Francis Berger

Creation From Chaos

7/16/2026

I featured Ivan Aivazovsky's painting Chaos a couple of years ago. At the time I thought it did a good job depicting creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing.

Chaos - 1841

Of course, I don't believe Aivasovsky shared that assumption. Nor do I think he implies such through the painting.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that he called the painting Chaos, leaving The Creation as somewhat of a subtitle.

Aivasovsky revisited the creation theme nearly a quarter of the century later with his The Creation of the World.

Stylistically, the painting mirrors his Chaos. I see it as yet another depiction of creation from chaos rather than creation from nothing; however, I have no doubt that Aivazovsky would vehemntly contest such an interpretation.

The Creation of the World - 1864

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Old Age is Wasted on the Old

7/10/2026

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Youth is wasted on the young.

Everyone has heard the phrase and understands what it expresses. The seemingly limitless vitality, energy, vigor, time, curiosity, bravado, and optimism inherent in a stage of life are also tainted by a glaring failure to capitalize on those attributes due to a lack of experience and wisdom, resulting in squandered opportunities, misguided pursuits, and wasted time.

Although I acknowledge the general truth within the expression, I don’t like it much. Those who utter the expression rarely, if ever, wish to communicate anything spiritual. Thus, the phrase comes off as too cynical, too regret-infused, too this-worldly, and too hedonistic in focus.

There’s also the whole obsession with youth, but I won’t go into that here.

How about this instead?

Old age is wasted on the old.

Now there’s a phrase that could offer immense spiritual benefit to many, provided they sincerely consider the spiritual implications.

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von Stuck's Most Romantic Painting

7/5/2026

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Franz von Stuck is usually referred to as a Symbolist painter, which he is. However, he easily qualifies as a Romantic painter as well and is sometimes classified as such (Late Romantic).

His Falling Stars is a good example of his Romantic side on full display. A simple, straightforward painting depicting von Stuck and his wife under a night sky pulsating with stars, the work gently captures the enchantment, and wonder inherent in an experience of the sublime.

Sternschnuppen (Falling Stars) - 1912

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Two More Wild Hunts

7/2/2026

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Yesterday, I featured a Franz von Stuck painting called The Wild Chase (The Wild Hunt).

The following two renditions of The Wild Hunt of Odin (Åsgårdsreien) by Norwegian Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831 -1892) offer clearer examples of what Odin's (Wotan's) wild hunt was about.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

"The Wild Hunt of Odin is based on the Wild Hunt motif from folklore. In the Scandinavian tradition, the Wild Hunt is often associated with the god Odin. It consists of a terrifying procession that hurl across the sky during midwinter and abduct unfortunate people who have failed to find a hiding place.

In the Norwegian material, figures other than Odin who have been named as leaders of the hunt include Guro Rysserova, a supernatural female being with a mysterious male companion.[1] The folklorist Christine N. F. Eike has argued that the motif might have its origin in European traditions where young, unmarried men wear masks and move in processions during Christmastide."

1868

1872

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The Wild Chase

7/1/2026

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Franz von Stuck (1863 - 1928) finished The Wild Chase (or the Wild Hunt) in 1889, the same year a certain Austrian individual who would one day become the leader of the Third Reich was born.

As evidenced below, the painting depicts the Germanic god Wotan leading a a chaotic hunt comprising a supernatural, ghostly horde of the dead and damned.

Apparently, von Stuck was one of the Austrian-born future leader's favorite painters, to the point that some historians claim that said leader consciously or subconconsciously modeled his physical appearance, public persona, and mannerisms after von Stuck's rendition of Wotan in this very painting.

I won't go into any details on the matter myself. There's plenty online for those interested.

Nevertheless, the similarity is certainly there. No denying that.

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What Must Remain Beyond God’s Purview

6/28/2026

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Traditional Christian theologies rest on the assertion that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent.

Despite this, the same theologies also posit free will and absolve God from the presence of evil in Creation.

The contradiction inherent between these two poles of belief is readily apparent and difficult to ignore. Christian theologians understood that providing some semblance of coherence to the blatant contradiction was of utmost importance.

They also knew that placing freedom and evil beyond the purview of God was the only logical way of reconciling evil/freedom and omnigod; however, this recognition also provided a daunting challenge. How do you place freedom/evil beyond the purview of God who is asserted to be Absolute, Ultimate, and omni-everything?

When crafting their solutions to this dilemma, theologians prioritized God's omni-status over the reality of freedom and evil. Although the answers such theologies put forward cohere to a certain extent, the rabid defence of God’s ultimate status failed to provide the room needed to explain freedom and evil meaningfully. As a result, we have what I regard as largely nebulous half-answers and non-answers.

