Gargoyle atop Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
Running Away from Evil
In the recent sci-fi epic Interstellar we are given a view of our world in the future, when our planet has become inhospitable due to the mistreatment of the land and the extreme effects thereafter—in this case a blight that wipes out all of Earth’s crops. NASA has gone underground, “Because public opinion wouldn’t allow spending on space exploration. Not when you’re struggling to put food on the table.”
Matthew McConaughey’s character—a farmer and former NASA pilot named Cooper—stumbles upon the hidden headquarters of the remnant of NASA and is ultimately asked to lead a mission to find a new planet capable of supporting life where the people of Earth can flee and hopefully beginning again. In a conversation one of his fellow astronauts, the mastermind behind this last-ditch mission, is praised and a stunning claim is made about the nature of evil.
Brand: Dr. Mann, well, he’s remarkable. He’s the best of us. He inspired eleven people to follow him on the loneliest journey in human history. Scientists, explorers. That’s what I love. You know out there, we…we face great odds. Death. But, not evil.
Cooper: You don’t think nature can be evil?
Brand: No. Formidable, frightening. But, no, not evil. Well is a lion evil because it rips a gazelle to shreds?
Cooper: Just what we take with us then?
Brand, who is on a mission to save humanity, seems to be at odds with human nature, thinks we are essentially evil. Obviously she thinks that running away from the world and beginning again is the solution to the problem of evil. Spoiler alert! Both of her claims—the praising of the character of Dr. Mann as well as the mistaken idea about evil—prove to be false.
When they arrive at the planet where Dr. Mann has landed he turns out to be a liar. He murders one of their fellow crew members, steals their ship, and maroons them on the planet. So this “remarkable” man ends up proving to Brand and to us that even in space, millions of miles away from Earth, evil does exists, but only if we let it. Cooper was right when he insinuated that evil was coming along for the journey.
So, Can We Escape Evil?
We can’t blame anyone for evil, especially not God. He permits evil only because He has made us free. And through the use of our free will we have a great gift of being able to make our own decisions, for good or for evil.
In Eden the decision was for evil, to disobey the one simple rule given them even when they had been given everything. You and I face decisions each day, thousands of forks in the road as C. S. Lewis brilliantly put it in the prologue to his book The Great Divorce.
“We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision.”
~ C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Evil does exist, but only if we let it. Our free will is such a powerful gift and we have the great responsibility of using it rightly, of choosing at every moment to do good.
Jesus taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
In relationship with God we find freedom from evil. We are delivered from evil in the measure that His grace and the gifts of His spirit help us to make decisions that lead us in the direction of good and away from evil at every fork in the road.
Temptations will never cease. If so, we wouldn’t have to ask God to lead us away from them. But if we do ask he’ll lead us, then we have to follow. And just as we can’t run away from evil, much less can we escape the love of God. As Patrick Coffin says “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about.” His love and His help are eternally extended to you, it is up to you whether you will accept it or not.
“Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol, there you are. If I take the wings of dawn and dwell beyond the sea, Even there your hand guides me, your right hand holds me fast.”
~ Psalm 139:7-10