What's in the name, Deus in Fabula?
What's in the name, Deus in Fabula?
When you read this newsletter’s Latin title, I hope it brings to mind the more well-recognized phrase, deus ex machina, "God out of the machine." In fiction, deus ex machina refers to the literary device wherein story problems are abruptly solved by an agency that’s external to the characters, such as acts of divine intervention or some other favorable event happening just because.
Well, I'm not looking for divine intervention in stories any more than I'm looking for it in the real world because God primarily acts through the inspired agency of human beings, and ordinary human beings at that. Prayer is answered not so much by miracles or the action of angels outside of human will (though I don’t deny such events are possible), but through human will. Put another way, God's presence in everyday real life—and his answers to prayers—is felt and experienced as insight, inspiration, energy, will, and clarity.
That is the faith that moves mountains. It’s what I'm looking for in the fiction I read and what seek to express in the fiction I write. Hence, Deus in Fabula or "God in the story." (The idea could also be phrased Deus in Fabulam, which means God into the story, but Fabula better matches machina.)
Because my writing also seeks to awaken this inner experience of God’s presence within readers themselves, I considered using the title Deus ex Homine, or "God out of the person", which could imply that awakening. This phrase, however, has come to mean "God created by the person," which is to say that God is merely a creation of people’s imagination. That's not what I'm going for here because God exists irrespective of human belief.
Indeed, having the choice to “believe” or not, to experience his presence or not, is an aspect of our God-given free will. And personally, I’m interested in such direct experience rather than belief and especially sectarian belief.1
Addendum: two intentionally amusing uses of deus ex machina
Both of these instances never fail to make me laugh because they’re clearly done on purpose rather than through negligence.
First, Richard Adams’ classic tale Watership Down actually has a chapter entitled Deus Ex Machina! The situation? The hero, the rabbit named Hazel (and the namesake of one of my stuffed bunnies), has gone to a nearby farm to let loose the dog that chases Hazel’s friends back to their warren just in time to save everyone from General Woundwort’s fascists. In the process, however, the farm cat catches Hazel and has him pinned down, ready to make the kill.
At just the right moment, the young farm girl witnesses the scene and not only shoos away the cat to rescue Hazel but then, thanks to the local doctor, drives Hazel a couple of miles down the road, taking him much closer to the warren. Thus, Hazel is saved by what to the rabbits might as well be an act of divine intervention by the rabbit deity, Lord Frith (as they had perceived the timely appearance of a thundering train earlier in the story). That said, it does fit into the story, because the rabbits had previously visited the farm and the young girl’s act of kindness is entirely in character.
The second occurs in Harvard Lampoon’s thoroughly irreverent parody, Bored of the Rings. Though littered with many a deus ex machina, the unmistakable one occurs right after Frito (Frodo) and Spam (Sam) have disposed of the Ring, at which point the earth is tearing apart and threatens to swallow them in “a crevasse filled with used razor blades and broken wine bottles”:
Then just over their heads they saw a passing flash of color. There in the sky they saw a giant eagle, full-feathered and painted shocking pink. On its side were the words Deus ex Machina Airlines in metallic gold.
Frito yelped as the great bird swooped low and snatched them both from death with its rubberized talons.
“Name’s Gwahno,” said the Eagle as they climbed sharply away from the disintegrating land. “Find a seat.”
Also see:
I define “sectarian beliefs” as those claims to spiritual exclusivity that divide and separate one’s faith community from others, whether between religions, within the same religion, within various offshoots of the same denomination or spiritual family, or even between individuals within such a family. Religious and spiritual belief that’s founded upon the reality of God should be unifying, not divisive.