Wall-E

In the film, Wall-E (2008), a robot “falls in love” with another, whose anthropomorphic pronoun is she/her rather than it as is fitting for a machine. As a robot does not have genitalia, neither the masculine or feminine single pronoun applies, and because a robot is an entity, the plural pronouns also do not apply. Word-games aside, the more substantive and interesting matter of whether a robot, and even AI (i.e., machine learning), can (or could potentially) understand the phenomenological experience of falling in love, and, whether yes or no, be able beyond mere prediction to match couples who would fall in love were they to meet. A college course on these questions, especially with relevant films including Wall-E and The Matrix being assigned, would be incredibly popular and capable of tremendous mind-stretching. 

The full essay is at "AI on Falling in Love."

A Fortunate Man

Religion plays a prominent role in the film, Lykke-Per, or A Fortunate Man (2018). On the surface, Peter Sidenius, a young engineer, must navigate around an old, entrenched government bureaucrat to secure approval for his ambitious renewable-energy project. The two men clash, which reflects more general tension that exists everywhere between progressives and conservatives regarding economic, social, religious, and political change. Although pride may be the ruin of Peter and his project, the role played by religion is much greater than pride manifesting as arrogance, if indeed it is arrogant to stand up to abuse of power, whether by a government bureaucrat or one’s own father.

Peter’s dad is a Christian pastor whose meanness to Peter belies any claim to know God’s judgment as well as to have an authentic Christian faith. Kierkegaard’s chastisement of the Lutheran clerical hierarchy in Copenhagen in the nineteenth century by emphasizing the need and primacy of subjective, inner piety resonates in this film. In fact, Peter’s angry reaction to his dad’s meanness when Peter is leaving home to go to college is similar the reaction that Kierkegaard must have had to hardened clergy in his day. Peter’s father begins by saying that although he gave money to Eybert, Peter’s older brother, when he left home, “you will get no money.” Adding insult to injury, the malevolent father gives Peter a watch that Peter’s grandfather had given Peter’s father. The “strings” attached to the watch that undo the giving spirit that runs throughout the Gospels is his dad’s hope that the watch will “sooth your hardened heart and open your stubborn mind.” Just in case Peter misses the point, his dad notifies his son that he is on the “road to perdition.” Peter is right, of course, in calling out his dad for his “cold intolerance” and “false piety.” That his dad demands an apology without having apologized for insulting Peter and then slaps his son’s face hard reveals the Christian minister’s abject hypocrisy, which we know has been longstanding because Peter says that he felt “like a homeless stranger” growing up in his dad’s house. Faith without love is worse than naught. Interestingly, after being slapped, Peter tells his dad, a Christian minister, to hit him properly. It is as if Jesus were saying to the Roman guard who scourging Jesus, lash me again—this time do it properly. In retrospect, Peter’s line anticipates his integrity and spiritual nature that come out as the narrative evolves.

Peter can be excused from rejecting his dad’s deity even though Peter has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels would reject the hypocritical piety of the judgmental and hateful pastor. “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus would likely say to Peter’s dad, and to Peter himself, Jesus would likely advise, “kick the dust off your sandals” and don’t look back. Peter has no idea that the Jesus in the Gospels is innocent and yet willingly suffers by judgmental and hateful men who are like Peter’s dad.

Following the death of Peter’s dad, Peter’s mother less harsh though just as judgmental when she meets with Peter, as if she, like her husband, were omniscient and thus entitled to judge their son’s soul. She presumes that her son has rejected God, when in actuality Peter has rejected his parents’ conception of God, and for good reason. His mother, unlike his father, however, grasps from the Gospels the value of humility and selfless love, and she is clever enough to urge Peter to be humble and selflessly love other people rather than demand that he recite the Nicene Creed. I suspect that his mother’s softer message of humility and selfless love is what enables Peter in grieving the death of his parents to face and reject his own sin of pride.

Peter asks the Christian pastor who officiates at the funeral of Peter’s mother for forgiveness for having hurt so many people. In the humbly asking the pastor for forgiveness, Peter accepts and values the Christian message underlying the Incarnation in the Gospels, where God’s selfless, or self-emptying love (agape), is in God becoming lowly flesh in order, again in selfless love, to redeem humanity from itself, and especially its pride. In other words, Peter does not need to make a profession of faith by reciting the Nicene Creed. In fact, that pastor, who associated with Peter’s dad when he was alive, abandons Peter by walking away rather than comforts the young, grieving son who is literally on his knees begging for forgiveness from God through the pastor. “You can cry more if you want to,” the callous cleric says as he turns to walk away as Peter is still kneeling. That pastor does not absolve Peter, or even say that God forgives him. But this is not necessary, for God is present not in that pastor, but, instead, in Peter’s change of heart that is triggered by his grieving. To be sure, Peter may go too far in his embrace of institutional Christianity, for he deeply hurts Jakobe Salomon, his fiancée, by breaking off their engagement because she is Jewish and he now views himself as officially Christian. Perhaps in grieving his parents, Peter internalizes some of their judgmentalism, which, along with omniscience, is associated in the film with institutional religion.

The irony may be that Peter, who dies a few years later from cancer even though he is younger than 45 or so, may go to heaven whereas both of his parents are likely in hell, but, lest I fall into the trap of presumed omniscience like Peter’s parents, I must remind myself: who am I to judge those characters? I can only stand perplexed as to the staying power of the stubborn presumed rectitude of Peter’s parents while I admire Peter’s willingness to confront himself spiritually to the point of willingly putting himself in a vulnerable position, literally and figuratively, that reveals the hurtful hardness of heart of yet another Christian pastor besides Peter’s dad.

 

Confucius (Kongzi) said, "A cap made of hemp is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people use silk. This is frugal, and I follow the majority. To bow before ascending the stairs is prescribed by the rites, but nowadays people bow after ascending. This is arrogant, and, though it goes against the majority, I continue to bow before asccending."  The Analects 9.3 

 

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Among the classic biblically-based films out of Hollywood, and the first to show Jesus’ face, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is a highly idealized rather than realistic depiction of the Gospel story. Only when Jesus is on the cross does emotion show on Jesus’ visage; even the horrendous suffering from the torture leading up to the crucifixion is not shown. The Christology is thus idealized, with Jesus’ divine nature impacting his human nature even though the two natures are theologically distinct. Because the film was the first to show Jesus’ face, it could be that depicting Jesus’ human nature in its fullness, absent sin of course, would be too much for a film made before the social upheaval that began in 1968 in the West to depict. The main drawback in depicting Jesus in such highly idealized terms is that it may be difficult for Christians to relate to Jesus in emulating him by carrying their own proverbial crosses in this fallen world. The main upside of the almost Gnostic idealization is that the theological point that the Incarnation is of the divine Logos, which in turn is the aspect of God that created the world, is highlighted. Reflecting David Hume’s concern, I submit that transcending (rather than denying) the anthropomorphic “God made flesh” to embrace God as Logos—God’s word that creates—more fully captures the insight of Pseudo-Dionysius, a sixth-century theologian, that God goes beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions. 