And I suppose that marks the point at which all my scant theological explorations and scribblings embark from.

The early theologians were right — if freedom and evil are to make any sense at all, they must be placed beyond the purview of God. The biggest issue I have with early theologians is their inability to place freedom and evil “far enough” beyond God.

If freedom and evil are “really” real, as I believe that they are, then they must be entirely beyond or very close to entirely beyond the purview of God.

Early traditional theologians and Christian thinkers were loath to take that step because it entailed encroaching upon a non-negotiable — God’s power.

The true nature of freedom and evil could not be satisfactorily explained without degrading and diminishing God’s omni-status, which had to be preserved at all costs, freedom and evil be damned.

Although I understand the impetus that drives such thinking, it ultimately paints itself into a corner. The obsession with divine power hinders fully coherent explanations of freedom and evil. It also sidesteps questions related to God’s motives for Creation and ultimately takes refuge in the fortress of mystery, miracle, and authority.

I believe that any valid understanding of freedom and evil must entail a reduced focus on the abstract unreality of God’s power and instead encompass the concrete reality of God’s love.

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More Rough Musings on Freedom, Evil, Etc.

6/23/2026

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I often hear that we are free because God created us from nothing as actual beings. Since we are created, actual beings, we must act. Our actuality dictates it.

Yet before we act, we must choose between good and evil (the Free Will Doctrine).

I also frequently hear that the only way a perfect omnigod could create authentically free beings with the potential to choose love, reason, and goodness was to grant them the possibility of choosing error, sin, evil, and death.

If that possibility to choose evil were not present, we would not really be free because the lack of a choice for evil amounts to a logical contradiction, like a married bachelor or a four-sided triangle.

Put another way, to make us authentically free actual creatures, omnigod had to allow for the possibility of evil choices and actions; otherwise, our freedom would not be really free.

Whenever I hear such arguments, I can’t help but wonder why said omnigod did not simply create authentically free beings who always freely choose love, reason, and goodness.

Such creatures would still be free agents in the sense that they would be performing acts. They would not be hammers. Nor would they be push-button automatons or slaves.

They would be free agents liberated from the burden of having to ponder good and evil choices.

The above does not entail that they would be actualized beings that possess all possible knowledge. They could still learn.

Instead of negative learning, their lives would be filled with nothing but positive learning. All change would be nourishing, life-affirming change. They would grow continuously in love and goodness.

So, why didn’t an all-knowing, all-seeing, all powerful omnigod create such actual creatures?

The common rebuttal states that omnigod could not create such creatures because they would be perfect in the same way he is, and perfection cannot create perfection; hence, imperfect but still free actual creatures.

However, that doesn’t really fly. Aside from definitional games involving the word “perfection”, there is nothing inherently illogical in creating free agents who lack the possibility for evil choices — and since omnigod can do anything logically possible, he should have been able to create a world brimming with free agents who did not err and always chose good.

The potential to choose evil is not indicative of freedom, nor does it define freedom. Quite the contrary. It signifies slavery of the worst kind.

Another common rebuttal is that the omnigod did create such “good” beings to start with, but Adam and Eve disobeyed God, ate the forbidden fruit, and caused the Fall.

Okay, but why did omnigod tempt them with his warning not to eat from the tree?

Tempt them? Wait a minute, wasn’t it Satan who tempted them? God commanded them not to eat from it.

Yes, but Satan’s temptation may have been far less enticing had it not been preceded by God’s explicit command to avoid the evil choice.

In fact, you could argue that Adam and Eve may have remained blissfully unaware of the existence of the forbidden fruit had omnigod not drawn their attention to it in such an explicit manner.

So, why did omnigod reveal the choice for evil to them?

And on the matter of evil choices, where does the “stuff” for such choices originate?

If everything was created ex nihilo, then God not only created us, but he also created our freedom — defined mainly as the potential to choose evil — and the conditions for all of our choices and actions, including, I assume, the conditions for evil choices.

Of course, the very definition of omnigod as perfectly good negates the possibility for creating such conditions, yet the conditions are there. And let's not get into non-human kinds of evil like natural disasters and disease. Whatever causes those, it certainly couldn’t be omnigod, that’s for sure.

Now, I understand that all of the above can be explained in all sorts of intricate and acrobatic ways . . .

No, let me back that up.

The very fact that much of the above requires intricacy and acrobatics to make sense is all I need to know.

