"Now comes the judgment of what is and what will be. Each of the acts which Mack performed may of course be judged in a variety of ways, in terms of results, in terms of intent, in terms of the urban or rural influences—in short, they provide a dialectical mess which Good and Bad could argue about for another Millennium. Here are the results:
"First, Constantinople. The icon that Mack saved is later destroyed. The city gets sacked by those who came to preserve it. Bad wins a point here.
"Second, Kublai Khan loses his scepter. The loss of the scepter deprives the Mongol horde of part of its luck and driving energy. Threat to Western civilization eased. Good wins a point thereby.
"Fourth, Dr. Dee's mirror was not really important. But Marlowe was. Had he lived he would have written more edifying and, ultimately, morally beneficial works. A second point for Bad.
"Fifth, saving or not saving the French royal family wouldn't have made that much difference in the long run, in averting the democratic reforms of the nineteenth century. But evil was done to the king and queen. A tie here.
"Finally, there was cheating on both sides. This, too, cancels out. This contest is hereby declared no contest!"
CHAPTER 5
Mephistopheles didn't find out at this time. But later he got the news from an angel who had been traveling down from Heaven to Limbo to be present at the announcing of the contest winner. This angel had chosen to go by her own wing power, because she felt she needed the exercise and because it was a long time since she had seen the sights along the way. As she made her way down from the heavenly mansions, leaving behind one of the very desirable suburbs of Heaven, whom should she see but Mack, trudging along up the rocky road that led to the supernal heights of the divine palace above. He was moving slowly, the angel noted, but he was on his own two feet and he was moving. That was all the angel knew.
"But where can he be headed?" Mephistopheles asked.
"He looked like he was going to see You Know Who," the angel said.
"Not You Know Who!" cried Michael.
"That's how it looked. Of course, it's possible he was just sightseeing."
"But how can he presume to seek out God? How dare he? Without a pass? Without a recommendation?
Without an escort of spiritual dignitaries of proven piety? It is unheard-of."
"It's what's happening," the angel said.
"I wish I could see what's going on," Michael said, and Mephistopheles nodded in agreement.
CHAPTER 6
When Mack reached the topmost cloud mountain, he beheld, directly in front of him, the great pearly gates, which opened slowly on their valves of gold as he approached. He entered, and Found himself in a bounteous garden in which every tree and bush bore good things, and there was not a slug or weevil in sight. And then a man came hurrying up to Mack, a tall, bearded man in a white robe before whom Mack bowed low, saying, "Hello, God." The man hastened to help him to his feet, saying, "No, no, don't bow to me, I'm not God. I'm afraid He can't come talk with you right now, as He'd love to do, but He sent me, His servant, to tell you that He has decided to overrule Ananke and proclaim you the true victor in the contest."
"Me?" cried Mack. "But what have I done to deserve that?"
"I'm not clear on the details," the bearded man said. "And anyhow, it's nothing personal. It's just that a decision has been made to turn the workings of the world over to common rogues and people no better than they ought to be. The old gods have tried to lead mankind and failed, God and the devil have tried and failed, Law has tried and failed, Reason has been insufficient, and even Chaos has proven insufficient.
This is the era of the common man. Your simple, self-serving actions, Mack, done for your own good but with a vague hope that they would serve nobler purposes, must be declared the winner of this contest, for even that hint of idealism has in it more conviction than all those greater and more complicated ideas."
Mack was dumbfounded. "Me run things? No, it's impossible, I won't hear of it. Frankly, it sounds like blasphemy."
"God exists in the blasphemy, the devil in the piety."
"Look," Mack said, "I think I'd better discuss this with God Himself."
"If only that could be!" the man said sadly. "But the One God is not to be seen or talked to, not even here in Heaven. We have searched for Him and He simply isn't here. He seems to have absented Himself.
There are even those who say He never existed, and of course we have no photographs to prove that He did. But our legends say that at one time He did exist, and that the angels visited Him often and basked in His countenance. He used to tell them that Heaven and Hell were in the details. No one understood that.
He told them that as below, so above. No one understood what that meant until slums began to appear in Heaven, and then crime."
"Crime in Heaven?" Mack said. "I can't believe that."
"You'd be surprised what goes on here. It was along about that time that He suddenly told everyone that He wasn't God at all, not the big one, the immanent, the indwelling, no, He was standing in for God because God had had something else to do. But everyone wondered what that could be. Some suspected that He was starting things all over again in another space and time, and this time simplifying them so that they worked. It was felt by general consent that God was disappointed with how things had turned out in this universe, though of course, being a gentleman, He'd never breathed a word about it.
Perhaps 'intimated' would be a better word."
Mack stared at the bearded man in the white robe, then said, "You really are God, aren't you?"
"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing," Mack said.
"No, no, not at all."
"I know that's what you're thinking. Remember, I'm omniscient. That's one of my attributes."
"I know. Omnipotence, too."
"Well, yes, that. But that's a power best left in abeyance. God's real task is resisting His own omnipotence and refusing to be bound by it."
"Bound by omnipotence? How can that be?"
"Omnipotence is a strong hindrance when combined with omniscience and compassion. There's always such a temptation to interfere on the side of gentleness, to right a wrong."
"So why not do that?"
"If I put my omnipotence in the service of my omniscience, the result would be a clockwork universe.
There'd be no free will. No one would suffer the consequences of their actions. I'd always have to be there to see that no sparrow fell from the sky, that no person died in a traffic accident, that no doe was ever taken by a leopard, that no human went hungry, naked, cold, that no one died before their time, or, indeed, why not go all the way and make it so they don't die at all?"
"That sounds good to me," Mack said.
"That's because you haven't thought it through. Suppose everything that ever had been continued to exist.
All of them with their claims, their priorities, their desires. All of which must be met. And of course some other arrangements must be made. If the leopard isn't allowed to eat the doe, then we have to provide other food for him. Turn him into a vegetarian? But what makes you think that plants don't know they're being eaten, and don't resent it as much as you would if someone were eating you? You see the ramifications. It would leave me doing everything, interfering constantly. People's lives would be unutterably boring if I did all the important stuff for them."
"I see there's quite a lot for You to think about," Mack said. "But then, You're omniscient. That must help."