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The Worldview Of God In Mary Shelley's The Modern Prometheus

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“Written in 1816, when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley’s novel of “The Modern Prometheus” chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind” (Bantam Dell, 2002). In her novel, Mary Shelley expresses the worldview of a universe without a supreme God, a world where the race of man have immense power and knowledge and even the ability to impart life to non-life; a world where nature created itself and displays divinity. Although these views do not incorporate the Biblical worldview, several ideas of mankind in Frankenstein do assimilate with the truths of the Bible. In her novel, Mary Shelley writes about the divinity of nature, also implying several times that no God was the cause of the universe and nature. Put in simple terms, Shelley believed that nature created and sustained itself, stating that no supreme being created the universe for a purpose. However, Shelley tells of a character known as Victor Frankenstein, a genius who learns that mankind has the ability to impart life to non-life through the knowledge of science. Only Victor has a small resemblance to the God of the Bible, the ability to give life. Yet none can deny the fact that Victor is a human mortal, he will not last forever, nor is he all-powerful and all knowing like the God of the Bible. Victor Frankenstein

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