The narrator’s first and last lines in the film highlight the theological doctrine that the Son of God is God’s Logos, which has been (with) God since the beginning of time, rather than just since the Incarnation of the Logos as Jesus, the Son of God. The film begins with a voice saying, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. I am He. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that has been made. In hi was lif, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not. The greatest story ever told.” The statement, “I am He” can be interpreted as Jesus himself speaking, and saying that he is the Logos, which was (with) God even in the beginning. This connection, I submit, between Jesus Christ and the divine Logos has typically been missed by Christians, including those who preach from the pulpit. This has probably been so because the Logos transcends the Incarnation, which in turn has been the focus in Christianity since its beginning.

Connecting the first words in the film, especially if it is the resurrected Christ that is speaking, with what Jesus says after the resurrection at the end of the film connects the Logos, the Incarnation, and the Kingdom of God in a way that is very useful to people wanting greater insight into Christian theology. That film as a medium can serve such a purpose ought not to be lost on the reader either.

The final scene of the film depicts a larger-than-life Jesus amid clouds speaking to his disciples. “Make it your first care to love one another, and to find the Kingdom of God, and all things will be yours without the asking. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” That Jesus begins with the distinctive nature of the Kingdom of God resonates with Jesus’ statement in the Gospels that he has come to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. He situates himself thusly as the means rather than an end in itself, for the goal for his followers is to manifest the Father’s kingdom. The task is to “find the Kingdom of God,” and the means thereto is to love one another(caritas seu benevolentia universalis). Both in his preachments and example (agape seu benevolentia universalis) in the Gospels, Jesus is oriented to people being able to instantiate the Kingdom within by an inner transformation that transcends ethics, for religion does not reduce to ethics as the Biblical stories of Abraham and Isaac, and Job, attest. The Kingdom of God is within, so “(m)ake it your first care to love one another, and [thus] to find the Kingdom of God [within].”

Drawing on the first spoken words in the film, the last line, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” can be understood in terms of the Logos, which was (with) God even in the beginning, and thus at the end of the film it is clear that the Logos is eternal, existing through time from its beginning to its end. I submit that this transcends even the theological point that from the Incarnation on, Jesus’ resurrected body clothes God’s word for the remainder of time. It is interesting to ponder the alternative that the Logos reverts back to being solely God’s word, or rational principle, after the resurrection, such that the Logos transcends even Jesus’ resurrected body, but this is not recognized as theologically valid; perhaps theology only goes for far, given the inherent limitations of finite, subjective beings, such as in terms of cognition, perception, and emotion.

In short, the Logos, Jesus Christ as the Incarnated Logos, and the Father’s kingdom are explicitly linked by the first and last words spoken in the film. Perhaps it can be said that the Logos, which is God’s word and thus is God’s creative aspect (e.g., God spoke, and there was light), creates the Kingdom of God and provides us with the means to enter it, which boil down to extending compassion even one’s detractors and people who are rude. Jesus preaches and exemplifies this means in the Gospel narratives; even so, it is noteworthy that the first thing that the resurrected Jesus says at the end of the film is to love one another, rather than to speak first about himself. It may seem rather profane, or too close to our daily lives, that the Logos and its Incarnation don’t get top billing at the end of the film. In fact, “I am with you always” can be interpreted as referring to caritas seu benevolentia universalis (especially including people who have done us wrong). The spiritual interpersonal dynamic that manifests when compassion is shown to a detractor in need of help is, I submit, the spiritual substance of the Kingdom of God, and that substance available within even human nature until the end of time.

The Exorcist

One of the most iconic films of the horror-film genre, The Exorcist (1973) focuses on the duality of good and evil that the film’s director, William Friedkin, maintained is in a constant struggle in all of us. The dialogue between the two priests performing the exorcism on the one side and the Devil possessing Regan on the other not only reveal the duality, but also the essence of evil itself. Once this essence is grasped, interesting questions can be asked that are distinctly theological, as distinct from modernity’s trope of evil portrayed in terms of, and even reduced to, supernatural movements of physical objects. The decadent materialist version of the theological domain stems from modernity’s bias in favor of materialism and empiricism. In other words, highlighting supernatural physics as being foremost in representing the religious realm is how secularity sidelines religion, rather than how religion itself is. The bias of modern society is very clear in the film as the “professionals” go through alternative explanations first from the field of medicine, privileging the somatic (physical) and then the psychological domains of medicine. In other words, the narrative establishes (or reflects) a hierarchy of three qualitatively different levels of descending validity: the somatic is primary, and only then the psychological, and, if the first two do not furnish an explanation, then, and only then, are we to turn to the theological as metaphysically (i.e., supernaturally) real primarily shown by physical objects defying the laws of physics. Science, rather than religion, is thus still in the driver’s seat. The bias in favor of materialism is in the assumption that only after feasible hypotheses from modern medicine are nullified can theological explanations be considered (as credible). In this way, the film reflects the hegemony of materialism that has taken hold since the Enlightenment, and the relegation of the theological as “magical” supernaturalism, as in a bed levitating of objects flying around Regan’s bedroom. The essence of evil is instead interior. If religion is a matter of the heart, then how could evil be otherwise?

In the film, the physicians searching for the cause of Regan’s bizarre behavior initially believe that a lesion in the girl’s frontal lobe is the cause. The two physicians are so preoccupied with a somatic (i.e., physical) cause that they ignore the mother’s account of the supernatural shaking of Regan’s bed. One of the physicians insists, “I don’t care about the bed!” The monopolization of the physical medically is here being ridiculed by the filmmaker, for it is ridiculous to ignore a bed whose jumping around so obviously surpasses the physical strength of a child. Secular modernity is being portrayed as defiant, even ideological in the very least in being narrow-minded and petulant and obstinate like a spoiled child.

When no lesion is found, the physicians recommend that a psychiatrist be consulted. Even then, the obvious indications of the involvement of a supernatural entity or force are dismissed. Implicitly, religion is reduced to psychology. It is as if Rudolf Otto’s text, The Idea of the Holy, could be reduced to Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo. In the film, the priest Karras is a pastoral counselor, and he is brought in precisely for his knowledge of psychology. So when the possibility of psychosis can be excluded and the psychiatrists recommend that a priest be consulted to perform an exorcism, Regan’s mother Chris brings in Karras. Bridging both worlds, he confronts his own lack of faith by admitting to himself that Regen really is possessed by a demon. The elder priest, Merrin, is firmly in the theological domain, and so he has no doubt that he is battling a supernatural being of pure evil.

We have finally reached the theological level, having dispelled medicine in its two major categories. Karras’ loss of faith is no more. Significantly, what ultimately convinces the guilt-ridden priest of the distinctly religious basis of Regan’s problem are not the shaking or levitating bed. Rather, Regan’s impossible interior knowledge is what convinces Karras that a being other than Regan exists in the possession. Only an entity other than Regan could know of Karras’ guilt regarding his recently deceased mother and be able to speak English in reverse as well as in Latin. These interior signs are more important to the theological domain than are the physical (i.e., materialism) manifestations of the bed levitating and objects flying around Regan’s bedroom. The latter titillating optical displays make good movie-viewing but are hardly in themselves evil, whereas tormenting a priest about his guilt is because evil is the opposite of love.

