by JIM SLOTEK

There are many metaphysical questions about the Deity that may never be resolved while we're still breathing.

Is He a He, or is gender even relevant? Is He/She a micromanager in our daily affairs or a laissez-faire Creator? Did God really create us in his own image. And if so, explain the esthetic divide between Fabio and David Spade?

In fact, all I can really say for certain about God is this -- he's sure been in a lot of bad movies.

The flock kvetching about Kevin Smith's Dogma -- and the Alanis Morissette performance therein as a loud, primal-screaming God -- should probably count their blessings. God has been treated worse.

I mean, it's only been three years since performance artist Annie Sprinkle played God on the kinky side in the Canadian taxpayer-funded Bubbles Galore. That was one of only four times a woman has played the Creator, according to the Internet Movie Database, including Linda Gary in Blake Edwards' Switch (in which a chauvinist pig is reincarnated as Ellen Barkin). The other two were cheapies -- 1998's Vermin with somebody named Comfort Cardoza as the voice of God, and Ceci Stephens as both God and Satan in this year's little seen Divine Intervention.

We all know George Burns played God three times (and the Devil once) in Oh God!, Oh God! Book II and Oh God! You Devil. The first, with John Denver, worked as a light comedy. The other two were fairly charmless. George, of course, has since received reviews from the Ultimate Critic.

But would you believe Groucho Marx played God in 1968's Skidoo? Our own new TV maven Bill Brioux has seen it, and calls Skidoo "a dreadful Irwin Allen all-star mishmash with a whole bunch of people playing historical figures throughout the ages. Groucho's performance is pathetic and incomprehensible."

John Paratore provides the Voice Of God in Stuck On You and shares billing with Prof. Irwin Corey. Corey plays the angel "Judge Gabriel" who takes a feuding couple through time to learn some lessons from famous lovers. "Larry from Baltimore" contributed this e-mail review to the Movie Database. "It's a low-budget comedy filled with sight gags, physical comedy, the requisite B-movie nudity, etc. Check it out."

In Irvine Welsh's The Acid House, God is portrayed by Maurice Roeves as "a drunken, abusive, profane, jerk beer-drinker in a pub," according to Sun movie critic Bruce Kirkland, who despised the movie, a troika of seedy Scottish tales.

Robert Morley plays God in the 1983 New Zealand comedy Second Time Lucky, in which a reincarnated Adam and Eve fall in love with each other all over again during World War II. The word "quirky" probably applies here.

And don't even ask about the 1990 movie Sweet Angel Ass, in which Eric Edwards plays God. I'm guessing this is not a movie for churchgoers.

Along with the title role of Moses, Val Kilmer essayed the Voice of God in The Prince Of Egypt's burning bush scene. It's actually a pretty impressive animated feature, and it's good casting in that, like Val Kilmer, God can be quite temperamental and difficult to work with (just ask Job or Abraham).

Finally, there's my choice for favourite God -- Sir Ralph Richardson, who plays the Supreme Being in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits with every ounce of gravitas the role demands. Richardson's weary-looking God is an inexorable force who follows the hilariously larcenous title dwarfs through the length and breadth of the fourth dimension, and who finally regards Satan (David Warner) as little more than a noisy nuisance.

I share with Gilliam the belief that God has a sense of humour. If not, then God help some of the people who've played Him.