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Spiderman III
It’s out…and the new movie even has some religious implications.
42 Responses to “Spiderman III”
I haven’t seen the movie yet but others have noticed the religious method of the importance of forgiveness too (apparently it’s not just a subtle reference).
Here’s an article from the Georgia Bulletin by Catholic theologian Christopher West.
Well I did see the movie, but I attached no religious significance to it. True, forgiveness is a running theme, but I take it at face value. Perhaps you need to be religious in order to see religion in forgiveness. Just like with the so-called “Gay theme” in the movie Happy Feet, you need to have pre-conceived notions associating one theme to another. Though in the penguin movie the reference seemed much more obvious than in this case.
Lynx,
I’m not trying to quibble with you (especially since I haven’t seen the movie yet) but my impression was that religion did play a role in Peter Parker’s ability to forgive and I thought that was the point being made. And really, most of the cases where people forgive the unforgiveable that I’m aware of in real life involve a religious belief; examples include Pope John Paul II forgiving his would-be assassin and the Amish community that atttended the funeral of the gunman that killed many of their children.
I’m not saying that no secular person ever forgives on that level, but personally I do feel that there are some things that are too hard to forgive without asking God to help us overcome our human emotions of rage and vengeance.
Gosh, Lynx you might want to pay attention to the scenes towards the end where Spiderman goes to a church and the goo is knocked out of him by the ringing of the bells and where Brock goes to a church to pray and is infected by the goo. No religious significance there at all.
Overall, an ok movie with a few very striking scenes but pretty much a downer. Too much for one movie with oddly flat pacing. Action scenes were great but that’s pretty much standard for $100 million + summer blockbusters these days.
Since when is forgiveness an exclusively Christian theme?
BTW, forgiving something unforgivable is not praiseworthy, it’s just plain stupid and makes a mockery of the virtue.
I obviously wasn’t clear enough. I didn’t see religion “all over the place” in the movie. I’m not saying it wasn’t there, it may well have been, but I’m willing to bet that the level of religious influence you see in the movie has at least SOMETHING to do with your level of relation with religion and your opinions thereof. Again, I am not religious so I’m probably less likely to see religious influence as much as someone who is. As for the scene in the church, without giving spoilers away, you’ll recall, Ejoiner, what Brock was asking God for in the church right? Not very Christian, was it?
The biggest message I saw in the film is that in almost all cases, spidermans enemies are themselves the victims of tragedies, tragedies intimately related to spiderman himself. He may not wish to do harm, but he ends up creating his own enemies. Not really a “deep thought” movie, but that’s not why I went, after all.
Holly,
It’s that kind of forgiveness (the kind you say is stupid) that is a uniquely Christian theme. Funny that you entered the conversation right then because I was just thinking about writing a follow up comment to Lynx about how Christian philosophy differs from Judaic on that point, so the type of forgiveness that is apparently advocated in the film is of the Christian sort.
Lynx,
I’m pretty sure that a greater point of the theme was that those unfortunate tragedies that were befalling the people close to Peter were BECAUSE he was holding on to his feelings of hatred for his uncle’s killer (they weren’t just unfortunate coincidences, but because he was hating instead of forgiving). Perhaps someone else who’s seen the movie can comment on whether or not I’m right, but I think that seems to be the point- based on the trailer I’ve seen where his aunt says, “Revenge is like poison…”
Ok – I see your point Lynx. I agree that religion was not all over the film and that the “forgiveness” message was couched in very vague religious terms. I just thought you missed the setting for the final act.
If that kind of forgiveness is a major theme of Christianity, it repels rather than attracts people. I can’t count how many times people have tried to tell me that Hitler is/was/can be forgiven and I’ve wondered where they ever came up with such a stupid argument and why they think I should hear it.
Holly,
Chesterton explains it well, I think:
Forgiving the sinner doesn’t have anything to do with forgiving the sin. It’s a matter of acknowledging that judgement is God’s jurisdiction, not man’s. Otherwise violence can never end because we’re always trying to avenge some past offense.
Sounds as if Chesterton tried to do something impossible.
BTW, setting up courts and judging is one of the first commandments given!
But there’s a difference, Holly, between justice and vengeance. Courts decide what the debt is to society; the victim decides whether or not to leave the ultimate judgment of a person’s soul to God’s discretion.
Who says courts and humans dispense vengeance? God judges humans on the basis of their deeds.
A human who will not condemn Hitler is in himself evil.
A few thoughts on the matter of religion and forgiveness.
- Doesn’t repentance have to happen for forgiveness, in Christianity? I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “forgiving the unforgivable” was something that happens, more often than not, because of religion, since religion is VERY good at making people do things that would otherwise never occur to them.
