The Pantaloon : Deus In The Machina, Devil In The Skunkworks : Brother Wagwit

The Pantaloon
Edited by Brother Wagwit
Earlyish in the 21st Century

Deus In The Machina, Devil In The Skunkworks

If as the old saying goes, Man Proposes And God Disposes (Homo Proponit Sed Deus Disponit), why then is the Devil In The Details?

It’s perfectly understandable that God, The Creator, would want to imbue Man, His purported creation, with a sense of identity and purpose, as when a techie builds a robot and gives it a name and has it make him coffee every morning. Of course, in the movie, when a techie builds a robot, part of the plot is to have a kill switch embedded in the works so that if said robot gets out of line and turns against its creator with a terrible cup of coffee, the creator can unplug the robot at will.

Seemingly, as part of His master plan, His creation script, God humors himself by letting man think that he has a say in the formulation and realization of his life, even though in fact man’s life, plans, destiny, are all at God’s mercy. Or maybe the intent is to prevent man from turning against God by getting The Devil to put bugaboos in the skunkworks. Either way it’s parsed, God comes across as not only The Creator, but the Supreme Ironist as well, and The Devil is His CIO (Chief Irony Officer).

A clarification: In most master-plan schemes of all things divine, God is a He, a Him, a Dude; as is The Devil, unless there’s a specific mention of a She-Devil who tends to appear frequently as the source of a man’s ruin in pulp fiction novels.

In that narrative, The Devil is characterized as someone who can’t help but do what he does, being a downfallen angel and all that –a noble savage if you will. But a She-Devil is hands down the real evildoer in every story, apparently because she does have a choice and she in fact chooses her She-Devilry. On the face of it, God is not content with just one trickster, He needs a second one to improve on the punch line, and as a confirmed bachelor, a woman to even the score. In Hollywood this is known as a script re-write.

The Creation re-write now concludes thusly: By the end of the sixth day God said to Himself: Hmmm, this story line is flat, it could use a little plot twist, a zinger, make that two zingers; we’ve got Adam and Eve, now we have Devil and She-Devil too. At the end of the seventh day He saw that two zingers was a good thing and He resteth –a weekend in Palm Springs.

From that seventh day to this day today, His infinite wisdom and showbiz insight have proven correct. All kinds of improper shenanigans have ensued from a man or a woman possessed or influenced by The Devil or a She-Devil. Juicy stuff that is never left on the cutting room floor.

With The Creation script fixes in mind, our contemporary story outline now goes like this: Robot brings bad coffee to its master. Master deactivates robot with embedded kill switch. Robot in its free time, between making cups of coffee, has learned how to reactivate its system. It does so in the middle of the night, approaches its master’s bed and suffocates him with his responsible down-standard-certified thermally-adjustable pillow. Robot then makes itself an excellent cup of coffee –which it obviously knows how to do– and even more surprisingly, drinks the coffee without shorting its circuits. Sultry She-Robot walks into the room, nodding approvingly. They embrace. Fade to black. Cue cyborg sequel.

Time and again, The Devil working the details makes for good plot twists, hilarious jokes and wonderful headlines. Perhaps it follows that since God works so hard taking care of the universe, He requires frequent yuks and newsworthy action for entertainment. This may well be why reality shows have such good ratings and why tabloid media is so avidly consumed… they have His divine blessing as well as all the inside details of The Devil’s meddling. Such is life.

Et tu Frankenstein?