By (apparent) coincidence, I just happen to already have Wikipedias article on the Kalam cosmological argument open, so I will just cite a highly pertinent quote from one of that arguments chief modern advocates:
"... transcending the entire universe there exists a cause which brought the universe into being ex nihilo ... our whole universe was caused to exist by something beyond it and greater than it. For it is no secret that one of the most important conceptions of what theists mean by 'God' is Creator of heaven and earth."
Prayer to the Creator seems to be treated as a personal thing, for the most part, and no one forces it on you if that isn't what you want to do.
Anyone claiming to speak on behalf of the Creator seems to be met with a healthy dose of contempt. Even nominally "devout" people like Nynaeve are skeptical of Masema, not just for himself but even his claim that the Dragon Reborn, the closes thing they have to a messiah, is actually somehow more connected to the Creator than random dude.
And you will notice that while Masema himself tried to impose certain strictures, about how women should dress and so on, you can almost sense Jordan rolling his eyes when he writes Nynaeve's PoV on this. Same with the Whitecloaks, who try to impose a certain kind of behavior to be called something like a "true believer". The majority of WoT society, however, is spiritual and may even be devout, but they don't behave in a certain way so as to gain the Creator's favor.
All that fits the Creators hands off approach, too. Jordans world is very Manichean, which requires a lot of latitude for its inhabitants.
There is no actual confirmation that The Creator or the Dark One are actual dieties.
Again, if it walks, talks and creates like not just a deity but THE deity, what one chooses to call it is a matter of taste, not nature.
On the contrary, the available evidence UNANIMOUSLY states the Creator is a single individual: Because that is both how he refers to himself and how the DO (the ONE individual possessing direct personal experience with the Creator) refers to him. The DO often speaks of his existential conflict with the Creator, a conflict in which his victory is defined by UNcreation (something that, even among the Forsaken, only advanced philosopher Ishamael even realizes, much less endorses) but he never once refers to his enemy as CreatorS.
Further (again citing a point from Kalams conveniently present argument) the very act of creation is necessarily an act of volition (i.e. DIRECTED will,) because
"Agent causation, volitional action, is the only ontological condition in which an effect can arise in the absence of prior determining conditions. Therefore, only personal, free agency can account for the origin of a first temporal effect from a changeless cause."
Merely positing a Creator necessarily makes him both a deity in every meaningful sense AND possessed of active will (else his divine creative power would have remained unused.) An object uncreated tends to stay uncreated unless actively willed by an outside Creator.
That "he actually created" is not "assuming," it is canon (literary, though it is also a catechism--to a great extent THE catechism--of Randland.) The One Power (note the singular, despite its polar nature) as not only the Creators power but the power OF CREATION is universally accepted even by people who agree on nothing else: Not only White Cloaks and Aes Sedai alike, but even the DO and Forsaken, the latter only discovering the former during an attempt to find a power source distinct from the unitary One Power. The Wheel of Time is a fantasy series, yes, but the fantasy of its author and readers--not its CHARACTERS.
We are not just talking about an unreliable narrator here, but literally EVERYONE IN THE SERIES being fundamentally in error about the nature of their world, an error which is equally fundamental to the series itself.
Except for when people use the DOs VERY ESSENCE (i.e. the True Power) to duplicate all the effects possible by use of the Creators very essence, as well as warp his creation into twisted amoral hybrids. That is quite an exception though, as is the Blight.
The Wheel of Times whole PREMISE is its religious inspiration. It is a work of fiction, so people who see all religion as fiction can enjoy it as just another such offering. But denying the validity of its basis within the series itself is self-evidently untenable. One may or may not accept religion, but asserting that the Wheel of Time is not religious is like asserting the Bible is not.
Honestly, I only happened to re-open that Wikipedia link because 1)I happened to be reconnecting earlier today with a friend I had not spoken with for about a year, 2) he happens to be pursuing a theology doctorate and 3) I wanted to ask his thoughts on the Kalam cosmological argument because it happens to be the view I subscribed to for decades before discovering its long existed as a formal theological argument (frankly, the only surprise there is that it took me so long to find.) As Gandalf noted of happening upon Thorin impotently brooding over revenge fantasies, and Bilbo consequently happening to rediscover the One Ring "a chance meeting, as we say in the West."
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