- “But there’s a difference, Holly, between justice and vengeance.” Well, to a point. We like to SAY that we are dispensing “justice” not “vengeance”, but I think the two are very intertwined. Why do we feel the need for “justice”? Because people need to “pay” for bad deeds. And “vengeance”? Exact same answer. It could be argued that “justice” is the name we give to vengeance implemented by an agreed upon judicial body.
- A great sticking point with me and religion is the “I’m not judging you, God is!” This really makes me crazy. So man will enact and enforce laws, capture breakers, put them to trial and exact punishment, but not to worry, the only one JUDGING you is God. Riiiiiight.
- Leave it to us to turn Spiderman into a religious/philosophical discussion.
Thanks Lynx!
LOL Falwell saw the Librul gay agenda in Tellytubbies. To all the Bible thumpers, I don’t believe Sam Raimi to be a religious man, maybe he added this reference to make a buck.
And that the difference between Judaism and Christianity right there. You say that God judges humans on the basis of their deeds, hence all the rules to live by. In Christ, we are saved not because our deeds, but despite of them.
While I’m not religious, my feelings on the subject dovetail almost completely with what CS is talking about. Why? Well I don’t believe in evil. I don’t think that people that commit horrific crimes are intrinsically monsters or that much different than the rest of us. History (and psychological studies) have shown that the vast majority of Average Joes are capable of committing unspeakable deeds.
For me, what needs to be remembered and condemned is not a person, but the crimes (and in the case of mass genocide or other crimes against humanity, the events that captured an entire populace to lose their souls) so we can try to minimize them in the future. I also think that one of the keys to this is embracing criminals that have reformed and using their experiences to try to reach out to others.
For me, forgiveness is very much a pragmatic idea. If the person has changed since their crime, forgiving them lets me separate their new persona from the crime and evaluate their worth going forward. If the person never changes or dies in the midst of the crime, forgiving allows me to separate the crime from the individual and therefore evaluate why they did it, how it relates to what other people are capable of and if it can be stopped in the future.
So no, I can’t condemn Hitler per se…I can only condemn the crimes he caused. Off the top of my head I can think of recent mass murders like the Belgian Congo, Armenian Genocide, Great Leap Forward, Stalin, Pol Pot, Rwanda, all the various African wars, the Yugoslav civil wars, and uncountable (primarily because it’s up for debate but it still counts) civilian deaths where they were targeted even though there was no military value. Not to mention everyday violence.
By focusing on any individual, I think it blinds us to the root causes behind these crimes and lessens our ability to act in the future. For instance: the Armenian genocide is considered the first modern “genocide” i.e. where an ethnicity and its culture was targeted to be wiped out. The mobilization, propaganda and execution was so similar to Hitler’s that there is a lot of speculation that he studied it in order to craft his plan. Rwanda and Bosnia/Kosovo have seen similar aspects as well. Can we do something to stop these in the future? [Similarly other crimes like the Belgian Congo were financially based, Stalin's purge was political, and a several others were because of complete anarchy. What similarities and differences do those all have as well?]
I might be radical, but for me justice has an operational purpose for both the offender and others. It’s primarily forward looking, while vengeance is retroactive, but “punishment” can be the tool in both instances. For the offender it’s (hopefully) penance (but if not, making sure they aren’t a threat again), for others its deterrence. Unfortunately this is a hopelessly abstract and individualized concept. For instance, if a murderer was never caught but was eaten up by their crime and was truly repentant by working to help others turn away from violence I think that’s justice. [You can also give a fair argument that they should turn themselves in and receive punishment.]
On the other hand, there is no justice when someone is imprisoned and released without changing their ways, or when there are systematic flaws that don’t reduce the likelihood of crimes being committed. The worst example of this is non-violent drug offenses, where most of the time the person feels like they haven’t really done anything wrong in the first place and just use their time in jail to establish new contacts and become more violent.
It’s difficult to understand why people would want an unjust God. To me, a God that is all mercy and no justice is no God at all.
BTW, the Justification by Grace vs Deeds is a major historical conflict between Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholic Christianity.
Does anybody have any evidence of Raimi using “Christian” themes in previous films? I’ll buy the comic book, Oldmobile and Michigan connections, but the “Christian” theme is a big streach.
Holly,
Your statement about not wanting a God who is all mercy seems incongruous to me since you were the one a while back who said that you don’t believe in hell.
Mikkel,
I agree completely (although you and I would probably disagree about why humans are capable of both good and evil). But it is a very important concept, I think, to separate the act from the person because condemning the person (even if for a series of heinous acts) doesn’t allow for any possibility of change. The sum total of evil acts does of course affect who the person is and can make it extremely unlikely that the person will change, but even an infinitesimal chance is still a chance (and prayer, IMO, can increase the odds).
