Anger of God
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| + | "He [God] was thought [[wicked]], because some very disagreeable effects resulted from the necessary workings of [[nature's laws]]; to appease him, [[victim]]s were needed: whence [[fasting]]s, [[maceration]]s, [[penance]]s, and every other sort of [[idiocy]] ..." -- ''[[Juliette (novel)|Juliette]]'', [[Marquis de Sade]] tr. [[Austryn Wainhouse]] | ||
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| - | The '''1755 Lisbon earthquake''', also known as the '''Great Lisbon Earthquake''', took place on [[November 1]], [[1755]], at 9:40 in the morning. It was one of the most destructive and deadly [[earthquake]]s in history, killing between 60,000 and 100,000 people (though the exact number is uncertain). The earthquake was followed by a [[tsunami]] and fire, resulting in the near-total destruction of [[Lisbon]]. The earthquake accentuated political tensions in [[Portugal]] and profoundly disrupted the country's eighteenth-century colonial ambitions. | + | In many [[religion]]s, [[anger]] is frequently attributed to [[God]] or gods. [[Primitive people]] held that gods were subject to anger and revenge in anthropomorphic fashion. |
| - | + | ==Hebrew bible== | |
| - | The event was widely discussed by European [[The Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] [[philosophy|philosophers]], and inspired major developments in [[theodicy]] and in the philosophy of the [[sublime (philosophy)|sublime]]. | + | [[Hebrew Bible|The Hebrew Bible]] says that opposition to God's Will results in God's anger. The Hebrew Bible explains that: |
| - | ==Effect on society and philosophy== | + | <blockquote>God is not an intellectual abstraction, nor is He conceived as a being indifferent to the doings of man; and His pure and lofty nature resents most energetically anything wrong and impure in the moral world: "O Lord, my God, mine Holy One... Thou art of eyes too pure to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." |
| - | + | </blockquote> | |
| - | The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important Catholic holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout [[Catholic]] city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians and philosophers would focus and speculate on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of the [[anger of God]]. Some people thought the earthquake was a punishment for the massacre of thousands of unarmed natives and missionaries killed in South America (especially Paraguay). This massacre was ordered by the king of Portugal and made by Portuguese armies in 1754-1755. | + | ==Christianity== |
| - | + | Christians also subscribe to the God's holiness and his anger in the sight of evil. This anger, they hold is not inconsistent with God's love. They also believe that the wrath of God comes to those who reject Jesus. | |
| - | The earthquake and its fallout strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the [[Europe]]an [[The Age of Enlightenment|Age of Enlightenment]]. The noted writer-philosopher [[Voltaire]] used the earthquake in ''[[Candide]]'' and in his ''[[Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne]]'' ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's ''Candide'' attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "[[the best of all possible worlds]]", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a salutary counterexample. As [[Theodor Adorno]] wrote, "[t]he earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the [[theodicy]] of [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibniz]]" (''Negative Dialectics'' 361). In the later twentieth century, following [[Adorno]], the 1755 earthquake has sometimes been compared to the [[Holocaust]] as a catastrophe that transformed European culture and philosophy. [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life. | + | ==Islam== |
| - | + | In Islam, God's mercy outweighs his wrath or takes precedence of it. The characteristics of those upon whom God's wrath will fall is as follows: Those who reject God; deny his signs; doubt the resurrection and the reality of the [[Islamic view of the Last Judgment|day of judgment]]; call Muhammad a sorcerer, a madman or a poet; do mischief, are impudent, do not look after the poor (notably the orphans); live in luxury or heap up fortunes; persecute the believers or prevent them from praying;... | |
