ABSTRACT
God is often portrayed as an aroused lover, hungering for his people and sometimes as a woman. In Exodus: 20, at the beginning of the decalogue, the Holy One proclaims that he is a “passionate” or “jealous” God. All God talk is metaphorical. All metaphors say that something is like something else and yet not like it. Juliet is like the sun and yet not like the sun. Creative Beauty (should It in fact exist) is reflected by created beauty. In Joel Schumacher’s remarkable 1990 film Flatliners, God appears only as the light in the classic Near Death Experience imagery. A God who calls, who beckons, who attracts, who invites, who seduces; such metaphors may not reveal the meaning of life at all, but if they do, then that is irresistibly good news. In Commandments, God seems to have manipulated the filmmaker into responding directly to all the Jobs of human history.
