The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God (48 page)

I’m indeed guilty of blasphemy if I
falsely
claim to be the One whom others revere as the Highest.

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, I have proved to you, many, many times over, that my claim is
true.
Those of you who have discovered in the course of this Trial that it’s true of you also will, by bringing in a verdict of Not Guilty, tell Counsel where he can put his gibe that it is perverted and immoral and shameful.

Which gives me the cue to what I most want to say, and have therefore left to the very last. The difference between the ‘My Me is God’
(Il mio me è Dio)
of St Catherine and the ‘I am God’ of some of her far from saintly contemporaries - seemingly so slight and theoretical - is in fact immense. The feel of the first is all right; of the second, all wrong. It’s
revolting.
Thus far I agree with Counsel absolutely. It’s not for nothing that non-Christians as well as Christians are embarrassed, if not nauseated, by such outbursts as the Ashtavakra Samhita’s ‘Wonderful am I! Adoration to Myself!’ Nearly all Vedantists substitute ‘That art thou’ for ‘This am I’. Godhood is claimed for another; and for oneself indirectly, via that other. With good reason. Pride and self conceit would be as inexcusable in the Creator as they are inevitable in the creature. He’s no Muhammad Ali, beating his breast and crying ‘I’m the greatest!’ Instead of preening and puffing Himself up, God bends and bows to Himself; and in so doing bends and bows to each and all. He gives place to and underpins the lowliest. He’s a Not-God, not Himself till He’s a total stranger to Himself. Let me sound a very personal note here. The secret consolation and safety-belt of my whole adult life hasn’t been the self-centred ‘I am God’, or even ‘I am Him’, but the wholly other-centred
‘To be saved is to be Him’.
Oh, yes, the glory is there, the cold white light of the Subject is real, but it is shaded and softened and warmed by surrender to and love of the Adorable Object. The One that is Light in the highest is Love in the depths.

Put it another way. Unlike HE IS, I AM is devoid of wonder and worship, neither of which God is short of. His keenest delight is the hyper-miracle of His own Self-origination, His ‘impossible’ popping up from the blank Inane, in spite of the fact that by rights there should be nothing whatever. As Plotinus puts it, ‘He has given Himself existence’ (what a gift!); ‘He has acted Himself into being’ (what a performance!). He finds being His own Mum and Dad astoundingly funny, in both senses of the word. My point is that this surprise and admiration arise from His enjoyment of Himself as Object and not Subject. And when I share in the divine astonishment (and by God I do!) I must share also in the divine humility and objectivity which alone make it possible. Creatures thrive on their divine pretensions, their thrust towards Godhood. God alone is not a bit pushy. The only way to enjoy Him - enjoy being Him - is not, not, not to be Him! Can Sir Gerald hear me?

These built-in contradictions are lost on the Prosecution, which as always is a simplistic, dopey, half baked, yes-
or
-no affair. The Defence, however, is forced by the facts to keep saying yes
and
no. Thus on the one hand I’m confessing to the Jury that
as Jack
I’m too stuck-up, too stuck with Jack, too determined to hit the jackpot, too intent on transmogrifying that jackanapes into some kind of godling, too possessed to be anything but that Godless jackanapes. And on the other hand I’m telling them that only
as the God who is not-God
am I come to be low and empty and owned enough to take on the splendour and the amazement that is God.

‘My Me is God’ is the Christing of this outward-facing First Person. ‘My God is Me’ is the anti-christing of that inward-facing third person called Jack. I have to go for one or the other, there being no halfway house.

I go for the former. My Me is God, but my God isn’t Me. It’s as subtle and as sharp - and, in practice, as simple - as that.

And so, members of the Jury, we come to the final Act of the drama we have all been cast in here, the Act in which you star. To you is granted the power, just this once in your lives, to kill or to spare one of your kind. If, exercising this power, you send me to the scaffold because you suppose me guilty of blasphemy, you will be guilty of murder. Why? Why, because my life has been devoted to denouncing and frustrating Jack’s pretensions to any kind of divinity; devoted to putting and keeping him in his place out there, and leaving his King enthroned here at the Centre of all things.

Bring in a verdict of Not Guilty and you will do justice to me and to yourselves. You will leave this court with hands unstained with blood, and will at least have started to address the great problem of blasphemy - your own blasphemy.

There’s justice and good sense in you. Let them out!

And let me out. I could do with a breath of fresh air!’

Your Honour, that concludes my Defence.

Judge’s Directions to the Jury

Members of the Jury, let me introduce my advice to you by explaining what my duties are as Judge at this stage of the Trial. Broadly, they are two. The first is to ensure that you are aware of what the law says, at least sufficiently aware for you to decide whether it has been broken. The second is to distinguish, from among the issues that will determine your decision, those concerning which there’s no reasonable doubt and those which are open to question. It’s the latter, of course, which you are required to deliberate and to pronounce on.

Let us then look at the provisions of this Blasphemy Act. Here, my task is fairly straightforward. It transpires that the Prosecutor for the Crown and I, and indeed the Accused himself, are quite sufficiently agreed about their interpretation and substance. Briefly recapitulating, it is this: To be guilty of blasphemy within the meaning of the Act, the Accused must have done three things. (1) He must have so outraged the feelings of religious people that they have been driven to commit serious breaches of the peace. (2) He must have done so deliberately, in a way that could have been avoided, and not accidentally or incidentally. (3) He must have brought into contempt One who is held to be sacred - by grossly insulting or by falsely claiming to be that One.

Let us look, in a little more detail, at these three criteria of guilt.

