In Antigone, God's judgment of man plays a key role in the battle between human and divine law. Though Creon, the king of Thebes, renders judgment on Antigone because she violates the state's law against burying her brother, God's justice proves to be much more powerful when Creon backs down at the end of the play and admits that his law is unjust.

To understand Antigone, it's important to know some basic beliefs of Hellenic people. When a corpse was not buried, but instead left uncovered to be eaten by birds and animals, the gods were insulted and made angry, since this was thought to be a supreme insult to the body's family. This is why Antigone feels it necessary to bury the body of her brother, who is a traitor to Thebes, but her blood nonetheless. Antigone presents her side when she proclaims, "Isn't a man's right to burial decreed by divine justice? I don't consider your pronouncements so important that they can just.overrule the unwritten laws of heaven."

Yet the Chorus espouses the other viewpoint when they warn, "God and the government ordain just laws; the citizen who rules his life by them is worthy of acclaim. But he that presumes to set the law at naught is like a stateless person, outlawed, beyond the pale." Yet Creon learns that his edict is wrong when Teiresius asserts that Thebes is falling apart because the altar to the gods is tainted with the flesh of Polynices, Antigone's dead brother. Now the Chorus turns on Creon, saying, "The greater your arrogance, the heavier God's revenge."

Also, the lesser theme of God's judgment being passed on through the generations of a family is revealed in Antigone. Indeed Antigone suffers not only because she elects to stand up for an ideal, but because her disastrous destiny is predicted by fate. Oedipus' sin has now haunted his daughter as well. The Chorus admits this, saying, "For once a family is cursed by God, disasters come like earthquake tremors, worse with each succeeding generation."