Nonetheless, Hollywood has focused on how and whether to depict the Devil empirically—as yet another object that can be seen. In the film, The Ninth Gate (1999), the presence of the Devil is shrouded in bright light, contradicting the commonly held notion that evil lies in darkness because it is absent from the light of God’s truth. The viewers never get to see the Devil. In Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the Devil is only visible in one scene, when the beast rapes Rosemary. As in The Ninth Gate, the essence of evil is not depicted; the interior life of the supernatural being is not revealed even though it is much closer to the essence of evil. Likewise, in Poltergeist (1982), the characters’ astonishment is at how the souls and the supernatural entity appear visually.

The Exorcist is an improvement on those films in that even though the Devil itself is not shown (except in an archeological sculpture), its mentality is clear from how it relates to the priests through the dialogue. The blinding white light depicted in The Ninth Gate, the animalistic look of the Devil in the rape scene in Rosemary’s Baby, and the levitating bed and flying objects in The Exorcist do not do justice to the theological realm; in fact, they are distractions. They reveal modernity’s warped caricature of religion in reducing it to carnival tricks. The science of medicine can easily be viewed as superior. The emphasis on the empirical is itself in line with the materialist orientation of modernity. In simpler terms, depicting the theological in terms of physical objects is in service to the preference for modern (empirical) science. I submit that the nature or essence of religion is not material or physical; rather, the essence can be found in sentiments like love and hate.

It is in the dialogue between the Devil and the priests that The Exorcist goes beyond the other films in depicting the nature of evil, and thus of the Devil. That the entity possessing Regan enjoys tormenting the two priests is much more important than what the Devil looks like, or that it makes Regan’s bed levitate.

Once presented with the Devil’s nature, movie-goers can come away from the movie thinking theologically on theology’s own terms rather than on those belonging and pertaining to a qualitatively different domain (e.g., the natural sciences). For example, viewers might consider whether the Devil’s mentality, as depicted in the film, could be loved. Here, a crucial distinction must be made to avoid a Satanist (i.e., pro-evil) misinterpretation.  For the two exorcist priests to love the entity possessing Regan, they would be ministering to the entity with the intention of saving the mentality from itself or else riding the entity of the sordid mentality. Support for the claim that evil can be ministered to exists in  the Christian Bible.

In the Gospels, Jesus says of the evil men responsible for having him crucified, Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Rather than approving or loving their evil mentality, he is forgiving them for having it. In publicly pronouncing his forgiveness, he is ministering even to them, and as a result it is possible, given free will, that even they could be saved from themselves (i.e., the evil mentality). What if Jesus were to minister to the Devil tempting him in the desert? Can an entity whose very essence is the mentality be the recipient of a loving, unconditional heart?

On the ministering side, agape, or selfless love, is unconditional, and for this to hold, an entity that is evil cannot be excluded even if it excludes itself. Even caritas, Augustine’s interpretation of Christian love (derived from Plato’s love of the eternal moral verities) that includes self-love albeit sublimated to having God as its object, is universal benevolence. Caritas seu benevolentia universalis, according to Augustine. A good will (benevolentia) is not universal (universalis) if even the most squalid entity is excluded as an object of the love qua benevolence.

On the Devil’s side, can such an entity be rid of its mentality? I submit that it can, and thus the evil mentality is not the essence of the entity. Because Lucifer falls from grace, the fallen angel (i.e. the Devil) was once without the cold mentality. Therefore, that mentality cannot be the Devil’s essence. The entity can be distinguished from, and thus rid of, its current mentality.  

In The Exorcist, imagine if the two priests were to pray for the Devil’s soul even as the entity enjoys tormenting the two men. Forgive it, for it knows not the love of God. This is the perspective that enables a ministering to rather than an acceptance or approval of the mentality. What if the priests were willing to sacrifice their lives to save the Devil and not just Regan? It seems that the battle against evil would be won by unconditional love, but would the battle metaphor even fit were the priests ministering to the Devil rather than merely getting it to leave by shouting at it?  This would not be to love the mentality as if it were something to be praised; rather, it would be to state that love can not only survive death for the faithful, but also reach into the cold darkness of deep space devoid of God’s presence.

A young Satanist once told me that he loves Satan. “Then God is present in you after all,” I replied, “because God is love.” Love can reach into places that are presumably beyond God, where hatred reigns. Of course, it is one thing for a Satanist to feel love, even though misdirected to an entity with an evil mentality, and quite another for that entity to let go of its all-consuming hatred, ultimately, of God. In the Gospels, not even the Crucifixion dislodges the entity’s mentality from Jesus’ antagonists.

In the television mini-series, Jesus of Nazareth (1977), several members of the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, show no remorse even while hearing Jesus quoting from the Hebrew scripture while suffocating on a cross. One of the members says, “Even now, while nailed to a cross, he quotes from scriptures. Even now.” What would it take for the official’s astonishment at the sincerity of Jesus’ selfless piety to trigger a recognition of the wrong that he had just committed against an innocent person whose piety is evinced even under such extreme duress? After the Crucifixion, a Roman centurion who tortured Jesus rebukes Zerah, a scribe of the Sanhedrin who had instigated Jesus’ arrest, for continuing his obsession against Jesus. Not even having Hebrew guards stationed at the tomb are enough, Zerah insists, because Jesus’ disciples could lie that Jesus has risen, so Roman guards are necessary. After listening to Zerah’s relentless conspiracy theory, the centurion remarks, “What sort of person are you, if I may ask? His death is not enough for you.” Theologically, the message is that intractable stubbornness can continue to hold up complicity in the suffering and death of Jesus. By implication, the Devil surely is not touched by Jesus’ vicarious sacrifice on behalf of others. However, if enough people use the Crucifixion in the narrative as a model and instantiate it in their own confrontations with evil in other people, perhaps it will lose its force even where it is strongest. In other words, perhaps if instead of fighting against evil, we minister to those whose mentality is evil, the very notion of battle will dissolve, and with it, evil too.

In the film Mary Magdalene (2018), Mary Magdalene refutes Peter’s conception of the Kingdom of God as awaiting the Second Coming for the people to rise and Jesus be crowned king so Roman rule would finally be vanquished. “Jesus never said he would be crowned king,” she tells the disciples. “The kingdom is here, now,” she explains in dispelling the disciples’ misinterpretation of Jesus’ preaching on the Kingdom. The disciples see no kingdom because the Roman occupation has not ended, but she insists that “it’s not something we can see with our eyes; it’s here, within us. All we need to do is let go of our anguish and resentment and we become like children, just as he said. The Kingdom cannot be built by conflict, not by opposition, not by destruction; [rather] it grows with us, with very act of love and care, with our forgiveness.” Apply this rendering of the Kingdom of God to Jesus’ commandment to love one’s enemies and we have a kingdom ultimately built by ministering to one’s enemies, including coming to their aid, and, in so doing, vanquish our own hatred. Our foremost enemy is the mentality of evil. A person letting go of one’s own anguish and resentment first means letting go of that interior mentality, which is a prerequisite to changing the world by loving one’s enemies. In actuality, coming to the aid of one’s enemies can dissipate one’s own interior mentality of evil and thus bring inner peace, so the causal relationship goes in both directions. A person does not have to be at peace in order to extend love to one’s external enemies by ministering to them and thus dissipating external conflict, but having let go of one’s own hatred certainly helps.