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The Vision of St. Hubert

6/14/2026

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I like the stag-antler-crucifix symbolism because it includes the notion of actively pursuing something/following something to where you need to go, coupled with the reality that, ultimately, Christ is the "where" that you "need to go."

The above is an old comment I left on a From the Narrow Desert post in which William explored stag-crucifix symbolism. I include it here because it connects well to Franz von Stuck -- a minor nineteenth-century German painter I've been studying -- and his take on the vision of St. Hubert.

The Vision of St. Hubert - 1890

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That'll Turn You to Stone, For Sure

6/12/2026

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I imagine most people are familiar with Caravaggio's Head of Medusa (1597), which I was fortunate enough to view in person on a recent trip to Florence.

Serving as the grisly emblem of a ceremonial shield, Caravaggio depicts Medusa's severed head in the way most people might imagine it -- the wide-open eyes and mouth frozen in shock, the blood dripping from the neck, the serpents still writhing on the otherwise dispatched head.

Horrified facial expression and snake-hair aside, the face of Caravaggio's Medusa is about as "pretty" as one could expect a Gorgon face to be. Not all that attractive, but not terrifyingly repulsive either.

Moreover, there is nothing in the eyes to indicate that you will turn to stone upon looking into them.

Franz von Stuck employs a more ethereal approach in his take on mythological monster.

His Head of Medusa (1892) depicts the Gorgon as an ideal, almost otherworldly beauty with a smooth, unblemished alabaster face.

The snakes are still there but not readily detectable (it almost looks like Medusa is simply wearing a hood).

All the same, you can detect the danger and evil.

And those eyes! The penetrating intensity of those almost translucent green-yellow irises with their pinprick pupils focused directly on you and only you.

Eyes you can't avoid looking into, no matter how hard you try, no matter what the consequences.

You can almost feel yourself turning into stone as you look into them.

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Uncreated Means Not Divinely Created and Not Divine in Origin

6/10/2026

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I posit that freedom must be uncreated to be authentic.

Uncreated signifies not divine in origin, meaning it does not emanate from God. Since God is not the source of freedom, he cannot create freedom “into” us or any other Being in Creation.

Declaring freedom to be a timeless and uncreated form, which is an eternal idea in the mind of God, and then stating that our participation in this uncreated form qualifies as uncreated seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

The distinction here is clear. God creates creatures, but their properties—all of their properties—are uncreated because all properties, including physical features like noses, are eternal forms in the mind of God.

The concept is known as divine exemplarism, which focuses on the metaphysics of universals. It asserts that everything in Creation originates from divine, eternal forms in God's mind. Thus, our freedom is based on an uncreated blueprint called “freedom” that God holds as an eternal idea.

First point, this does not make freedom uncreated in the way I understand it.

Freedom as an eternal form in God’s mind still makes God the source of freedom.

It matters little that this form in God’s mind is uncreated in the same way God is uncreated. He remains the origin of freedom by creating our capacity to be free agents.

Hence, freedom as an eternal form may be uncreated in the sense that God didn’t create it, but the idea is still God’s, meaning he is ultimately the source of that uncreated idea.

Second point, a blueprint is only good if it leads to creation. An eternal property or form or universal or whatever in God’s mind may be eternal and uncreated, but what he constructs from these divine blueprints is definitely created; otherwise, there would be nothing we could call Creation.

There may be an uncreated blueprint in the mind of God for a nose, but my actual nose, the tip of which I see every day when I stare out upon the world, is created. It may be based on an uncreated eternal idea or blueprint, but it is not uncreated and eternal.

The same applies to freedom. The freedom I experience may be based on an eternal, uncreated idea in the mind of God, but once God creates my freedom, that freedom becomes created, even if it is based on something uncreated.

If freedom is an eternal idea in God’s mind, then God is the source of freedom.

An eternal idea or form may be uncreated, but once God creates from it, the thing he creates is a created thing. The properties may not be created, but the thing the properties comprise is certainly created.

Freedom as an eternal, universal form may be uncreated, but the specific, individual capacity for freedom or to participate in freedom that God creates into a creature cannot be anything but created.

In classical/orthodox metaphysics, only God—including his essence, ideas, etc.—is uncreated. Everything else is contingent and created, including the freedom creatures experience.

In classical/orthodox metaphysics, the existence of freedom—and everything else for that matter—depends entirely on God.

Without God, I would have no freedom of my own of which to speak. The only freedom I can enjoy is the freedom God grants me, allows me to participate in, or creates "into" me.

None of that has anything to do with uncreated freedom, at least not as I regard it.

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