Infinity War and Secular Religion

4/28/2018

(Spoilers Ahoy)
Consider poor Vision.
Shining from his synthetic forehead is the final Infinity Stone that Thanos needs to complete the set. The mad Titan’s glove awaits this final accessory and he will attain the powers of God. Not a god, but capital-G God.
In a last ditch effort to thwart this fate, Vision’s love-interest, the Scarlet Witch, must destroy the stone where it rests, killing Vision along the way. She does so, and mourns over the body of her beloved. Thanos, however, is already 5/6 God and simply reverses time to the moments before Visions first death. He then rips the stone out himself, reuniting all the stones and killing Vision a second time.
Marvel’s latest film will be dissected in excruciating detail over the next few weeks, so I will be focused and brief here.
Thanos indeed becomes God for all intents and purposes. He has complete creative control over the universe, able to bend and reform reality, travel through space and time, and do whatever else those other stones allow him to do (I’d love some clarity on that, actually). In other words, he is a being who is able to right the wrongs of the universe as he sees fit. And I wonder if his solution (basically erase half of all living beings in the universe to make more room for the other half) isn’t precisely what all of us would do with such power.
Isn’t any material solution to the question of theodicy ultimately choosing a side to save? Granted, almost nobody would have the other half turn to literal dust, but we’re talking metaphor here, right? In this way, Thanos provides an interesting image of a secular God. A being with all of the Creator’s power, but none of the Grace.
A pretty well-accepted tenet of Christianity is the idea of the resurrection (there are of course debates about bodily vs. spiritual etc..but that’s for another podcast). Vision is indeed resurrected, right in line with Orthodox beliefs about God’s grace and redemption. Unfortunately for him, his resurrection is at the hands of an all-too-human God, and leads only to a second death. There is no redemption for him, only for the half-Creation that Thanos wishes to save. There is no salvation for all.
Loki then, in his dying words, was right about Thanos. Though he may attain God’s power, he will never be a God.

6 Comments

Adam Sorber link

4/28/2018 06:55:21 pm

Interesting thoughts. I really appreciated how they made Thanos more relatable. Obviously flawed, and using vicious immoral means, but pursuing an end with a rationalization that's relatable. I really think the god references made by Thor and Loki were projections--if I'm reading the character correctly, I don't think Thanos really wants to be a god. I think he simply desired the god-like ability to perform a single task, and upon doing so, seems to have contentedly retired, as he said he would. There doesn't seem to be any additional ambition to rule, avenge, etc... The fact that most of the original Avengers fought him hand-to-hand and lived indicates that he's not thirsty for power for power's sake or even as a tool of revenge.

I also thought the sacrifice of Gamora was interesting. Obviously Thanos has no legitimate "love", as you or I would probably define it, for Gamora, yet his sacrifice of her was deemed worthy, so it must have been a legitimate, painful sacrifice. I thought it was a nice way of underscoring the fact that this is a deeply twisted, flawed, and driven foe and not just an amoral villain with a lust for power. I think that's what makes this version of Thanos so formidable. As I was watching the film, I couldn't help but be reminded of this quote from C. S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Alex Genetti link

4/29/2018 12:00:42 am

I dig this. Thanos also strikes me as a somewhat Nietzschean figure; if I recall correctly, he once refers to himself as the only one with the "will" to make his vision a reality. Since he lacks any hope in a Christian-style redemptive eschatology, he has to become the salvation that no one else is prepared to offer. He's a god for a godless universe.

Poor Vision, indeed - though I suspect I'd find his death more affecting if only he and Wanda had been given proper screen-time to develop their relationship!

Adam Sorber link

4/29/2018 03:29:11 pm

I’m interested in hearing Gilmour’s take on Thanos being a big, purple Tony. Personally, I see some pretty stark differences. (“Thank you, I’ll be here all week, don’t forget to tip your wait staff…”)

In season 4 of South Park back in 2005, they released an episode called Best Friends Forever that addressed the Terri Schiavo controversy. The episode is notable for making two observations: First, and most importantly, not even the mightiest angel in heaven can resist the temptation to sniff a dry-erase marker. Secondly, people got so emotionally involved in the Schiavo case because it essentially involved one group of people wanting to do the right thing for the wrong reasons locking horns with another group of people wanting to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. It’s an oversimplification, perhaps, but it’s a good starting point.

This is the lens through which I view the Stark/Thanos comparison. Stark is a hero in deed but not in thought. In pretty much every engagement he’s had with “evil”, his motivation has been self-defense or some other personal interest(s). Even his alignment in Civil War had only a thin veneer of altruism. The dude wanted to retire and settle down, and this gave him the opportunity to do so (and avoid future negative PR) without any real soul-searching or personal regard for greater good. The powers that be are indicating that the greater good is served by leaving the fight to them, and that’s all the motivation he needs to move on. Stark is consistently doing the “right” thing for the wrong reason(s).

