DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP

by Matt Cardin

The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that when God began his work of creation 'the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep (tehom). If, as Matt Cardin suggests, tehom derives from the Sumerian Tiamat, the primeval chaos dragon of Babylonian mythology, then tehom, the deep, is a primeval chaos fashioned by God into an ordered cosmos.We may speculate, therefore, that tehom, like Tiamat, predated that God may even be the offspring of the deep.If such were true, then we would be forced to concude that both God and His world—the ordered world of life, light, and logic—exist against a background of death, darkness, and derangement.A few scattered souls claim that we can glimplse this primal chaos even now, while the cosmic charade still runs its course. At the seams of the universe, they say, a thread will sometimes become a ray of darkness will shine through, and the light does not overcome it.DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP presents five such glimpses, which the reader receives at his owN peril. To question the universe in this manner is always dangerous, because there is no way of knowing in advance what form the answers will take All that is known is that their form will be the unexpected.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Religion

78 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

Matt Cardin is a writer, pianist, and Ph.D. living in North Arkansas. He writes frequently about the intersection of religion, horror, creativity, and the supernatural.

His books include Writing at the Wellspring, What the Daemon Said, To Rouse Leviathan, and A Course in Demonic Creativity: A Writer’s Guide to the Inner Genius. His editorial projects include Horror Literature through History and Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti. His work has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, long-listed for the Bram Stoker Award, and praised by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Asimov's Science Fiction, Thomas Ligotti, and others. His blog/newsletter is The Living Dark .

Reviews

[Chad Pilcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divinations of the Deep is a smallish quintet of short stories, which together comprise a sort of heretical apologia, perhaps best understood as an implicit rebuttal to Thomas Aquinas's Cosmological Argument. For those unfamiliar, Aquinas put forth as one argument for the existence of God the philosophical notion of a first "Uncaused Cause" or Prime Mover, which must exist if the rest of Creation is to be explained. Cosmology has advanced greatly since Aquinas's day, of course, to the point where such arguments may be readily dispatched (see Hawking's Grand Design, et al).

Physics notwithstanding, Cardin here attacks the problem from a more exegetical angle, perversely in keeping with the tradition of Thomas Aquinas himself. Accepting a priori the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, he asks an even more troubling question: what if that God was not the ultimate root of the chain of existential causality, but was Himself only a link in that chain? What if there was Something Else even farther back, something Outside of Creation and Creator both? What might that do to our notions of His omnipotence and omniscience? Worst of all, what might it ultimately mean for us, His children?

By way of Divinations' five narratives (mirroring the five arguments of the Summa Theologica?), Cardin answers these "what ifs" in the most darkly satisfying way, one which fans of intelligent horror and weird fiction are sure to enjoy.

[Kevin Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cosmic Biblical horror - and it works so very well. Many Christians, like myself, find comfort in our faith...but I wonder how many of us really look at how WEIRD and inhuman and incomprehensible it us for us as humans. And I say "cosmic Biblical horror," not "Christian horror," because these tales aren't morality plays warning us to be good, "or else." These are tales which wonder at the roots of our faith, wonder at the incomprehensibility of God and the Divine.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, though short, selection of truly horrific existential horror stories. I unique voice in modern genre fiction.

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this is truly marvellous stuff. (And without harping on the point, anyone accustomed to the ‘nothingness’ theme (both (literally) physical and aesthetic/’spiritual’) that has threaded the editions of ‘Nemonymous’ over the years will realise easily why I am not only impressed by this story, but doubly impressed! It also carried forward the flesh/spirit theme started by this book’s first story.
Also (and I make no charges here), but I’m sure Stephen King must have read IF IT HAD EYES (2002) before he wrote the novel DUMA KEY (2008)!!

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siendo este mi primer acercamiento con esta forma de abarcar el género de terror existencial y teológico, en la cual partes de la narrativa presentan más una reflexión meta-textual que una historia, ha sido interesante de la mejor forma. No todas las historias mantienen el mismo grado de suspenso, pero si logran ubicar al lector en ese uncanny valley que muchos buscan al profundizar en esta literatura. Cada una de las historias tiene instancias de real aprensión que sobrevienen desde diferentes ángulos de una misma propuesta: que Dios es solo un enlace en una cadena cósmica de mucha mayor envergadura, y que su creación se sostiene en contraposición con una entidad no del todo descriptible, identificable o comprensible presente desde un inicio.

Así, si tuviera que posicionar en un ranking las historias, desde la que más disfrute a la que menos (aunque no hay demasiada diferencia entre ellas, realmente), sería de esta forma:
1. The Writer’s Answer
2. The Final Answer (given to God)
3. The Monk’s Answer
4. Answer Given to an Innocent Bystander
5. The Artist’s Answer