manhattan does when he up and leaves for Mars to build his fancy contraption.
But what brings Dr. Manhattan back? When his girlfriend gets the opportunity to go to Mars to speak with him, she begs him to return to Earth and save them from a great evil that will befall them from Dr. Manhattan’s energy invention. He knows that she would come, he knows that she would beg him to return, he knows, she will become extremely upset, but he seems to be lacking the knowledge of whether she will be able to convince him to come back. SPOILER ALERT: And so he eventually does return in order to help them.
Believers often think the same thing about God. When they feel that God has left them they often beg and pray for God to return to them. Now, it is the opinion of this writer, God never actually leaves. But many believers then feel that God “returns” to them when their prayers are answered.
Process Theology
Process theology is a theological movement in which philosophers feel that God is changed by God’s interaction with human life. Now this obviously makes a number of people squirm because part of the comfort of believing in God is that God is constant and never changing. Let’s say for this comparisons sake that God does have some constants. It’s also felt in this form of theology that while humans have free will, God influences our decisions by providing certain choices for us to choose from, but it is up to us to choose which one, god or bad.
So now your thinking, how the heck does that deal with Dr. Manhattan? Well, this form of thought fits in perfectly with Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan has some constants about him such as his ability to manipulate all forms of matter and his ability to see all time as one, but through the course of the movie, and I assume through the course of the comic book, Dr. Manhattan is changed by his interaction with his girlfriend as well as his other close friends. Along the lines of giving humans choices, Dr. Manhattan tells his friends what the future holds for them, the results of their choices. In the movie, everything he says happens, it would be interesting to see if people could make a different choice and possibly change what he foresaw.
Well this is the end of my comparison of Dr. Manhattan and God. It’s been interesting writing out these thoughts for you and I hope you did not get too frustrated reading this. I tried to keep things unbiased as much as possible, but know that I do believe in God from the Christian perspective. So if you feel that I did any dishonor, I apologize.
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