Thanos, on the other hand, represents the “wrong thing for the right reason” narrative. He’s absolutely insane, but there’s a selflessness in his efforts. It is a burden to him, and in his own words, it cost him everything. He is not acting in self-interest, but, oddly enough, in altruistic service to what he considers to be the greater good.

Ultimately, I see Thanos as a redeemable soul driven by a broken mind, whereas Stark is a malleable mind hindered by a broken soul. In that regard, I can’t imagine them being any more different.

Paul F link

1/14/2019 05:26:05 pm

Dan, you make the observation, "In this way, Thanos provides an interesting image of a secular God. A being with all of the Creator’s power, but none of the Grace."

My observation: I assume that the impulse to religion arrises from human experience of mystery, whether that's the power of a storm, or the seasons, or birth and death, etc.; our lives are not our own making, but come to us as if gifts from an unseen giver.

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures record a history of wrestling with the angels of mystery, often projecting onto God (as we all do) very human attributes. The writer or writers of the gospel of John concluded that this mystery is at its heart a mystery of love.

Thanos as more omnipotent than loving is, as you say, lacking grace.
So where did the Western tradition become so hijacked by the idea of omnipotence as central?

It's interesting, funny, sad, that we also witness other conclusions and trajectories in that process:
- Pre-scientific people seem (from the Hebrew scriptures) to have assumed that the mystery of the wind must be the breath or wings of God. Start with the mysterious experience of the wind, and develop metaphors, explanations, which may or may not have been intended literally at first, or may have been taken too literally later.
- Part of our experience tells us that we suffer or enjoy the consequences of our actions, like karma, which might seem as if God arranges things to reward the good and punish the evil. With some notable exceptions in experience.
- So when we experience good and innocent people suffering, some wonder: Are they being punished by an omnipotent, judging God, for some kind of sin? How do we make sense of that? A new mystery, for which we need a Job, and a Jesus who says that when a construction crew is killed, its not necessarily anything to do with a judging of their lives or having sinned.

- The idea of an omnipotent and omniscient God seems to have been fairly well established before Jesus, and we can see this because the gospels seem to have been written in such as way as to attribute both to him at times, but strangely, not others. They revise the Jesus story in hindsight as a new Moses story. They project onto him all their preconceived divinity expectations.

But what if Jesus attempted to challenge many of those very expectations? Then in Jesus, his followers had an experience of love, wisdom, and mystery, but they plaster his story with all their preconceived biases.

I think this explains in part why we think of mega-omnipotent superheroes as a kind of divinity: Too much carry-over through history of the divinity-as-omnipotence assumption, and not enough reverence for gift and mystery.

Easy to fear and show reverence for omnipotence if someone is going to burn you at the stake as a heretic if you don't. Christianity became corrupted by its own power, and was confused about power and what it means, or how it's related to divinity, if at all; for these, the crucified Jesus is always a stumbling block.

Danny

1/14/2019 08:17:00 pm

Paul that is a really profound set of thoughts you've left here. You're totally right that my statement is grounded in an understanding of deity as all-powerful and this affects a lot of my interpretation of heroes in general and especially Thanos. It's really something for me to think about to be honest. When I see Jesus, I absolutely see a powerless being, but I can't help but see him as having given up ultimate power, which constitutes the Grace I was talking about. It very well may be a limitation in my thinking though and you've given me a lot to think about.

On a weirdly related note, I just came across this upcoming DC comic that may actually get into these issues. I have reserved it from my local comic shop and look forward to reading it. Maybe it's probing some of these same questions? https://aleteia.org/2019/01/14/dc-comics-set-to-release-comic-about-the-second-coming-of-christ/

Thanks so much for taking the time to offer such great insight, Paul!

Paul F link

1/14/2019 09:25:22 pm

Thanks, Danny! I have been wrestling with this question of the assumed omnipotence and omniscience of Jesus since about 1980 when I was an English & Theology major for the B.A.
- My hunch is that our corrupt ideas about God as omnipotent have influenced our self-image as beings made in the image of the divine, and this may relate to why Christian nations, with a gospel that commands love of enemies, would ever have Crusades, and later develop nuclear weapons.
- But I was also a comic book kid, and watched TV episodes of Superman, including one where he vibrates himself at a sub-atomic level or something, in order to pass through solid walls that he could not break. [I figured then that this may explain how Jesus entered the upper room. Since then I've revised my understanding: Jesus said at the last supper thru bread & wine that he was in them, so of course he could appear tho' the doors and windows were shut and locked. He was already there, in them....]
- I saw "Infinity War" and am looking forward to how they will resolve the plot in the next film(s). I think Thanos is feeling empty about the sacrifices he made, and perhaps bored, so perhaps a change of heart is in store? There could be a long, boring film that shows him over a few millennia, feeling guilty and bored, and then finally changing the time line so that he loses to the Avengers. But that would not be an Avengers film. It would be an update of the conversion of Saul.

Infinity War and Secular Religion

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