In the Exorcist, the Devil tortures the priest Karras by reminding him of his guilt about having consigned his mother to a nursing home. Karras resists the Devil’s manipulation rather than views it as an opportunity to let go of the anguish. He could say, You know, you’re right. I screwed up, but I’m only human and I’m sorry. I do love my mother. He could then let the anguish go. Furthermore, he could pivot to ministering to his enemy’s anguish in feeling rejected by God. That would surely unleash fury. How dare you minister to me! It is pertinent to ask, what if one (or both) of the priests were to sacrifice his life while ministering as loving the enemy? That would be to instantiate the model of the Crucifixion. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” extends that model even to the benefit of enemies. Could even the Devil’s cold heart ignore that model being applied for the Devil itself? The answer, it seems to me, hinges on whether the Devil’s evil mentality is the Devil’s essence or merely an attribute; of the two, only the latter can be changed. I have in mind here Aristotle’s distinction between substance and accident. I submit that an entity of the sort that can have a mentality can be distinguished from a mentality because of free-will, which pertains to such an entity rather than to a mentality. If this is so pertaining to the Devil, then surely people who have an evil mentality can be ministered to from the standpoint of unconditional love as benevolentia universalis applies to one’s enemies.

The preceding thought experiment on whether the Devil can be saved from itself is distinctly theological. We aren’t thinking about Regan’s possession in terms of her bed violently jumping and levitating. In being valid in its own right and on its own terms, thinking distinctively theologically relegates and perhaps even defeats the secular primacy of the world of physical objects, and thus materialism. The audacious and derisive encroachment on religion even to the point of rendering it as something primarily physical, empirical, and material, rather than as interior to the human condition, is accordingly pushed back. The essence of religion can be investigated and discovered on its own terms and thus rendered more accurate and complete.

Bladerunner

In 1982, when Bladerunner was released, 2019 could only have been a blink of an eye in people’s thoughts. Even the year 2001, the year in which the movie 2001: A Space Odessey (1968) takes place, must have seemed far off. Of course, the actual year was not so futuristic as to have a computer take over a space station; controversy over AI eclipsing the grasp of human control would not hit the societal mainstream for twenty years.  So, Ridley Scott can hardly be blamed for positing flying cars, and, even more astonishing, imposing the notion of a replicant, a being of genetic biomechanics that fuses computer and human characteristics, on 2019. Even acknowledging the tremendous impacts on society of inventions since the dawn of the twentieth century, the pace of technological change is slower than we imagine. In 2019, on the cusp of a global pandemic, flying (and self-driving) cars were just in the prototype/testing phase, and AI existed rudimentarily, and certainly not corporeally in human form. Scott missed the mark, probably by decades, though he got the trajectory right. Indeed, the film’s central issue—that of the threat of run-away, or “rebellious,” AI to humans—was reflected in the press especially during the first half of 2023. I contend, however, that the philosophical merit of the film lies not in political theory, but, rather, in what it means to be human. The nature of human understanding, self-awareness, an ethical sense, and matters of theological reflection are all brought to the forefront in the question of whether the replicants can and should be taken as human beings. In other words, it is the fusion of AI, or computers more generally, and biology that lies at the core of the film.

In the film, Deckard is hired to kill replicants who have rebelled by traveling to Earth. His character arc can be grasped in terms of a gradual recognition that they essentially human, or at least enough like us that they can and should be regarded as subjects rather than objects. The film furnishes us with several criteria in which the replicants can be counted as human.

Self-awareness is the foremost criterion: taking oneself to be an entity that has subjectivity. At one point in the film, Pris, a female replicant, says, “I think, therefore I am.” Cogito ergo sum. The screenwriter doubtlessly had Descartes in mind. I am aware that I am thinking, therefore I exist. Even if an evil deceiver has us believing incorrectly that the world of appearances exists, we know that our thinking does not depend on any external world. In the film, the replicants can indeed think; they have been programmed to do so by Tyrell, who is a genius. In fact, the leader of the rebel replicants on Earth, Batty, refers to Tyrell as the replicant’s creator (god) even though it could be argued that the genetic bioengineers who grow the biological organs of the replicants also warrant such divine status. In actuality, there is nothing divine about programming AI or growing biological organs presumably out of stem-cells. It is not as if Tyrell and his engineers create everything, whether ex nihilo or not (one of the Creation accounts in Genesis is not ex nihilo). In other words, the give rise to existence itself is qualitatively different than creating something in particular in the realm of already-existence.

So the replicants have the human attribute of being self-conscious of themselves as entities that can think. This is not to say that they are minds in vats filled with chemicals. Pris insists that she is also physical, by which she means biological or corporeal in nature. She has a body; a replicant has biomass and even human genes. One of the biometric engineers tells a replicant, “You have my genes in you.” Can we say then that Descartes’ mind/body duality pertains to replicants? The replicant’s mind is programmed whereas the bodies are grown organically. The film does not provide us with a definite account of how the replicant brain is “hard-wired”—whether it is a computer physically emmeshed in a biological body or that computer code has somehow been written into the organic neuro-networks. The latter alternative lies beyond our comprehension, at least as of 2023. Indeed, it may even seem paradoxical. In a Gospel narrative, the risen Jesus walks through a door yet he is hungry and eats a fish. It is clear that his corporeal body has been transformed yet is still corporeal. In Pris insisting to the bioengineer who grows eyes using his own genes for replicants that she is physical rather than merely a thinking thing, the implication is that the replicants are entirely biological (i.e., every organ is organic rather than machine). Yet in her death throws after being shot (not tased!), Pris’s body shakes violently as if it were being electrocuted. The implication here is that her brain was hit and is electronic circuits rather than made of flesh. If so, it is remarkable, again from the standpoint of the actual world in 2023, that a hard-wire computer can have self-awareness, and thus be taken as a subject (i.e., having subjectivity).

Furthermore, the replicants have emotions, which are in the subjectivity; that is, the replicants know that they themselves feel. The replicants, especially Batty being of the sixth generation, are intelligent. So too is Tyrell, who had programmed Batty; both are superb at the game of chess. The replicants know that they (i.e., their respective subjectivities) will one day come to an end. In being mortal, they are like us. Similarly, they fear death. Two replicants, one of whom is Batty, make it clear that they fear dying. Batty even tells Deckard, the bladerunner, that it is precisely that fear that makes someone a slave—a slave to one’s fear. So it is clear that AI extends in the story-world of the film beyond intelligence to include emotions. Additionally, Batty clearly mourns Pris, and even exacts vengeance on Deckard for having killed Pris and another replicant in Batty’s rebel group.

