While it’s still unclear how LOST will ultimately end up, some recent developments seem to provide a good illustration of one way people have chosen to resolve the problem that has plagued humanity throughout history: Deep down, we know we deserve justice from God, but we want grace. How can we who know we are guilty get mercy from a perfectly good and just God?
Justice and grace seem to be irreconcilable. We want God to be good. But if we deserve punishment, then for God to be truly good and just, He must punish. We long for grace. But for God to show us grace it would seem He must violate perfect justice, and therefore He would not be truly good.
One way to resolve this is to split God into two and reject one half.
We love a god of mercy, but fear a god of justice. Therefore, deny His justice and suddenly God loves us no matter what, and it doesn’t matter what we do. There is no justice to face. But is this a good god? Is a god who doesn’t right wrongs, who ignores evil and sweeps it under the rug, who tells you, “Hey, just learn to make your own kind of music–it’s all good,” is that a god worthy of our respect? Justice is real and good, so a god who allows evil and injustice to remain is less than good.
Then there are those who grasp the idea of God’s perfect holiness and the goodness of destroying evil, and so they despair of mercy and live in fear. These people hang on to God’s righteousness and reject the possibility of grace.
God’s answer to this problem is beyond brilliant:
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
God did not lay aside His good and perfect desire to completely wipe out all evil, and yet neither did He lay aside His grace–He became both just and justifier, righteous judge and gracious redeemer. He satisfied His perfect justice and upheld His righteousness by demonstrating His wrath against evil on the cross. Now grace is freely given because it’s no longer in conflict with justice. Rather, it’s because of the justice fulfilled through Jesus’ willing sacrifice that the full beauty and power of grace is revealed, for we see the real price of it.
This is the true, complete God. The true story is not one where justice and grace are forever at war with each other, but one of redemption through a justice-satisfying, grace-enabling, costly sacrifice by a good judge who has the right and authority to convict.
This is the Gospel, yet I’ve found that many people who hear the Christian story are only able to hear the part about the perfect judge who they know will destroy them when all wrongs are punished in the end. They can’t see past God’s righteous wrath to the cross. And people who recognize their own guilt and know nothing of the cross will either acknowledge God’s unbending justice and hate Him, or deny His justice and live with a morally weak god.
This is what seems to be playing out on LOST (spoilers ahead). The writers would like to embrace grace, as they did so powerfully in the episode “Dr. Linus,” but at the same time deny the goodness of justice by associating judgment with the apparently devilish Man in Black. They can’t see that by denying the value of judgment they remove all power from grace, making it weak and meaningless. For if “God” wants us to make our own way morally, and does not judge evil, then there is no guilt to be released from, no grace needed. It’s just to be expected that someone would say, “Eh, your lying, manipulation, and murder is no big deal. Let’s just move on.” That is neither good nor powerful.
The creators of LOST can’t see a way for righteousness and justice to be truly good and desirable at the same time that grace is possible, so they jettison judgment in favor of grace (or so it seems for now). Without a cross by which justice can be done and grace given, they must split God into two, putting His grace into Jacob and His condemnation of evil into the manipulative Man in Black. And so it becomes Jacob vs. Man in Black, grace vs. judgment, “Jesus” vs. scary “Old Testament God.” And in this way, they lose both justice and grace.
(Cross-posted at Stand to Reason)
March 30th, 2010 | 1:48 pm | #1
Yeah, the last few years have been rough for me. First, I learned that I was a Sith Lord because only the Sith believe in absolutes. Now, I’ve learned that I may have more in common with the Man in Black than Jacob because the Man in Black believes all men to be corrupt.
*sigh*
March 30th, 2010 | 2:15 pm | #2
Ha! Yes, I feel your pain. What’s funny is that these shows start to become incoherent as soon as they start to get things wrong. It certainly seemed that Star Wars judged the Empire as being wrong. How can that be? And it seems to me that Jacob has been proved unmistakably wrong about sin–not just in real life, but even on LOST.
It’s possible they might find a way to pull their ideas together, but it’s hard to see how they can do that at this point.
March 30th, 2010 | 3:23 pm | #3
I don’t know about this. Does the Man in Black really judge and condemn evil? He’s killed people, sure, but I don’t think it’s in the name of justice. He doesn’t have the moral authority to judge.
