I have never liked lecturing, and I certainly do not feel competent to speak on religious subjects, but all the same I found myself on one occasion in My Own World [dreams] explaining to a number of people my theory of the common evolution of God and Man, and the common identity of God and Satan.

This is how that theory appeared later in The Honorary Consul:

The God I believe in must be responsible for all the evil as well as for all the saints. He has to be a God made in our image with a night-side as well as a day-side. When you speak of the horror, Eduardo, you are speaking of the night-side of God. I believe the time will come when the night-side will wither away, like your communist state, Aquino, and we shall see only the simple daylight of the good God.

You believe in evolution, Eduardo, even though sometimes whole generations of men slip backwards to the beasts. It is a long struggle and a long suffering, evolution, and I believe God is suffering the same evolution that we are, but perhaps with more pain.*

*In conversation with me, Graham Greene described how this passage found its way into the novel from the dream, so for the interest of readers I have added it here.

--Yvonne Cloetta

SOURCE: A World of My Own: a Dream Diary by Graham Greene, p.59-60. I added title.
DATE: Dream-journal began 1965; dream must predate The Honorary Consul, published 1973.

EDITOR'S NOTE

I think what Cloetta means is that unlike the other dreams in World of My Own, Greene didn't type up the dream-text from his journal; either he couldn't find it, couldn't read it (faded pencil) or found its original phrasing inferior. So she had only his oral testimony that the book-passage came from a dream; but she still found it important enough to include.

I concur. Especially from a man like Greene, who knew every leader of the 20th century, this idea that evolution involves frequent falls back into barbarism, is compelling--and personally relevant. But then, I live in one of those times when "whole generations of men slip backwards to the beasts."

--Chris Wayan

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