1. Great post. The way I understand it is that we have God’s communicable attributes, as you mentioned above. A dark reflection of hearing, seeing, creativity (something Wayland refused David which I will talk about in a minute) and other elements. We do not have God’s incommunicable attributes — His perfection, His omniscience, His holiness, and many, many more things that we’ll partake of in new bodies that can handle such wonderfulness.

    In the movie Covenant, since you’re using the illustration, David abhors Wayland because he doesn’t see what the big deal is. Wayland is his father and creator but he, the offspring, is much better than him. He’ll never die of natural causes (which for some reason in current sci-fi, one’s ability to negate death seems to be a deciding factor in what makes a person seem superior), supposedly has higher intellect, and so forth and so on. Wayland, aware of his own limitations, still makes an interesting rejoiner to David’s taunt — “Go make me some tea.” Or something like that, thus putting David in his place of submission.

    Humans have to assert their authority in some way. Even the aliens in your last post with Arrival expressed their authority in understanding a non-linear concept of time. Side note: why are all the aliens wearing tentacles lately????

    God does not have to assert His authority. I think that’s something in and of itself. We’re always trying to prove ourselves to each other or if not to each other, to ourselves. God does not have to jump out of heaven and time and explain His actions to us. That is an alien concept even if we don’t full grasp it. If anything, when the hard questions of life come to us, the Lord says, “I am with you.” “I have never left you.” It’s a very different response to how Wayland responded to David’s comment.

    *spoiler alert* After Wayland dies, David becomes obsessed with creation. It’s not certain, at least to me, if Elizabeth Shaw was killed by him or if she died, but along with her organs which he removes from her, he uses the ‘black death’ of the progenitors (another interesting aspect which will take too long to get into) to create life. However, he does not have the human capacity to understand with the creation of life comes a certain reserve and responsibility. With all of his supposed intellect, he does not have, at bare minimum, a basic understanding of ethics which is why he can smile when the first baby Xenomorph steps out the one guy’s chest. (Classic!)

    Unlike humans who would ‘create life’, artificial, synthetic, or modified, God put within us His sense of morality and a inborn instinct of right and wrong.

    These communicable attributes nearly blows our minds up at times which is why we has humans, made in His image, are limited.

    I think I kind of rambled because I had a lot of thoughts about Covenant. It wasn’t my favorite alien movie. I hated Prometheus by the way.

    • Travis Perry says:

      Parker, thanks for your thoughtful insights.

      Yes, one of the biggest differences between how Alien Covenant shows the creator is Wayland really ISN’T all that great compared to David. But God in fact outstrips human beings in power, form, presence, memory, creativity, foresight, and morality (etc).

      I think Ridley Scott is doing that on purpose–in effect floating a hypothetical proposition, “So let’s say for sake the human race was created. That does not mean our Creator is in any way superior to us (and should be worshiped).” Then he gives two different examples. First, the inferior human creating the superior robot. Then second, the superior robot with a demented twist creating things with the sole purpose of making human beings suffer. Both of these seem to me to qualify as Scott giving the middle finger to the God he says he does not believe in. (And I think Prometheus had the same purpose, but from a different angle.)

      One of the things about God that so contrasts with the false creators in the recent Alien movies is that while God in fact does at times declare his own glory, he very often takes completely subservient roles, especially in the person of the Holy Spirit, who in fact ACTS LIKE A KIND SERVANT TO THE INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN BELIEVER, helping us pray, guiding us in morality, bringing God’s word to our mind when we need it, comforting our hearts, but entirely subject to OUR will. Christ himself lead his disciples but also served them. Taught them and at times rebuked them, but also DIED for them. What kind of being both rules in the heavens AND serves in every believer’s heart? Who executes justice on wickedness but ALSO self-sacrificed to the point of death to allow us to be in fellowship with him? No human being!

      We human beings only reflect the barest glimmers of these traits. Say in a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.

      The contrast between what God is and how we are in his image and how the recent Alien movies portray the creator and creation is enormous. Thanks for commenting about that. 🙂

What do you think?