| - | The concept of the [[sublime (philosophy)|sublime]], though it existed before 1755, was developed in philosophy and elevated to greater importance by [[Immanuel Kant]], in part as a result of his attempts to comprehend the enormity of the Lisbon quake and tsunami. Kant published three separate texts on the Lisbon earthquake. The young Kant, fascinated with the earthquake, collected all the information available to him in news pamphlets, and used it to formulate a theory of the causes of earthquakes. Kant's theory, which involved the shifting of huge subterranean caverns filled with hot gases, was (though ultimately shown to be false) one of the first systematic modern attempts to explain earthquakes by positing natural, rather than supernatural, causes. According to [[Walter Benjamin]], Kant's slim early book on the earthquake "probably represents the beginnings of scientific geography in [[Germany]]. And certainly the beginnings of seismology." | + | ==Later views== |
| - | + | The [[1755 Lisbon earthquake]] was ascribed to the anger of God and the publication of ''[[Fanny Hill]]'' supposedly caused two [[earthquake]]s. | |
| - | [[Werner Hamacher]] has claimed that the earthquake's consequences extended into the vocabulary of philosophy, making the common metaphor of firm "grounding" for philosophers' arguments shaky and uncertain: "Under the impression exerted by the Lisbon earthquake, which touched the European mind in one [of] its more sensitive epochs, the metaphor of ground and tremor completely lost their apparent innocence; they were no longer merely figures of speech" (263). Hamacher claims that the foundational certainty of [[René Descartes|Descartes]]' philosophy began to shake following the Lisbon earthquake. | + | ==See also== |
| - | + | *[[Catholic guilt]] | |
| - | The earthquake had a major impact on Portuguese politics. The prime minister was the favorite of the king, but the aristocracy despised him as an upstart son of a country squire (although the Prime Minister Sebastião de Melo is known today as [[Marquis of Pombal]], the title was only granted in 1770, fifteen years after the earthquake). The prime minister in turn disliked the old nobles, whom he considered corrupt and incapable of practical action. Before [[November 1]], [[1755]] there was a constant struggle for power and royal favor, but the competent response of the Marquis of Pombal effectively severed the power of the old aristocratic factions. However, silent opposition and resentment of King Joseph I began to rise, which would culminate with the attempted assassination of the king, and the subsequent elimination of the powerful [[Duke of Aveiro]] and the [[Tavora affair|Távora family]]. | + | *''[[Aguirre, the Wrath of God]]'' |
| - | + | *[[Dies irae]] | |
| + | *[[Divine retribution]] | ||
| + | *[[Fear of God]] | ||
| + | *[[Problem of evil]]'' | ||
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"He [God] was thought wicked, because some very disagreeable effects resulted from the necessary workings of nature's laws; to appease him, victims were needed: whence fastings, macerations, penances, and every other sort of idiocy ..." -- Juliette, Marquis de Sade tr. Austryn Wainhouse |
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In many religions, anger is frequently attributed to God or gods. Primitive people held that gods were subject to anger and revenge in anthropomorphic fashion.
Contents |
[edit]
Hebrew bible
The Hebrew Bible says that opposition to God's Will results in God's anger. The Hebrew Bible explains that:
God is not an intellectual abstraction, nor is He conceived as a being indifferent to the doings of man; and His pure and lofty nature resents most energetically anything wrong and impure in the moral world: "O Lord, my God, mine Holy One... Thou art of eyes too pure to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity."
[edit]
Christianity
Christians also subscribe to the God's holiness and his anger in the sight of evil. This anger, they hold is not inconsistent with God's love. They also believe that the wrath of God comes to those who reject Jesus.
[edit]
Islam
In Islam, God's mercy outweighs his wrath or takes precedence of it. The characteristics of those upon whom God's wrath will fall is as follows: Those who reject God; deny his signs; doubt the resurrection and the reality of the day of judgment; call Muhammad a sorcerer, a madman or a poet; do mischief, are impudent, do not look after the poor (notably the orphans); live in luxury or heap up fortunes; persecute the believers or prevent them from praying;...
[edit]
Later views
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was ascribed to the anger of God and the publication of Fanny Hill supposedly caused two earthquakes.
[edit]
See also
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Anger of God" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