Even more astonishingly, the AI manifesting in Batty includes a moral sense. When Tyrell tells Batty, “You’re the prodigal son,” Batty retorts, “I’ve done questionable things.” Ironically, it is the human Tyrell who seems to be missing the moral sense, for he replies, “Also extraordinary things!” It is indeed extraordinary that a replicant would then bring in theology in saying quite sadly, “Nothing that the god of biomechanics would let you into heaven for.” Batty even conceptualizes heaven. At one point while fighting Deckard, Batty says, “Go to hell; go to heaven.” Batty’s sarcastic quip, “Aren’t you the good man” to Deckard for not fighting fair, can be assumed to have theological and not merely moral overtones. Batty even calls him a bastard spirit. Finally, clearly aware that he is soon going to die, Batty saves Deckard rather than kills him. Kindness to one’s enemy has explicit religious overtones in Christianity even if most Christians prefer to focus instead on a metaphysical belief-claim that is only indirectly linked to helping one’s enemies. Indeed, the history of Christianity presents examples of Christians having “true belief” yet belying the claim by persecuting rather than helping people they didn’t like. Here in Bladerunner, it is a replicant that ironically provides us with an illustrative example of Christian charity. Deckard can only look up perplexed at Batty’s change of heart. When Batty dies, he releases a white dove, which flies away, evocative perhaps of Batty’s soul leaving his body. At the very least, Batty has in his mind the idea of God. In his proof that God exists, Descartes posits that existence because the idea, itself having full perfection, could not come from a being of less perfection. So God must exist for there to be the idea of God in a human mind. Yet a finite mind can also have the idea of infinity without there even needing to be infinity.

At the very least, it is clear that Batty thinks a lot about morality and even religion. In contrast, Deckard does not. Even though Batty has done “questionable things,” it is telling that he is quite aware of this. Historically, Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith all posited a moral sentiment in human nature; we are fundamentally sociable creatures who gain pleasure from shared experience that “fellow feeling,” or sympathy, and imagination can provide. When Batty saves Deckard from falling, the two share an intimate moment emotionally as Batty shares the marvels of what he has seen.  He is saying, in effect, that he had not been merely an instrument, or object, that humans sent out to protect the colonies in space; rather, his existence has chiefly been that of a subjectivity, and is thus worthy of being taken as an end in itself, rather than merely as a means to a human’s plans. Kant’s ethical claim that beings partaking in rational nature—being able to use reasoning—should be valued in themselves is taken up and embraced implicitly by the most advanced replicant. As he was being used as an instrument—an object—to protect the intergalactic colonies, Batty was marveling at the sights. He was not merely a machine. Perhaps by observing the humanity of the dying replicant, Deckard then comes to the realization that he loves Rachael, one of the female replicants, and that she can love and trust him. The two recognize each other as subjects—each as having a subjectivity rather than being taken as an object.

In short, the film essentially asks what it means to be human. Self-awareness, reasoning, emotions, a moral sense, and even contemplation of ideas transcending the limits of human conception and perception are qualities that pertain to at least the most advanced generation of replicants. It is ironic that it is a replicant, Batty, who brings up and critiques Deckard from moral and religious standpoints. Clearly, a replicant’s understanding goes beyond the machine-type of “manipulation of symbols according to rules.” Moreover, the cognition and understanding mesh with emotions and self-awareness, as well as the awareness of other subjects. Indeed, the aforementioned qualities of the replicants are sufficient to support the claim that they can love and be loved in return—the Bohemian ideal expressed in Moulin Rouge. 

In Bladerunner, both Deckard and Batty come around to being more human, and thus more humane. Both can be taken as subjects rather than objects; both have subjectivities. Perhaps it can even be said that Deckard’s humanity depends on that of the replicants, or at least to the recognition that they are sufficiently human to be taken as such rather than as walking computers. Certainly, it is the humaneness of Batty that Deckard literally comes to depend on to live another day. It certainly would not make sense to say that Deckard owes anything to the replicant were it merely a machine that manipulates symbols according to rules even assuming the existence of machine learning. Yet that Batty has a subjectivity and thus experience that goes beyond his essence—an existentialist assumption—means that Deckard can feel that he owes Batty a debt of gratitude. Certainly Deckard feels an ethical obligation toward Rachael because she not only loves him, but trusts him as well. She is thus capable of being hurt emotionally, should he betray her by reverting back to viewing the replicants as objects. Finally we have in Bladerunner what it means to be human, ironically in its fullest sense.  

Paul: Apostle of Christ

The film carries great weight, theologically, in that Paul describes a very particular kind of love that Jesus preaches and lives out in the Gospels. In so doing, Paul: The Apostle of Christ (2018) shows an overlooked criterion by which people who claim to be Christian can be ascertained as such or not. One implication from the film is that Christianity has contained (and still contains) a number of nominal Christians who are not in fact Christian. A related implication is that the historically (and modern) criteria by which people are considered (and consider themselves) Christian is not as useful (and valid) as the overlooked criterion that is so salient in the film.

In the film, Aquila heads a small Christian enclave in Rome at the time of Nero’s persecution of Christians (and Paul, who is arrested and sentenced to death) for being responsible for burning half of Rome. Never mind that Nero set the fire to have something other than refusals to sacrifice to the Roman gods, including the emperor with which to go after the Christians. When Cassius’s nephew is fatally beaten by Roman guards as the boy was voluntarily on an errand that had been arranged by Aquila, Cassius explodes in anger, insisting that he would extol revenge on Roman guards and then instigate a coup (supposing that Christian rulers would be better). “If any of you take up arms, you have no place within this community,” Aquila tells him. A woman then reminds the irate Cassius that Christians “are to care for the world, not rule it.” Luke reminds the young, passionate Cassius that “Paul has not raised a finger against his oppressors. Let peace be with you,” Luke advises, “for we live in the world but do not wage war as the world does. Peace begins with you, Cassius. Love is the only way.” Paul will tell Luke, “We cannot repay evil with evil; it can only be overcome with good.” The overcoming of the world’s evil is something that Jesus’s real followers, the anonymous Christians, do by valuing and putting into practice Jesus’s dictum to love your enemies, which translates into more than turning the other cheek (i.e., refusing to fight back); a proactive desire to help is also part of Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God. 
In Luke 6:27, Jesus says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." To be sure, he also goes on to say, "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." The Golden Rule, "Do to others as you would have them do to you," encompasses both; don't fight back and try and help those who insult, hit, and steal from you. Further in the passage in Luke, Jesus points out, "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? for even sinners do the same." Doing good to those who piss you off, or even just annoy you, talk behind your back to take you down, or assault you is so hard to do--so contrary to the default in human nature--that a holiness attaches to the person who takes this leap in faith to do what the world says is weakness. Strength in the kingdom typically stands as weakness according to human reckoning. In fact, where you come out on whether not only turning the other cheek, but also helping, such as Jesus does when he heals the ear of the guard whose ear Peter has cut off, is strength or foolishness determines whether you value Jesus' way into the Kingdom of God, and thus the latter as well. Jesus says he came to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. You cannot disvalue the latter and still worship the means, which is the distinctive holy-rendering that goes with not only not fighting, but also not refusing to help. This could even be the litmus test in whether a person is a follower of Jesus.
In the film, Cassius is unyielding, and he goes on to storm the prison when both Paul and Luke are being held in Paul’s cell. It is extremely important theologically that Aquila tells the Christians living in the enclave that taking up arms, including to kill even enemies including the persecuting Romans, is enough to get them kicked out of the enclave. The implication is startling, for even having the cognitive belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not enough to counter or outweigh the criterion of valuing and practicing the kind of love taught by Jesus. Abstractly, valuing and practice are here more important than belief. Though this too is in the mix, is not valuing and doing something closer to love than is a cognitive belief? Aquila's criterion serves in the film as the litmus test for whether a person is a Christian or not because Aquila tells Cassius that he must leave the enclave if he insists on raising the sword to return evil for evil rather than good for evil. That Cassius believes that Jesus is a certain thing does not get Cassius a pass from Aquila; Cassius still gets the boot if he does not value and practice the particular kind of love valued and exampled by Jesus in the Gospels.