I should clarify, since I reread your statement, Mikkel and see that you said you don’t believe in evil. Personally I do believe in evil but I don’t think it’s intrinsic to the human person. People who’ve chosen to do evil through free will still retain the free will to change and choose a different path.
Lynx,
Yes, for some people justice and vengeance are intertwined, but that doesn’t mean that they are one in the same thing. And as far as whether or not we are judging people if we are willing to subject them to a system of justice- the point is, we aren’t judging whether or not they are ‘good people’, we’re allowing a particular action or actions to be judged and determining whether or not there is a need for them to pay some form of penalty for the action. True Christians will not say that a murderer is condemned to hell, and they are called upon to forgive in order to allow that person a chance at redemption (which is why I don’t believe in the death penalty- if humans decide the hour of another man’s death we might be robbing him of the chance to redeem himself).
C. Stanley, what you have been stating is what I’m assuming is Christian doctrine. I will accept it as true since I’m certainly anything but an expert. Now, that may be the theory, but I’d like to ask you: do you think may Christians put it into practice? That is, how many “true Christians” are there?
- How many Christians would disagree with “Hitler was a bad man”?
- How many Christians don’t personally judge people, but simply lament the action and leave the judging up to God?
- How many Christians have never thought “this unrepentant child murderer is condemned to hell” or something similar?
- How many Christians can really forgive anything, no matter how horrific?
You see, I don’t believe Christians are any nicer than non-Christians, or even any more moral. Many may THINK that these attitudes are ideal, but I would be highly surprised if any but a very small number were actually capable of putting them into practice consistently.
As for the “unjust God”…well, I have a hard time with the whole God concept itself, but looking at the world, I would be hard pressed to explain how one could believe God is fair. The justifications I always hear for inexplainable horrific unfair, unpreventable acts never convince me. What “justice” is there in the Tsunami ripping babies from the arms of their mothers and drowning them? I’m about half-way through Genesis right now, and the unfairness of God has managed to take my breath away several times now.
Lynx,
Free will is the only explanation that I know of that can explain a loving God and yet also allow for the obvious existence of evil in the world. I can’t pretend that it’s easy for me to reconcile the two, particularly when it comes to the harshness of natural disasters and such (the free will explanation makes more sense when you apply it to atrocities that are actually caused by man). But I also accept that any God who was intelligent and powerful enough to create the universe is obviously quite a few notches above my own understanding.
As to whether or not any Christians practice the faith as it is meant to be practiced: I only know of one, and I’m not sure if you can call him a Christian since that would be describing Him as a follower of Himself.
I don’t think Christians as a whole are necessarily nicer than non-Christians either. The difference though is whether or not one strives for perfection (imitation of Christ) even though we admit and know that we will fall short, or whether one says, “I can’t be perfect therefore I’ll settle for trying to be good enough”. It’s one thing to forgive oneself for sinning, it’s another to rationalize and say that it wasn’t really a sin because everyone does it.
And yeah, most of us, Christian or not, really can’t forgive horrific things when they affect us personally. That’s why I have such great admiration for the few who have done so. I’d like to think that I could, but I really have no idea because I’ve fortunately never had to forgive something that horrible. Corrie Ten Boom wrote about how she thought she had forgiven the Nazis who had imprisoned her but later in her life after a speaking engagement in Germany she was approached by one of the SS who had tormented her. He gave her his hand and she found that she was unable to take it; her human emotion was stronger than her ability to forgive, which is quite understandable. To me, that actually makes the argument for religion even stronger because without God’s grace we don’t have it in us to forgive some things and that’s why we need His healing grace.
It’s mostly semantics but to me “evil” means an intrinsic quality, i.e. the idea that the person is throughly and completely corrupted and beyond redemption and is just an “unhuman” monster. Alternatively it could be used as a force that controls someone, so like demons and Satan would be evil, but that doesn’t make sense if you don’t believe in the supernatural.
If I remember correctly, historically the reason why Satan plays a greater role in Christianity than Judiasm is that Christianity is more concerned with God as Ultimate Good and that can’t create anything that is “bad.” Thus came the idea that it was Satan that corrupts man’s free will. In Judiasm isn’t it more of a given that people just aren’t perfect implicitly and it’s up to us to follow what God has laid down as best? In Islam it goes further which is that Allah is by definition Good and can do things like lie and such and fealty is what is most important.
Anyway when I say I don’t believe in evil I just mean that I agree it’s not intrinsic to the person and also that there is no supernatural force that gets people to do bad things. I think that the closest thing to “evil” is just human nature that arises in certain situations.
