Mary struggled with the challenge. Sometimes it’s hard to get started writing, but Mary didn’t even have an idea. Ghost stories have been around for a long time, and to write an original one with the intention of winning a contest was really an issue for her. She continued to listen to the men in their little group as they engaged in intellectual discussions about the nature of man.
She wrote about the occasion, saying, “Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and [Percy] Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered…”
There were some very interesting figures cutting through the news within the last 50 years. One was Erasmus Darwin (father of Charles Darwin), who was already toying with the ideas of evolution. Another was Luigi Galvani, an Italian physiologist who stimulated muscle tissues in frogs with electrical currents and made them contract.
With all of this talk, Mary started wondering if a corpse could be reanimated. She began to weave a story in which a creature might be, in her words, “manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth”. She daydreamed, perhaps with the droning of the conversation still influencing her creative mind. Here’s how she describes the dream:
Mary wrote, “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the workings of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter; and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening the curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
“I opened mine in terror.”
I don't know if she won the contest, but there are some things to learn from Mary Shelley’s story. At its core, her invention, Frankenstein, holds some deep, central ideas. In the original novel, Dr. Frankenstein manufactures body parts from simpler materials and hodgepodges them together to create an eight-foot-tall being. It is not a tale of the resurrection of a God-created man; rather it is the story of a man creating a superior man - a creator creating something greater than himself.
Dr. Frankenstein does not glory in the animation of the creature; instead, he flees from the room in disgust. He suddenly realizes that man is capable of creating himself. What are the implications of such?
Again, in the original novel, the new monstrosity learns and improves himself. He reads books, including Paradise Lost, over 10,000 lines of poetry concerning the failures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Dr. Frankenstein’s so-called monster is perplexed to realize that his own creator did not shower him with compassion the way the God of Adam and Eve did. Where is my mate? he wonders. Adam’s God is spiritual and benevolent, making Adam - created in God’s image - also spiritual. Yet for Mary Shelley’s characters. Frankenstein is merely a mechanic, and his creature is merely a machine. Even the lab notes that the monster finds are filled with crude and disgusting physical procedures: there is nothing spiritual about him.
Romans 1:18ff (NASB): “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.”
24: “Therefore God gave them up to vile impurity in the lusts of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
Verse 26: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged natural relations for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise the men, too, abandoned natural relations with women and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males committing shameful acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
28: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a depraved mind, to do those things that are not proper, people having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unfeeling, and unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.”
And the thoughts continue in Romans two. Frankenstein is not a creator and the thing he created is not to be taken as fact, but we know all too well that there are many people on this planet who would like to turn “science” into their god. Even more so, there are people in the world today who would like to become gods, both to themselves and others.
But those people are not up for this discussion. Instead, I would like to bring the conversation closer to home. There are of course, many in our own communities and on our own blocks who are guilty of multiple things on Paul’s list of infractions that are worthy of death. They believe that they are capable of making their own rules - that they should be liberated from the rules and guidance of Almighty God. That’s true liberty, they think.
Even so, let’s bring it even closer to home and into the church community that surrounds us. How many have turned their religious bodies into Frankenstein churches, taking materials that were never intended to be a part of the body of Christ and creating their own ideas of what a church should look like? How many have taken the soul out of the church and turned it into a stumbling creature? How many misguided - or unguided - people sit in assemblies or on their own couches believing that they can hodgepodge ideas from here and there - a little from under here and something else from the popular place down the street - and form their own church?
Many of the “community churches” that pop up and claim to be non-denominational are really just the result of talented people who think they can make the same unbiblical mistakes as the last guy, but that they can attract more people, and make more money in the process for themselves. I’m not implying that they don’t consciously want to serve people and worship Jesus, but that they have failed to see the errors in their processes.
These churches have “pastors” who are also touted as founders of the church. They have on their signs, publications, and websites subheadings that it is the so-and-so ministry, named for the person in the spotlight, rather than humbly stating that they are perpetuating the ministry of Christ.
Slide over to Romans 9 and recall this passage with me. Begin reading in the 19th verse: “You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” On the contrary, who are you, you foolish person, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one object for honorable use, and another for common use?”
Who created mankind?
Who created the church?
Who created worship?
Who created Jesus?
Frankenstein’s “monster” asks some very existential questions about himself and realizes that he is merely physical - that he is merely a manmade thing. It would be interesting to see churches and church members investigating their own existence in similar fashion. Are we merely manmade, or are we humbly seeking to do and be all that we can do and be only with the authority of Jesus Christ through Scripture?