Why I Wrote This Book
The idea of God on trial is on old one. In fact, it goes all the way back to the days of Job -- about three thousand years ago. It probably goes back even farther than that, but that is probably the first written record we have of this fanciful notion. It is a notion that always captivated me, and I always thought it would make a great story. The trick was: How do you do it? Oh, I suppose one could employ a variety of devices. Perhaps a mock trial, staged in an academic setting, where students play the roles of judge, jury, and attorneys. Or maybe a Firing Line type debate, where a proposition is put forth -- “Settled: God is guilty of criminal negligence” -- and then the two sides present their cases for and against the proposition. Or maybe just a morality play, where the drama of the character’s lives revolves around the question of God’s goodness.
All of those ideas are plausible. But I wanted something different. Something more than an academic exercise or a morality play. I wanted a literal trial. And so, as you might imagine, I had some figurin’ to do. Some questions to ask, like: Who would charge God with a crime? What would the charge be? Who would defend Him? How could the whole thing actually be brought to court? Serious questions, to be sure. But, if I wanted to realize my dream of writing a coherent novel about God being put on trial, I had to answer them. Fortunately, just when it started to seem like maybe this idea was just a little out of reach, genius struck. The answer to the first question -- Who would charge Him? -- came to me like a bolt of lightning. Why, Satan, of Course! So obvious -- and yet so ingenious. Satan is God’s oldest and most powerful enemy. And he’s always wanted to get the goods on God, to set him up, make Him look guilty, and, of course, to make man hate him. It was settled, then: Satan would bring the charge.
But how? In what context. Well, that wasn’t so easy. Took some more figurin’. Fortunately, the bolts of lightning kept coming (you wouldn’t believe how frizzy my hair was during this period of literary inspiration). Again, the answer was so obvious . . . Yet so ingenious. Demon possession!
I have to be careful here. I don’t want to give too much away. Like all great potboilers, this novel is filled with twists and turns, surprises and stunners, shocks and . . . um . . . more surprises, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, the reader.
At any rate, the demon wants God tried. But he doesn’t just want some back room proceeding, done in secret, where everyone plays their roles, a verdict is rendered, and everyone goes home and gets on with their lives as if nothing happened. No, he is serious about this. He wants God put on trial before the whole world! And so, needless to say, he needs to find a big stage.
That’s where Nick Gallo comes in. As a TV evangelist, Nick has a big stage. And so Satan decides that he will use that stage as a forum for the trial.
And that’s about as much as I can tell you without giving too much away. At any rate, I’m not really sure I answered the question I posed at the outset: Why did I write this book? Yes, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of God on trial, but why? Well, I think it’s because I’ve given so much thought to the questions that would be raised in such a trial. In other words, I’ve given a lot of thought to the problem of suffering. Why do we suffer? What are the implications of so much suffering for the goodness of God? Needless to say, many answers have been proposed. But I struggle with those answers. I find them unconvincing. Conversely, I find some of the arguments against God’s goodness, or existence, in the face of suffering, to be equally unconvincing. And I liked the idea of giving expression to both sides, in the form of a trial, and in the context of horror, which is my preferred genre. And that, in a nutshell, is why I wrote this book.
All of those ideas are plausible. But I wanted something different. Something more than an academic exercise or a morality play. I wanted a literal trial. And so, as you might imagine, I had some figurin’ to do. Some questions to ask, like: Who would charge God with a crime? What would the charge be? Who would defend Him? How could the whole thing actually be brought to court? Serious questions, to be sure. But, if I wanted to realize my dream of writing a coherent novel about God being put on trial, I had to answer them. Fortunately, just when it started to seem like maybe this idea was just a little out of reach, genius struck. The answer to the first question -- Who would charge Him? -- came to me like a bolt of lightning. Why, Satan, of Course! So obvious -- and yet so ingenious. Satan is God’s oldest and most powerful enemy. And he’s always wanted to get the goods on God, to set him up, make Him look guilty, and, of course, to make man hate him. It was settled, then: Satan would bring the charge.
But how? In what context. Well, that wasn’t so easy. Took some more figurin’. Fortunately, the bolts of lightning kept coming (you wouldn’t believe how frizzy my hair was during this period of literary inspiration). Again, the answer was so obvious . . . Yet so ingenious. Demon possession!
I have to be careful here. I don’t want to give too much away. Like all great potboilers, this novel is filled with twists and turns, surprises and stunners, shocks and . . . um . . . more surprises, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, the reader.
At any rate, the demon wants God tried. But he doesn’t just want some back room proceeding, done in secret, where everyone plays their roles, a verdict is rendered, and everyone goes home and gets on with their lives as if nothing happened. No, he is serious about this. He wants God put on trial before the whole world! And so, needless to say, he needs to find a big stage.
That’s where Nick Gallo comes in. As a TV evangelist, Nick has a big stage. And so Satan decides that he will use that stage as a forum for the trial.
And that’s about as much as I can tell you without giving too much away. At any rate, I’m not really sure I answered the question I posed at the outset: Why did I write this book? Yes, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of God on trial, but why? Well, I think it’s because I’ve given so much thought to the questions that would be raised in such a trial. In other words, I’ve given a lot of thought to the problem of suffering. Why do we suffer? What are the implications of so much suffering for the goodness of God? Needless to say, many answers have been proposed. But I struggle with those answers. I find them unconvincing. Conversely, I find some of the arguments against God’s goodness, or existence, in the face of suffering, to be equally unconvincing. And I liked the idea of giving expression to both sides, in the form of a trial, and in the context of horror, which is my preferred genre. And that, in a nutshell, is why I wrote this book.