When Luke visits Paul in his prison cell after the incident with Cassius, Luke admits that Cassius’s reaction is sensible given what the Roman guards on the Palatine had done to the boy. Paul immediate chastises Luke by accusing him of not having accepted Christ, by which Paul means, the particular kind of love preached and exampled by Jesus. It is THE WAY into the Kingdom of God—Jesus’s mission being to preach the mysteries (i.e., the unknown) of the Kingdom. Both the means and the end must be valued, or else the Christian believer is only nominal rather than genuine.

It may be common for Christians to say like Augustine did that God is love without knowing that the love being invoked is actually of a particular sort (i.e., a particular concept of love, rather than just love broadly construed). In what I take to be the highlight of the film (without a doubt in terms of acting), Paul gives Luke a description of the love that had been so hard and yet achievable for Paul. 
“Love is the only way,” Paul says. “A love that suffers long, does not envy, is not proud, does not dishonor or seek for itself, is not easily angered, rejoices in truth, never delights in evil, protects, trusts, hopes, and endures all things. That kind of love sets us free and answers evil with good.” Cassius wants to answer the Roman guards’ evil deed with anger and destruction (killing). In a Gnostic vein wherein knowledge plays a vital role, Paul admits he had to “learn how to love”—meaning he had to know this particular form of love and how make the metric of his conduct toward other people, even the Romans. “This power,” Paul says at one point, “is strewn in weakness”—meaning human nature. The desire for vengeance can even be second nature to a person, whereas compassion and aid to enemies is anything but. 
So the suffering that is long in this kind of love goes further than "turning the cheek" when persecuted, attacked, or even insulted. Besides, relative to when the Romans persecuted Christians, not many modern-day Christians face persecution because of the Christian faith. Even the suffering that Paul and Luke face in the film as they face the Perfect's persecution goes further to include an even richer suffering--namely, that which is experienced from resisting the sort of instinctual urge that anger fuels in returning evil for evil. Luke and Paul are disgusted with the Roman guards and their superiors, and yet both of these Christians suffer through helping the Prefect's ill daughter rather than engaging in passive aggression by omission. 
The sort of suffering that goes beyond suffering persecution is distinctively Christian, whereas anyone could suffer persecution voluntarily. In fact, "carrying your cross" may refer not only to the suffering that goes with the pain in being persecuted, but also, and even more so, to the pain of resisting the urge to hit back and going on to help, even with compassion, those people who have taken from you, attacked you, or even just insulted you. Answering good for evil may itself be painful, whereas satisfying the urge to retaliate can be quite satisfying. Even though the pain of being stolen from, attacked, or insulted is significant, the more subtle pain of resisting the temptation to inflict pain in return and then actually being nice and feeling it may really get at what Jesus of the Gospels wants from his followers. Such suffering does not depend on the particular case of being persecuted for one's faith. Given Jesus' emphasis on internal feeling, and that the way to his Father's Kingdom turns the way of the world (i.e, human nature) upside down, the suffering that goes beyond turning the other cheek to actually loving rather than retaliating may actually be more important.

The film shows us an example of Paul putting the distinctive love into practice when he tells the Roman Prefect of the prison, who has had Paul whipped several times, that he knows a good physician (namely, Luke), who can heal the Prefect’s severely ill daughter. Although Luke asks Paul, “How can I bring healing when [the Prefect] and Rome bring so much suffering,” Paul replies that “God’s mercy, and thus his kingdom, are open to all,” and “Where sin abounds, grace abounds more.” Luke is convinced and volunteers to heal the daughter. The Prefect’s reaction is interesting—something more than puzzlement suggesting that something odd from the standpoint of human nature has just been witnessed. A similar facial expression is evinced by Pontius Pilot as he sees the strength of the whipped Jesus walking closer through a hallway in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Of course, that Paul and Luke can accomplish in their human nature a skewed human nature suggests that our own nature is pliable enough to incorporate such love, which, as Augustine wrote, is God. 

For implications for leadership, see "Christianized Ethical Leadership, a booklet available at Amazon.

The Seminarian

A closeted gay student at an evangelical seminary is a contrast with a rather obvious clashing point, with the predicted ending being that the student is kicked out and must find or come into his own identity free of exterior constraints. Yet The Seminarian (2010) smartly avoids that road well-traveled. Instead, the screenwriter risks giving theology a prominent, and perhaps even central place in the film. The venture is at odds with the bottom-feeder mentality of Hollywood represented in the film, De-Lovely (2004), in which Cole Porter’s bisexuality occupies center-stage. Comparing these two films, irony drips off the screen as De-Lovely, which is patterned after a theatrical musical, looks down on Hollywood and yet has a common theme, while The Seminarian is a film through and through and yet takes the high road by supposing that the viewers can and will stay through some substantive theology, which transcends social issues and even the dramatic.

Theologically, The Seminarian, through its protagonist Ryan, wrestles with the relation of God as love and the love that is in human relationships. Specifically, if God made us capable of feeling love for another person so to demonstrate that God is love, then why do we suffer in relationships in which there is love? Ryan, who is suffering because he is falling for a guy he met online but keeps postponing a second date, runs the risk of using theological analysis to work out a personal problem. He supposes that we suffer in matters of love here below because God suffers for want of love from us. The unmentioned implication is that Jesus suffers on the Cross because we have fallen short from loving God. We have hurt God and so stand in need of being redeemed in order to be able to love God such that it will not suffer from want of our love. The suffering servant on the Cross is not just a human suffering, but also the divine suffering. Yet doesn’t this imply that God is incomplete in some way? God may have created humans so to be loved by us—hence the hurt from having love denied—but God itself is the fullness of love. As Augustine and Calvin emphasize in their respective writings, God is love. This is the subtitle of the film!