And Lynx, I hope that everyone thinks “Hitler was a bad man.” The difference is that I think “bad man” is a qualitative assessment of how the person lived, while “evil man” is an assessment of the nature of the person.
This is getting really interesting!
Mikkel,
When you say that not believing in the supernatural means that it doesn’t make sense to believe in evil as an external force, wouldn’t the same logic mean that you also can’t believe in ‘good’ forces like love? To some extent, I see love and evil are two sides of the coin; both are extrinsic but can be chosen. One can decide to embrace one or the other, and pretty much we all end up choosing both to some degree (but hopefully the good side, love, in most cases). Most of us wouldn’t embrace pure evil but we might be led to accept a diluted form of it when we choose actions out of selfishness which can cause harm to others.
Although I don’t rule out the possibility of the evil being embodied in demons, that’s not how I generally see it. In our earthly existence, I just see evil as the absence of God and a deliberate choice to order one’s actions or one’s life in a way that is contrary to His love and His will. It’s the use of our free will in a way that would contradict His will for us.
God expects us to practice both Justice and Mercy. I cannot see why this is incongruous with my lack of belief in an afterlife.
I was looking for this story earlier but couldn’t find it:
http://www.hillel.org/jewish/textstudies/emulate/lovingkindness.htm
Midrash Rabbah – Genesis 12:15
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the YHVH ELoHYM made the earth and the heavens,” [Why does the creation begin with the Divine Name ELoHYM as the Creator and end with two Names, YHVH ELoHYM when concluding the creation story? The Midrash explains:] This may be compared to a king who had some empty glasses. The King wondered: ‘ If I pour hot water into them, they will burst; if, however, I pour cold water, they will contract [and shatter]. ‘ What then did the king do? He poured in a mixture of hot and cold water so the glasses would remain whole. So, said the Holy One: “If I create the world on the basis of mercy alone, its sins will be oppressive; on the basis of judgment alone, how would the world be able to exist?. I will create it with justice and mercy together and then, maybe, it will be able to stand!” That is why the Name YHVH is added to the Name ELoHYM.
Holly,
What I don’t understand though is how man is supposed to decide when to be merciful and when not to do so. I can see where some acts are obviously the most extremely ‘wrong’ and others obviously mild, but there’s so much in the middle that seems arbitrary.
In our Christian view, the answer is that man isn’t really meant to decide that so we should always show mercy and that’s why we separate feelings or reaction to the act from feelilngs of vengeance toward the person. Being merciful doesn’t necessarily mean that someone shouldn’t be given a worldly punishment, but it does mean that the punishment shouldn’t be cruel and that the person is still viewed as a soul worthy of compassion and capable of receiving redemption.
Good story, Holly- thanks for sharing!
On not believing in an afterlife; I guess the part that I felt was a bit incongruous was that during the discussion of hell I thought that you’d said one reason you find it impossible to believe in it was because of God’s mercy. If I misunderstood or if your disbelief in hell is just part and parcel of disbelieving in an afterlife, then I’m sorry to have mistook your meaning.
I can’t conceive of a Heaven either, other than being a tiny and non-cognizant part of the Mind of God.
Torah teaches us Justice and Mercy. There’s a famous statement that those of us who are merciful to the cruel will someday be cruel to the merciful.
Time Magazine has a feature on forgiveness: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990644,00.html?iid=chix-sphere
Why would it follow that someone who is merciful to the cruel would someday be cruel to the merciful?
Run a search on the phrase. I think it originates from King Saul’s not executing an evil man (Agag) immediately. Agag was able to procreate and his descendants continued to persecute us.
Daryl Van Horne –
Holly,
That just seems like such an intrinsic view of evil- as though it is something that resides in the person even to the extent that his progeny would be evil. Not something that I can accept, I guess.
Austin: Cute….and indeed, that describes the part that I still struggle with.
I don’t think the same thing about love that I said about evil: it’s just a part of human nature. The concepts are certainly universal (although the expressions and customs obviously aren’t) but in my beliefs that is a consequence of humanity rather than an external force. I say I don’t believe in evil because I’m a relativist and since I think those actions are just part of human nature there is nothing that makes them implicitly wrong.
My sense of morality is grounded in extreme (and to a lot of people offensive) pragmatism. It is wrong to kill/steal/lie/etc. and right to be charitable/loving/curious/etc. simply because those things are what makes society progress the most and gives (to most people) a fuller life.
Love is better than hate because it opens up doors to experience instead of closing them. A lot of hateful people just are using it as a defensive mechanism and can change, but some just naturally thrive on hate and those people have to be protected against.