Beyond the split between grace and justice, another theme of the show is Free Will vs Determinism. Though Jacob is sometimes seen as messing around with free will (he’s been watching the Candidates a long time, he brought them to the island because they were Predestined, etc.) I’m not convinced which of the two represents each side.
Didn’t Jacob say last week that he wants to prove to The Man in Black that people can change moral courses of their own free will without outside manipulation or help?
March 30th, 2010 | 3:43 pm | #4
Great post, Amy!
I’ve personally resisted the temptation to start LOST, though, because I knew I would have to see it through to the end.
March 30th, 2010 | 4:12 pm | #5
David, I think the Man in Black symbolizes the worst of what our culture currently thinks of organized religion (specifically, Christianity)–he uses the threat of hell and judgment to manipulate people, he judged Eko way back when, he manipulates gullible people, etc.
I don’t think at all he’s doing it in the name of justice. This is the problem. I think they’ve separated justice from judgment in order to convey the idea that judgment is a bad thing.
I think that ultimately the idea will be: spirituality good, religion bad.
Albert, do not resist! No matter how it ends up now, it was still all worth it.
March 30th, 2010 | 4:20 pm | #6
[...] by Alan, which he says all the time, and then went to my rss reader and found this post titled LOST, God, and the Justice/Grace Problem: We love a god of mercy, but fear a god of justice. Therefore, deny His justice and suddenly God [...]
March 30th, 2010 | 4:35 pm | #7
(SPOILER ALERT)
Notice the difference in Jacob’s responses to when Ben Linus tried to kill him versus when Richard Alpert tried–he fought off Richard but didn’t resist Ben.
Could they be setting Jacob up to be the god-character that is put to death at the hands of evil men in order to ultimately overcome evil (the man in black)?
It will be interesting to see if Ben is redeemed through the murder of Jacob and is ultimately responsible for the downfall of the man in black.
March 30th, 2010 | 7:41 pm | #8
The way that the philosophy of LOST, and the main drivers have changed is interesting. First off it was about survival, then you got a lot of fighting, then psuedo-science with time travel (there’s still time for Stargate/Indiana Jones 4/etc aliens – Indy 4 must be the ultimate example of mid-naughties ‘must have psuedo-science’) and now everything has become ‘spiritual’. Is that not somewhat where culture has been/going?
It’s worrying that they are setting up Jacob as the good-guy, the God-like figure. Given that Jacob has killed a lot of people by crashing planes and boats to show that man is capable of not being bad, I wonder if a ‘God is not great’ type idea might work itself out.
There’s still a possibility of some kind of dualism (as loved by Hollywood), with the references that have been made.
I do like the last paragraph – it’s very likely that that might be the sort of thing that they are aiming at (and in the same time going “spiritual good, religion bad”, as mentioned by Amy above). Kind of reminds me of McLaren’s idea of Yaweh/Jesus vs Theos – it is the zeigeist (though its Marcion’s views as well, way back in the 200s), so it’s probably going to be the case.
March 31st, 2010 | 11:30 am | #9
Si,
They maay also be engaging in a bit of theodicy with the “flash sideways.” While the crash may have killed a lot of people and “wrecked” the lives of the survivors, the flash sideways may be suggesting that life would have been worse had they not crashed.
This show stopped being interesting about two seasons ago (yet for some reason I couldn’t stop watching), but this final season has redeemed it. It’s great to see Hollywood explore the themes of evil, justice, and redemption, even if we don’t agree with their conclusions.
March 31st, 2010 | 9:36 pm | #10
[...] por Josaías Jr | iPródigo | Original aqui AKPC_IDS += "2058,"; [...]
April 6th, 2010 | 4:53 pm | #11
I wouldn’t make direct 1 to 1 parallels like Jacob = God. Beware of being too literal. This is fiction, after all.
April 10th, 2010 | 11:29 am | #12
Keep in mind that Ben did repent before Ilana welcomed him back, and it’s not as if he’s faced no punishment for his sins. They’re not really dealing with ultimate sin and punishment in terms of one’s relationship with God. Jacob told Richard he couldn’t enter into that kind of thing. All they’re doing with Ilana accepting Ben is thinking through what human relationships can look like, and I think she modeled quite well what a follower of Jesus ought to do. It was very nicely done and captures perfectly what grace is all about for the repentant. The repentance doesn’t earn it whatsoever, and he didn’t deserve her acceptance of him, but nevertheless she did the right thing and had good reasons to do so.
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