I’m on the tail end of writing chapter 14 of Proof Apollo Wears Hawaiian Shirts which is basically a deep dive of the Arcobaleno (sans Collonello and Reborn) and I’ve realised? Verde is religious. But in a weird way? Well, to be more accurate —
Verde has a Theology
So usually there are two bases of ‘science’ in religion: science either proves god doesn’t exist a-la God of the Gaps, or science reveals the beauty of God’s creations. Verde, of course, is neither. Verde, the second coming of Da Vinci, believes like a Renaissance.
Verde believes there must be a God because of all the patterns he sees in the world — fibonacci sequence in the spiral of a snail’s shell on a wet suburb street, the whirlpool in the middle of the ocean, the curl of a leaf in the deepest forest — the tessellation of honeycomb and volcanic basalt — the structure of snowflakes and spidersilk webs. All evidence of an intention. A Design.
Johannes Kepler believed that God created the universe mathematically. It could be said that math was God’s design language, and to study mathematics, was to learn the details of God’s creations. Verde, as he always does, super charges this. Because if mathematics is God’s language, then engineering is God’s methodology.
Which kinda sneaks back to the fact that Verde is Italian — not cause Italians are inherently religious — but because Italy has this history with artists, engineers, architects and philosophers that existed alongside Catholicism and very often danced on the line of heresy. Verde studies creation not to deny God, but because understanding creation Glorifies.
But Verde, being Verde, keeps going. Fixates. Like Lightning to a rod, he is drawn. And he reaches a conclusion: If God designed it — it has a Design.
If it has a design, it has constraints.
If it has constraints, it can be understood.
If it can be understood — it can be Improved.
Its at this point I think people gasp and call him a heretic, call him a ‘mad scientist’, call him egotistical. Because to Verde, God isn’t a king, or a judge, or a father.
To Verde, God is an Inventor. The original Engineer. The researcher who published Creation Volume 1. Verde is simply continuing his work — and making little improvements where he can see them. No first draft is perfect after all. Peer-review and all that.
And it’s this willingness to question, to tear apart people’s comfortable mindset — how to live, how to think, how to worship — that makes people so uncomfortable. Because when Verde, already a scientist, already a theological man, is released upon the concept of Flames? He’s nothing short of a witch. Digging around in the muscle and veins of Sets, peeling back layers of Flames and reducing them down to mapped ‘Frequencies’. Some people would think questioning the design to be heresy. Verde thinks not questioning the design is an insult. If God made an intelligible universe, then refusing to investigate it is to refuse His gift, to refuse to acknowledge His Efforts.
In Genesis, humanity is made in God’s image. It’s why we have the capacity to reason, to create.
Verde swallows that concept whole. Verde is made in His image. God invents, Verde invents. God creates, Verde creates. God solves impossible problems and Verde will spend his every breath aspiring to do the same.
Verde’s not trying to become God. Verde is simply trying to live up to what he believes Humans Were Designed to Do.
But anyway, that’s just my understanding of him this time. :)