(1)
Outrage.
The Accused doesn’t challenge the Prosecution’s contention that he has offended people’s susceptibilities over a long period, and to such an extent that they have frequently taken the law into their own hands. He admits to having been the cause of very serious social unrest. If any doubts remain on this score, the testimony of a number of Witnesses confirms these facts. In short, there’s no issue here for you to consider.

(2)
Deliberate Outrage.
When the alleged offence isn’t aimed at his religious opponents, but arises incidentally or accidentally out of the Accused’s convictions, it doesn’t amount to blasphemy as defined in the Act. Here we do have a question for you to consider: Has Mr John a-Nokes been fortifying and defending his own religious position with unnecessary vigour and persistence? Well, you have had almost a month’s experience of his behaviour in all manner of encounters with people, together with their testimony about him. Does he strike you as an unreasonably dogmatic propagandist, happy to be fired by a vision which infuriates many people, terrifies others, and both infuriates and terrifies yet others? Is he devoid of compassion and social concern, interested only in self-aggrandizement? These are matters for you to decide, on the evidence. If you are at all doubtful about the answer, you must acquit him.

(3)
Contempt for a specific Entity.
To be guilty of blasphemy under the Act the Accused has to ridicule or slander or otherwise bring into contempt a Being or Person or Object that is regarded as sacred by a sizeable section of the community. One way of doing this - and you could say that it’s John a-Nokes’s speciality - is claiming that he is such a Being. Understandably enough, it is this setting himself up to
be
the very One they worship, with awe and from afar, which (to judge from the Witnesses we have heard) has proved incomparably more offensive than any contempt he might have shown for their prophets or saints, or for their sacred books, objects, symbols or practices. There’s no reasonable doubt that it is his autodeification or godmanship (I can neither find nor coin a term which is neutral, and doesn’t distort or misrepresent his position) that has sparked off practically all of the violence against him and his friends, and the clamour for his execution. No big surprise this: I need hardly remind you of historical precedents.

Now we come to the big question for you to consider and pronounce upon. Is the Accused’s claim - his oft-repeated assertion that he is indeed the One he says he is - true or false? He says that your answer will depend on whether you have conscientiously carried out the tests he again and again asked you to do.

My own observation is that the majority did not do so. Even now it isn’t too late to correct this very serious omission. You have only - I’m quoting Mr John a-Nokes - to reverse your attention and look in at what you are now looking out of. Only do that, and (he says) you will see Who you are, and Who he is as well.

As I say, the main question is whether the Accused is Who he claims to be.

If he
is
that One, then whatever offence his claim gives rise to is quite irrelevant. He has all the right in the world to upset the world. And you must bring in a verdict of Not Guilty.

If he
hasn’t
made good his claim, if you decide that he
isn’t
that One, why then the offence he gives people at once becomes the crucial issue. I put it to you that the offence - the degree to which he outrages the susceptibilities of religious people - is very serious indeed. But is it intentional? Is the Accused deliberately provocative? If so, you must bring in a verdict of Guilty. If you aren’t sure, you must bring in a verdict of Not Guilty.

Go now, elect your Foreperson, and consider your verdict.

The court rises. I’m taken back to my cell.

I sit there in the semi-darkness. Not worried, not hopeful. Just numb, rather as if I were paralytic drunk - on a wine of rare vintage...

I wake with a start - not clear about how long I’ve slept - and am led back into the reassembled court. Perfectly quiet it is...

The Verdict

The court clock tells me the Jury have been deliberating for three hours...

The Forewoman returns to report that they are unable to agree.

The Judge asks whether there’s a particular difficulty which he could help to clear up.

‘Yes, there is,’ she replies. ‘We can’t understand the connection between what the Accused tried to demonstrate by means of those experiments - was it empty space? - and the Divinity he claims to be. Some of us felt that if we knew the answer it would be easier for us to agree on a verdict.’

The Judge answers, ‘In that case let me see what I can do to help you.’ A minute or two, while he goes through his papers. ‘Ah yes, here’s what looks like a relevant passage from one of the Accused’s books... He writes: “What is this sadly overlooked ‘empty space’ that I find nowhere but here at the Centre of my universe? It is Awareness, immediate, simple, infinite, unconditioned, utterly mysterious yet more obvious than all else - and adorably
Nokes-free.
It is my Substance: also, surely, yours. And, along with Julian of Norwich,
I see no difference between God and our Substance.”’

Having jotted down the passage and thanked the Judge, the Forewoman returns to the Jury.

And I to my cell. And a night - halfway between waking and sleeping - of continued numbness. It was as if I couldn’t think a thought or move a limb if I tried, the Peace had got such a hold on me. Here was a depth of relaxation that I had rarely known...

Well into the morning of the next day, back in court. The Jury’s sitting there, very still. One of them - a middle-aged woman - has her handkerchief to her eyes. I think she’s one who really did the experiments. The silence is solid, as if all the air were frozen.

The Forewoman stands up. Yes, they have at last agreed.

The Judge asks, ‘Do you find the Accused guilty, or not guilty?’

The Forewoman, after a long pause, and scarcely audible, replies,
‘Guilty,
Your Honour... But the majority of us strongly recommend a minimum and merciful sentence.’

The storm breaks... His Honour orders the gallery to be cleared...

Calm is restored.

The Judge addresses me: ‘John a-Nokes, you have been tried and found guilty of the capital offence of blasphemy under the Act of 2002.

‘However, there’s a provision in the Act to the effect that, having been found guilty of this crime, you may go a long way towards purging yourself by publicly retracting or qualifying the pronouncements that have given very serious offence. The extent to which such retractions or qualifications will moderate your sentence is at my discretion.