So, as in most theological problems worth their salt, an internal problem can be found and begs to be solved. Although Ryan attempts a solution in his thesis, the problem of God being complete unto itself is not addressed in the film. Perhaps God voluntarily created a vulnerability within the divine when he created humans to love, and thus glorify, it. The second person of the trinity, the Logos, is a part or manifestation of God since before the beginning, and we can perhaps find the vulnerability—even if still when the suffering of God is potential—meaning before the Incarnation of Jesus as a god-man, fully human and fully divine, and even so fully able to suffer. In other words, the divine in Jesus suffers too; it is not just his human nature that suffers. Interestingly, the Gnostic text, The Gospel of Philip, has the divine leave, or abandon, Jesus on the cross just before he dies, and thus after he suffers. The question is perhaps whether love that is by its very divine-nature complete or whole yet suffer. If so, the pain would be from humans not loving God as we were meant (by God) to; the pain suffered by God would not be from a want of divine love.

It is significant, I submit, that a Hollywood film would give viewers such ideas to ponder rather than focus on the gay-guy-meets-conservative-religionists element of the narrative—a theme which had already enjoyed pride of place in many films that tease the tension that is in a society in motion. To be sure, Hollywood is indeed still capable of dishing out banal sugar to a superficial public, but this makes the choice made in the screenwriting of The Seminarian all the more noteworthy and deserving of emulation.

Passengers

Augustine wrote that Christians are ideally in the world but not of it. The fallen world is not the Christian’s true home. For the 5000 (plus crew) prospective colonists hibernating aboard a mammoth spaceship in the film, Passengers (2016), the planet Earth was presumably not their true home—or maybe that home was becoming climatically rather untenable and the 5000 were lucky souls heading for a new, unspoiled home. In any event, the film’s central paradigm can be characterized as “travel to” and “end-point.” That is to say, means and end characterize this picture at a basic level. The film is particularly interesting at this level in that so much value is found to reside in the means even as the end is still held out as being of great value.

For Aurora Lane, intentionally woken by Jim Preston with 89 more years to go on the trip, Earth had not been home in the sense that home is where love has been found. For her, home was mobile—moving through space at half light-speed—for she found love with Jim in spite of the fact that he had deprived her of living to see the end-point, the colony-planet. In refusing Jim’s new-found way of putting her back to sleep so she could wake again just four months before the end of the voyage, Aurora must have realized that she had found her home with Jim traveling through space. With plentiful food and drink, and no need even of money, Aurora and Jim faced a downside only in the possibility of encroaching loneliness. Headless waiters and a bottomless bartender—all robots—could not be said to give rise to any viable sense of community.

It is strange, therefore, that 89 years later, at the end of the voyage, the awakened crew and passengers do not encounter any offspring having been made out of Jim and Aurora’s love. The couple having realized that they would not live to see the new world, would they not have naturally wanted to have children who would have a chance of seeing the prospective paradise? It seems to me that the screenwriter did not think out the consequences of the couple’s decision far enough in this respect. The awakened passengers and crew should have come upon both trees and the grown children whose entire life had been in space.

In spite of having only each other, perhaps Aurora and Jim relish the peace that can be so compromised in a community (imaging having an apartment complex all to yourself!) and the freedom from the insecurity of want—two assets that could only be found during the journey. The spectacular views of space are also worthy (although it is difficult even to imagine a ship of such material that could withstand such a close pass to a sun). Yet, even so, how difficult it is for us—the audience—to understand why Aurora and Jim could possibly come to prefer a life spent entirely en route, on transportation. We are so used to being goal-oriented, teleological beings that we miss the sheer possibility that the journey itself might constitute a full life worth living.

Abstractly stated, we are so used to relegating means to an end as long at the end is viable that we have great trouble enjoying the means apart from the end. As long as the end stands a chance of being realizable, we cannot ignore it and thus fully rest content along the way.

The ability to reason about means and ends is a virtue.[1] Interestingly, virtuous actions “may be pursued ‘instrumentally’ but must be done ‘for their own sake.’ . . . They must be ends in themselves. . . . Actions truly expressive of the virtues are actions in which the means are prized at least as much as the extrinsic ends to which they are directed. . . . The telos, the best life for human beings to live, is an inclusive end constituted in large part by virtuous activity.”[2] In other words, virtues are both means and ends. A person should value acting virtuously for itself, rather than merely as a means to an end. While not a virtue-ethics guy, Kant uses this characterization in Critique of Practical Reason to claim that human beings should be valued as ends in themselves, rather than merely as means to other ends (e.g., manipulated). Can a boss ever push his use of his subordinates for his own ends sufficiently out of his mind to value those people as ends in themselves—as having inherent value?

The space voyage in the film is shown at first as only a means to a distinctly different end, the colony. Yet by the story’s end, the spaceship comes to be an end in itself too. Due to the length of the trip and the appreciably shorter human lifespan, Jim and Aurora find value in the means not as a means, but only as an end in itself.  Yet as human beings, could they ever come to disconnecting the spaceship from awareness of its end? Could Jim and Aurora ever feel a sense of ease on board without the sense that they have lost or given up the spaceship as a means? For the remainder of their lives, the colony is ahead of them. Is it even possible that two human beings could become oblivious to this fact?

Here on Earth, the Christmas season is so oriented to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that it is scarcely imaginable that the festive atmosphere during the first three weeks of December could be chosen over Christmas itself. I suspect that more adults like Aurora and Jim, being without family, would prefer the season over the holiday itself—even opting out of it. Yet can a person come to enjoy a Christmas show or attend a Christmas party without having in mind the “not yetness” and the “betterness” of Christmas itself? What if the experience with friends at the Christmas Party two weeks before the actual holiday is better than the saccharine day itself? Can the experience ever hope to get its due regard and esteem for its own sake even as it is regarded as a means?

---

1. Joseph J. Kotva, The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996): 24.

2. Ibid., p. 25.

Aimee & Jaguar

Aimee & Jaguar (1999) is a film based on a true story centering on Felice, a Jewish woman who lived in Berlin until 1944 and belonged to an underground lesbian, anti-Nazi (spying) organization. To be a Jewish lesbian in Nazi Germany cannot have been an easy life, with possible catastrophe just around the corner on any given day.  In the film, Felice becomes romantically involved with Lilly, a mother of four and wife to a Nazi solder who is fighting at the eastern front. The film is essentially a love story between the two women. I want to draw out some of the ethical issues raised in the film—with the love story serving as my critique of two ethical theories—utilitarianism and duty-based ethics—that are implied in the film.  

Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism has for its goal the greatest good, which is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, for the greatest number of people. In terms of distribution, the principle can justify allocating a lot of money to some groups—whose individuals can be expected to get a lot of pleasure out of the funds—while depriving other groups of any money because they would not get a lot of pleasure out of even the limited funds. Invest in pleasure where most of it is likely to result. It is the consequence, rather than the means, that is important.

