Well, I’m apparently the last one in the world to do so, but last night I saw The Matrix Reloaded. Man, oh, man. A worthy sequel to the original, in my opinion. There were a couple of problems, for me. The technical effects were both not as flawless as the first movie (e. g., Neo vs. all the Agent Smiths–the CGI broke the suspension of disbelief at some points) and also much, much better (e. g., Morpheus and the agent fighting on top of the semi-trailer). The story line was a bit less mythical than the first, but philosophically more interesting. I thought the pace started too slow (and the Temple “orgy” and Neo/Trinity love scene just plain ol’ unnecessary) at the beginning, but once the story finally picked up, much better. I don’t know what to think about the reverence shown Neo–but I suppose that comes more from my Protestant background, than from the respect Orthodox have always shown the saints. Nor am I sure what I think about the scene with the Architect, though it definitely fit the theme of the plot.
Which brings me to what I like so much about the movie: its philosophical question of causality vs. free will. I’ve assiduously stayed away from the reviews so as not to accidentally read a “spoiler” before I saw the movie, but I know that some of the reviews are less than happy about the sequel. Perhaps this is why. If the first movie was “Plato’s Cave,” then this movie is the Timaeus (Plato’s mythic account of cosmogony, with it’s discussion of necessity).
To what extent are we constrained by the materiality of our being and to what extent are we free to rise above that materiality? Jurisprudence has necessarily assumed choice: those who violate the laws of the state are subject to the penalties associated with those violations. Ethical theory has similarly found it necessary to posit some sort of freedom of human will (cf. Aristotle in Bk VII of the Nicomachean Ethics and St. Thomas’ “Treatise on Human Acts” (in the Summa). Modern psychology has increasingly diminished the notion of free will for more of a materialistic determinism, and to the degree that psychology has infiltrated jurisprudence and ethics, these, too, have softened on the concept of human freedom.
This discussion is extremely important in our culture. Witness the discussions regarding alcoholism, sexuality, and other matters. Though no scientific study has come up with a proven link between any genetic makeup and behavior, nonetheless it is almost always presumed. “This is how I was made. I can’t help being who I am.” So, too, one may say of “nurture” or sociocultural determinism. Thus, Paul couldn’t help writing about the relationship between men and women as he did, because he was a product of his cultural era.
But to accept something of a sociocultural and/or materialistic determinism for behavior brings with it a host of problematic implications, not the least of which demean and dehumanize those who practice them. That is to say, if homosexuality is, indeed, thoroughly determined by genetic and other physical causes and/or sociocultural uprbringing, then gays and lesbians have no freedom of will in terms of their sexual practice. Nor do bisexuals, or heterosexuals, spouse abusers, sociopaths, alcoholics–and one might add, for consistency, heterosexual spouses who practice fidelity–and so forth.
But while eliminating free will in these matters also eliminates any moral culpability (or praise), it also reduces those lacking free will to the level of mere matter. It binds them to their bodies and/or their cultures, and eliminates any comparative worth. If we are all mere atoms and molecules, then no one has any intrinsic worth, or at least no more intrinsic worth than anything else. If modern American sexual mores are no better or worse than those obtaining in the Taliban–since we’re all determined by our cultures–then, one can not be elevated nor condemned over another. In a universe of sociocultural, materialistic determinism, humans lack the freedom to choose, and therefore lack the ability to place value. And if we are so culturally and genetically determined, and so devalued, then crimes against one another’s persons–even if on the basis of that materially bound person’s nature or nurture–have no more standing over against the other. That is to say, there is no basis for hate crime laws, no basis for any law, save that of evolutionary determinism. And if Darwinian “social law”–based as it is on a materialistic deterministic worldview–obtains, then not only can there be no valid concept of personhood, indeed, the survival of the majority (insert behavior practice) over the minority (insert different practice) is an indifferent matter, in terms of value, but nonetheless an inescapable outworking of the material world.
Does anyone smell the smoke rising above Dachau?
Though the relationship between nature, nuture and choice is incredibly complex, still the implications attendent to the diminution of free will is why cultural and genetic determination in the discussion of human behavior, must, I repeat, must be rejected by Christians. Indeed, the Christian worldview necessitates free choice. By the Incarnation, we have been saved in our valued human bodies and cultures and freed from our sinful natures that are subject to the corruption and constraints of mortality. The Son of God became man, so that man might become God.
While The Matrix Reloaded seems to posit freedom over causality (the story is unfinished), it also seems to posit something of a Manichean or Zoroastrian worldview (we need the machines, the machines need us). So I’m not sure that what we see displayed is the Christian understanding of free will over the flesh.
But it’s a dang good movie. Go see it. I’ll be going to see it again.
