The Matrix and the Death of God

It has been quite a long time since I last posted... nearly two months. Sorry about that. I wasn't intending to have such a long interim between posts, but I've been rather busy. I disappeared to Florida for two weeks to spend some time with my amazing girlfriend and her amazing family, and school has been, well, school. Hopefully I will post on a more frequent basis... because I've had plenty of things to think about.

Today, I've been thinking about the Matrix and its philosophical/religious underpinnings. I've intended to write a post talking about Christian interpretations of the Matrix for several years now (I'm not exaggerating here), but the gamer magazine GamePro beat me to it a few years back, in the issue in which they featured The Matrix: Path of Neo. Sadly, there is no digital version of this article on the mag's website, and back issues are not available. Pity.

Now, I just might write that post someday. But even more pressing is not the issue of if there can be Christian messages or philosophies interpreted from the films (and there certainly can be), but the issue of the absence of God.

Simply put, in the world of the Matrix, God is not there.

Yeah, there's references to God and there's Biblical symbolism (e.g. 'Zion' as the last human stronghold, which may or may not be a reference to end-times theology and Jerusalem), but God in the sense of the infinite-personal God is conspicuously absent. He's mentioned in profanity ("God damn," "Jesus Christ," etc.), but that's just about it.

Focus on the profanity issue for a second. Obviously God was on the scene at some point; otherwise there would be no blaspheming. This is corroborated in The Animatrix, in the episode The Second Renaissance Part II, when priests are blessing soldiers about to go and fight the Machines (this happens about two minutes in).

So: it's been established that God was there. So when did He leave?

In The Matrix Reloaded, when the humans gather in the 'temple' to be addressed, Councilor Hamman delivers the 'opening prayer' and speaks of remembering the brave ones fighting against the Machines, as well as remembering 'those that have been lost.'

Let us give thanks for those that have been found and stand here beside us. Now I would like someone else to close this prayer... (enter Morpheus)

The Councilor is delivering a prayer. But what kind of prayer, exactly? According to the Oxford American Dictionary, prayer has three definitions:

a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship : I'll say a prayer for him | the peace of God is ours through prayer.

• ( prayers) a religious service, esp. a regular one, at which people gather in order to pray together : 500 people were detained as they attended Friday prayers.

• an earnest hope or wish : it is our prayer that the current progress on human rights will be sustained.

The actual script for Reloaded doesn't provide too many details. As Kid runs into the Temple, he runs into a couple of ladies carrying baskets filled with bread and mushrooms; the script describes them as 'priestesses.' There's no mention of whether or not the gathering is a religious service or just a regular gathering. There's talk of 'prayer' and 'giving thanks,' but to whom are we praying, and to whom do we give thanks? It is entirely possible that the Councilor would leave this open to interpretation, after all, there could be Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, etc. in the crowd: let them decide who they're talking to. But I'm still not seeing any connections.

At least on a symbolic level, it would seem that Neo himself has almost (almost) taken the place of God. When he arrives in Zion, there are swarms of people waiting for him, asking him to watch over their sons and daughters stationed on various ships. They also have food and other items with him (there's an Oriental chap in the foreground as soon as you see the elevator doors open, he's in an orange robe, and looks like he's carrying incense... is he some sort of monk?), and I'm guessing that they offer these things to him or at least ask his blessing.

This interpretation of Neo almost makes sense when looking at other contexts in the trilogy... [WARNING: if you haven't seen the sequels, I strongly advise skipping over this part because there are major, major spoilers!]

-Neo dies in The Matrix, but is brought back to life by Trinity (death and resurrection of Christ)

-When Trinity dies in Reloaded, Neo brings her back to life (Christ raised Lazarus from the dead)

-in Revolutions, when Neo announces that he needs to take a ship to the Machine City, and Niobe reflects on how the situation seems to be orchestrated by Providence, Morpheus interjects by telling Niobe that he didn't think that she believed in Providence, to which Niobe replies: "I don't. I believe in him [Neo]."

-and of course, in Revolutions, Neo sacrifices himself to save Zion (Christ sacrificing Himself to save humanity, or as the Wachowskis refer to it in Path of Neo, 'the Jesus thing.')

-Not to mention the countless references to Neo as a Messiah, as well as the 'prophecy' of the Oracle (Christ is Messiah, His coming was foretold in numerous prophecies in the Old Testament)

But one of the most striking scenes that would fit with this idea of Neo-as-God is the scene in Reloaded when Commander Lock grills Morpheus about leaving a ship in the Matrix to await contact from the Oracle:

A different interpretation of God's absence from the world of The Matrix would be that God chose to judge humanity (end-times, anyone?) by allowing the Machines to do what they did in taking over the world, enslaving all the humans, etc. In step with the Deistic view of God, He merely pushed the buttons and calmly stepped aside to watch the chaos, which would make sense with Him being around before the war started. But even that seems like a stretch. Then of course, once there is peace between the Machines and the humans, the humans continue to exist peacefully in Zion (do they ever go elsewhere now that the war is over?), what's the point of existing besides existing? Ahh, complicated things...

So there it is. Some thoughts about God and the Matrix. Not much of a coherent argumentative post, but it's something interesting (at least I think so). Matrix buffs, feel free to add your own input.

And I promise I'll try to update the blog with increased frequency.

UPDATE: I meant to put this in there while I was writing but I forgot about it in the process. I know that The Matrix is just a movie. I'm not taking all of this as seriously as it might seem. I had an idea, and I explored it; that's all. (at least, that's what I'd like you to believe *wink*)

(H/T: Josh)