By RAY WADDLE

God is an artist who creates great successes but blunders, too. Technology is the invention of Satan, a way to de-spiritualize life and make it so rational that we no longer need religion. God is stretched thin in an epic battle with evil and needs our love more than ever.

So runs the gospel according to Norman Mailer, the novelist and provocateur who died last week, age 84.

I miss him. Mailer represented a fading generation of writers who ambitiously engaged the public world, refusing to leave the explanations to politicians, technocrats and resident theologians. If he was periodically excessive or foolish, he also wrote to the hilt, demanding much of himself and literature. His cup overflowed. With a final flourish of good timing last month, he released a last testament of renegade musings, On God: An Uncommon Conversation (excerpted in New York magazine, Oct. 15). The book summarizes a 50-year preoccupation with the personality of God and the future of religion.

In the Mailerian theology, God has an unfulfilled vision and needs our help. The contest between good and evil is fully engaged, and the end is up for grabs. But there is purpose behind it all, so have courage. Mailer believes the soul is a divine gift, and reincarnation awaits, though he is not optimistic about human progress: "The more we develop as humans, the worse we are able to treat one another."

"Im guessing technology is an arm of the Devil," he says. "Plastic is a perfect weapon in the Devils armory, for it desensitizes human beings. Living in and with plastic, we are subtly sickened. And the Devil looks to destroy Gods hope in us. Still, technology could be a third force, ready to destroy both God and the Devil — mans assertion against God and Devil."

Mailer followers will not be surprised at this fancy guesswork.

A decade ago he wrote a novelized retelling of Jesus called The Gospel According to the Son (he figured the Bible needed editorial improvement). Promoting the book, he visited Nashville in 1997 to lead a public discussion. Nashvillians were good sports to play host to this curious agitator.

His defiance of organized religion (in his case, Judaism) is relevant to anyone trying to understand the spirit of millions today who exchange the consolations of the old religion for new spiritual yearnings. Mailer embodied this restlessness, a writer who found himself in a strange universe but insisted on answers, Job-like, from his Creator, his fellow creatures and himself.

He was, to the end, vigorously good-humored on the page. If somehow, somewhere, he has broken through to eternity, I imagine him imploring the Almighty with further questions — or apologizing — and still angling to write about what blazing brilliance he is witnessing now.