I promise this title was not Catholic click bait, so let me first clarify that I am not trying to undermine Jesus’s divinity or Jesus’s claiming to be divine in the Gospels.
I know that is an axe that still must be ground. Rest assured, it need not be here. The reason I intentionally under-case the second “god” in the title is because that is the understanding of divinity that would have been taken for granted in the pagan mind before and during the time of Christ.
It is also, unfortunately, all-too-often the understanding of divinity in the minds of Christians.
In classical theism, one understands “God” as not just another being in reality, but the very ground of reality in which everything else participates. This is not the same as saying “God is the universe” as “reality” hopefully means more to us than just physical space.
God isn’t just the room where it happens, but the very concept of what it means to “happen.”
God isn’t just another beautiful thing, but beauty itself that provides the framework for all the beautiful things we recognize. This is actually the thrust of St. Thomas Aquinas’s 4th way in his argument for God’s existence.
This matters because every person, ancient or modern, pagan or Christian, has a ground of reality upon which everything else participates. The question is what is the substance of that reality upon which it is all grounded.
In the theology of ancient pagans, as told through their myths, universally present is that the ground of reality is power. This is the lens through which everything else is understood.
Goodness is determined by one’s ability to wield power. Favor is the degree one is empowered or not.
However, built into this theology, again in the mythology, is an interesting subversion, which is found in the character of “the Trickster.” This is the title of a trope found in mythologies of all cultures.
Today, the most popular of them is Loki from Norse mythology because of his portrayal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One also sees the Trickster in Hermes from Greek mythology, Anansi the spider from West African, Raven from Northwest Native American, Tanuki the fox from Japanese, and Bugs Bunny from modern American.
The significance of the role of the Trickster has been examined recently by the psychologist Carl Jung and even more recently in the work of writer and mythologist, Joseph Campbell.
The Trickster is the character in mythology who is not meant to necessarily be immoral or moral, but will often do things that upset the power structures in a given story.
While this disruption is certainly uncomfortable in a story and often causes conflict, it is often to highlight the problem with the power structure as is, and it can be the necessary element for the communication of the wisdom of the story.
One readily finds the trope of the Trickster in examples of pagan mythology, but also in the Bible.
It may bring apprehension to some to compare the Bible to mythology or to say that there are mythological elements in it, but this assumes the modern confusion of myth by equating it with “fake.” This equivocation would have been foreign to the original authors and is not the intention when being used here.
That being said, here is a brief rundown of some of the biblical Tricksters, who range from the good, at least overall, the ambiguous, and the downright villainous.
We have examples of traditional heroes like Abraham, David, Gideon and especially Jacob, whose tricks all played a part in protecting God’s covenant or God’s chosen people.
There is Samson, who certainly is not the conventional hero by most understandings of biblical morality, but was an enemy of the Philistines, Israel’s perpetual biblical antagonist. He was constantly confusing and confounding through riddles, tricks and secrecy until he was outsmarted (sort of, I guess), leading to his downfall.
Most controversially, but most appropriately for this post, there is the serpent in the garden in Genesis 3.
Though it is simple to see this character as nothing more than the evil monster it eventually becomes, see Revelation 12, here it is described as cunning. It uses subterfuge and wiles. It manipulates Eve and misrepresents God as well as the fruit itself.
It is in this way that the dynamic of the relationships, Creator and creation, man and woman, is upended. Though tragic, it is the fitting element that moves the story forward.
It is actually important to establish the serpent at the beginning of the Bible as a Trickster because in many Trickster tales, his cleverness proves to be his undoing. While he often might reflect and exploit the weakness of the hero, he too has a fatal flaw St. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians.
Ever since Genesis 3, it is the world’s power that is being subverted and the greatest trick is that it is being done by the weakness of the greatest Trickster.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, Jesus does present himself as a Trickster in many places in the Gospels.
He tells riddles that confound the wise of his time. He is able to change appearance and disappear when necessary. When confronted by power, he does not engage head on but allows the aggressor’s own force to be its undoing.
It is in many of these episodes that Jesus’s actions end up being catalysts for change, either in individual characters or in driving the overall story of the Gospels forward.
However, none of these was his greatest trick. That is reserved for the initial upending of the entire power structure. This structure of reality, or at least everyone’s view of reality, was literally built upon power itself.
The world was seen through the lens of what I can or cannot do, what my will can or cannot impose, regardless of its conformity with that which exists outside of my will. This upending took place when All-power, Omnipotence Itself, became weak, became a creature, became a baby.
The greatest trick was that God imposed his all-powerful will on power itself, breaking it by his weakness. God did it by turning the most powerful creaturely weapon, death, into the means by which death would be destroyed. God was cut off in order to re-unify.
The Trick of God dying and rising (were you watching closely?) changes how one should view power, how one should view God, and therefore how one should view reality. If God’s power was most active when he made himself weak, first by the Incarnation itself but ultimately by the death of Jesus on the Cross, then a new view of power is necessary.
God, the actual ground of reality, subverts the pagan notion of power by making oneself weak for the sake of love, dying for the sake of life.
This is what the historic Christian theological tradition refers to as kenosis, or the self-emptying, that took place when Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary. This expectation applies, by the way, to all those who claim to follow this God who made himself weak as St. Paul would later realize.
It was evident in the early Church as well. The Church did not fight or conquer the Roman Empire head on in the way anyone who saw the world through the lens of power would have expected.
The Church, as the Body of Christ, was and is a Trickster just like her model.
She is meant to become weak in the way the world sees weakness, but this is where God’s power is made perfect. Then She becomes the catalyst for change, the harbinger of wisdom, the true reflection of Reality, and the faithful student of the Master Trickster.
Mike Schramm teaches theology and philosophy at the high school and college level in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He earned his MA in theology from St. Joseph's College in Maine and an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College. He co-hosts the Voyage Podcast with Jacob Klatte.