Time Lord Victorious

Time Lord Victorious

There were a couple of recent articles found here and here, and a Doctor Who episode I recently rewatched on Netflix which all run along the same theme. They all touch upon the theme of a supreme/higher being with absolute power. The Doctor Who episode entitled "The Waters of Mars" displays one of the Doctor's darker moments after rescuing Captain Adelaide Brooke who should have died on Mars and is an important figure to earth's history thus altering, or so he thinks, a fixed point in time. The Doctor proclaims himself the Time Lord Victorious as Captain Adelaide Brooke challenges the monster the Doctor has become.

Captain Adelaide Brooke: "And if my family changes, the whole of history can change. The future of the human race. No one should have that much power."

The Doctor: "Tough."


Not only does the concept of an all powerful deity being in 100% control of everything in the universe reeks of injustice and immorality (at least to me), I can't imagine anyone with that much power over life and death without a broken heart, or in the Doctor's case, two broken hearts. A deity with absolute control over the cosmos may be comforting to many but to others comes across as a complete monster over the slaughter of women and children in the Old Testament and unjust as the giver (and withholder) of "God-given" rights. I acknowledge that this may simply be a difference of opinion in how we view the divine, but a deity which asks of us complete submission and repentance without reciprocating shared suffering and shared forgiveness seems too alienating for my taste. As the brilliant Amelia Pond says in "The Beast Below"

"If you're were that old and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry."

I find that the concept of an all-loving God is more comforting than an all-powerful God yet the all-powerful God seems to over shadow the all-loving. A God who suffers,a broken and lonely God, seems more in touch with humanity than one who rules over its creation. The image of the divine I lean more towards is that of God as a verb more than a noun, an action instead of a being.