Under such a lopsided distribution as making what money there is available to non-Jewish Germans, the notion of declining marginal utility means that a lot more money would have to be added to the rich Germans to give pleasure equal to that which would come from giving the impoverished groups even just a little money. The utility of 1 DM, for instance, after getting 99 DM is less than the utility after getting 2 DM. This point is illustrated in the film.

In one scene, a fur-wearing, wealthy German woman, sensing that Felice and her three friends, Ilse, Lotte, and Klara, in the bathroom are hungry, and Jewish, sells them food-stamps for nothing less than 200 marks—an extravagant sum judging from the reaction of the three Jews. Based on declining marginal utility, it would take such a sum of money for the pleasure obtained by the rich woman to equal the pleasure from the mere food-stamps accruing to the four Jews. Hence, the exploitation.

The utilitarian distribution cutting off some people or entire groups from funds needed for daily sustenance can be extended to include outright extermination. In Nazi Germany, exterminated groups included the Communists, homosexuals, and Jews. Felice and her three friends were on the losing end in at least two of the three. It is ethically problematic that Bentham’s theory could be used in such a way to justify investing only in people who are most able to be happy (feel pleasure), whether from inner constitution or by external circumstance. Maximizing the pleasure in a society overall is an aim that can justify means that can easily be viewed as unethical. In fact, the resulting pleasure overall, as it is distributed in society (i.e., unequally) can be viewed as unethical. Fortunately, we can turn to Kant to make up for Bentham’s lapses.  

In contrast to Bentham’s theory, Immanuel Kant held that people have a duty to treat other rational beings not merely as means, but also as ends in themselves. Reason, by which we assign value to things (and people) is itself of absolute value, and so rational beings should not be treated merely as means, but are worthy by virtue of having reasoning capability of being treated as ends in themselves. This version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative is similar to the Golden Rule in Christianity (Kant was Christian). For the Nazi leaders to treat groups of people as means only to a Nazi vision of society and race would be for Kant, unethical.

Yet is it reasoning that gives humanity its absolute value? In the film, Felice refuses to go with her friends on a train to safety in Switzerland because she loves Aimee and thus wants to stay with her; the decision taken is not rational, for Felice must know that she could have gone and returned after the fall of the Third Reich; she must also have known that she would probably not survive for long, even if the days of Nazi Germany were obviously limited. “A catastrophe,” Aimee’s mother says when she learns, after Felice has returned from the train station, that she is not only her daughter’s girlfriend, but also Jewish. In such a context, how much value can we put on Felice’s love for Aimee? It seems to me that reason cannot assign value to such an object of such power, so such value must be undefined, and thus absolute. Means and even lofty ends that slight the human natural ability to love face an uphill fight in claims to being ethical rather than unethical.

Interstellar: Being in Love as a Black Hole

As difficult as it is to grasp the nature of a black hole and its all-consuming gravity, Interstellar (2014) also traces the powerful yet mysterious gravitational pull of human love, including that utterly unfathomable condition we know as “being in love.” We fall in love, which is an expression that presupposes gravity. Yet such all-consuming attachment may not even in principle have as its object our species itself. Even falling in love may be dangerous—just look at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

“You have attachments, even without a family. I can promise you, the yearning to be with other people is powerful,” Cooper explains to Dr. Mann in the film to justify getting back to Earth as soon as possible. “That emotion is the foundation of what makes us human—not to be taken lightly,” the father of two adds. We are indeed social animals. Yet we don’t seem to be hard-wired to feel an attachment for our species itself, as demonstrated by humanity’s failure to keep global warming from potentially rendering our wise species, homo sapiens, extinct. In fact, the film pits the yearning to be with another person against the species’ very survival, suggesting that being in love is very powerful indeed as well as possibly ruinous to the species.

Brand’s yearning for a man she is in love with places her in a conflict of interest in giving her recommendation on which of two planets to visit. “Love is powerful, observable,” she says. Here on Earth, we know that being in love can lead people to make drastic life-choices that are irrational by any other calculus. A person in love may decide to suddenly walk away from years of work in a field without even a threat of regret in order to be with the other person in another city. A person whose love is unrequited may abruptly change a daily routine or even move to get some distance from the other person. In addition to hopefully being “cured” of being in love with him or her as soon as possible (though time usually takes it time as a thickener of sorts), ending the fierce, unrelenting pain of the rejection is also of high priority. The continued yearning without its object and the hurt from the rejection can be agonizing if the person loves deeply.

Brand describes being in love as being profound. “Maybe it’s some evidence, artifact of a higher dimension we can’t consciously perceive,” she explains to justify her planetary recommendation being consistent with seeing the man with whom she fell in love many years earlier. Love is the one thing we can perceive that transcends the dimensions of time and space. “I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead,” she confesses. It is as if a worm-hole exists between the two souls, rendering their connection as immediate in spite of the oceans of space between them.

Drawing on Kant, I wonder whether being in love distorts both space and time in how they appear to us. The time spent with a beloved passes must quicker, at least initially, than does the time spent apart when the heart yearns to be at one with the other. The area where the beloved lives and works takes on a drastically different meaning and value, both in itself and relative to other places. This special “bump” may even be immune from the waning effects of time due to its own warp.

Finality, such as in the beloved cutting the person still in love off from any further contact and meaning it, is inherently at odds with the love’s innate ability to massage time and space. Particularly a person who falls deeply in love with another person has difficulty in finality at such depth. It is as if the constructed wall violates fate itself, if not the very nature of the love. Yet a person in love can be wrong in sensing fate being at work; the existential feeling in “falling head over heels” in love—that such loving comes out of one’s very core being—is not the sort of thing that a person can turn off (or on). 

To someone who has never been in love, all of this must seem like something in another galaxy. Even to a person who has fallen in love but is not presently in love with the person in love with him or her, it is easy to dismiss the other person’s condition as insignificant or even crazy. It can thus be easy to walk away without any guilt for what the other person is to go through emotionally.

“Maybe we should trust it even though we can’t understand it,” Bland says as she advocates going to the planet where her beloved may still be alive. But should we? If being in love distorts time and space by means of its relentless gravity, then is it wise for other people and the person in love to trust the emotion? He or she may be wrong about fate; the beloved may not be “the one” after all. Indeed, “the one” may actually be cruel, all too comfortable with finality.

Astonishingly, the person in love may still yearn for the underlying good in the other person even as the beloved is bent on inflicting so much hurt that he or she will never have to see the person again. A person in love willing to risk such rejection to work things out demonstrates just how much he or she values love above all else. It is also likely that a person willing to inflict a maximum pain to be rid of such a person forever demonstrates just how little he or she values love itself. Lest it be concluded that a black hole of sorts resides at his or her core being, falling in love may also be quite selfish. Faced with a powerful, relentless yearning for one person, a person in love is hardly unmoved by what he or she wants. Such love, as well as such hate, may not be trustworthy, and may even be dangerous. Perhaps our species would have evolved better had we the ability to fall in love with our species rather than individuals.