Some friends and I went to see the latest Thor movie, quite excited about the action sequences — Natalie Portman wielding Mjolnir, seeing sparks fly when Thor and Jane Foster were reunited. Christian Bale was portrayed as the bad guy effectively — he made me shudder. One of my friends dubbed it a “popcorn movie.”
Easy to watch, not intended to be thought-provoking or multi-layered, even though the movie briefly touched on the themes of death, gender identity, masculinity, feminism, sacrifice, and more.
I won’t give too much away in case you are planning to see the film, but I want to talk about the spiritual elements of Thor: Love and Thunder.
1. Universal Power, A Popular Platform
One of the most common ideas propounded in modern society (at least the society I live in) is that the universe is a power in its own right.
It has a personality and wants to do things for you. “I think the universe is trying to tell me something.” “I’ll just put out positive thoughts to the universe.” Have you heard those words before?
I don’t want to read too much into what Taika Waititi was trying to do with his film, but when you love Jesus, he affects the way you see everything. His Spirit inside of us causes us to question alternative beliefs.
Spoiler alert: the antagonist goes in search of the power at the center of the universe to ask for something. The movie brings pantheistic ideas to life, and gives them a color and a shape.
Thor: Love and Thunder provoked a response to, among other things, these contrasts between Pantheism and Christianity.
2. Appealing Is Personal
If power in the universe wants something to happen to you for better or worse, doesn’t that imply there is a person behind those thoughts?
In other words, what is the difference between asking the universe to heal your friend after he is involved in a car crash (for example) and asking God to do that?
I know what the difference is for me. When I came to see Jesus as the center of the world, I realized that he is not remote. I appeal to someone real, the one who made me, knows my name, knows my worries, and cares deeply about me.
He is alive now, not as a ghost but as a real person. He is also alive in me by his Holy Spirit and dwells within me and simultaneously with every believer. His Spirit sanctifies and changes those who are saved.
A relationship flows two ways. I can’t give God anything he needs. All I can give him is my worship and obedience, but that’s enough. It’s all he wants.
I don’t have to prove anything to him in order to “earn” his love because I didn’t earn it in the first place. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). He loved me before I knew that I loved him and in spite of my imperfect love.
3. Power or Powers?
A pantheist might argue that the universe is made up of lots of powers, not just one. I have a difficult time imagining how they would all be in accord on anything, let alone matters of right and wrong.
Just think about society as we know it — we can’t agree on the morality of abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, or the death penalty. We don’t know if certain drugs should be legalized or the criteria upon which to base the reasonableness of private gun ownership.
Now imagine that a group of powers comes together to rule the universe, but they argue. When someone approaches the universe asking for a thing (healing, finding a job, or a spouse), one deity says “yes” and provides that thing, but another deity undermines that decision.
None of them is going to just let something happen if it’s a matter about which they are passionate, right? Are they passionate enough about anything to fight for what they believe is right?
Not to mention the question of karma: someone would have to be the karmic economist, but which god? There would be karmic spreadsheets everywhere if they all had a say in the matter. Administration would grind to a halt.
But even if you said, “I think the universe is one god, not many,” I, for one, would be anxious all the time that I’d done too many bad things or failed too often to do good things. How would I ever know?
It’s hard to imagine, too, how a karmic system would permit the human race to continually come to the same point. We just cycle through the same crises at intervals, and evil people continue to enter the world.
If the powers in the universe continue to weed out the bad through their karmic system, turning some people into bugs and others into more highly evolved individuals, what went wrong? Nothing has really changed.
The Bible says so, too: “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). We wait now for Jesus to return, knowing that he is not evolving the human race; he is saving and sanctifying individuals who turn to him for salvation.
4. For a Limited God Only
Gorr, the God Butcher, proposes to get hold of a certain key in order to be the first to approach the central universal power and ask for him/her/it to do something. The suggestion here is multifaceted:
- One can “win” the favor of such a deity.
- One can do so even if his longings are evil.
- This deity’s powers are limited.
- This deity is in one place all the time.
- This deity can be manipulated.
In other words, what sort of god is this? One has to strive all the time to gain favor, and striving can involve evil. The God Butcher (as his name suggests) was a violent, evil character, yet the answer to his wishes was accessible if he could be the first one to reach the key.
The deity in question was situated in a place from which he could be accessed according to the will and strength of anyone with the key. If Gorr reached this power, any wish of his was within reach.
The universe could be manipulated to provide Gorr whatever he wanted. The outcome was based on the wishes of whoever asked rather than the will and power of a discerning deity seeking the good of all people according to a grand plan known only to him.
That’s not a god but a puppet.
5. The God of Light
Gorr was a purveyor of death. The universal center was hidden by darkness and accessible only to an elite few. The God of Israel, however, whose promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, is accessible.
He makes himself known by the glory of creation, and he came to us in human form. Jesus died and rose again: he is life.
“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Paul instructs the church at Ephesus to “walk as children of light.”
Jesus tells his disciples to ask God for what they desire, with instructions also to vet those desires against a right understanding of who he is and what he has taught them (Matthew 7).
We don’t have to traverse heaven and earth to find Jesus, who is everywhere all the time by his Spirit.
6. The God, Not a God
God’s children rely on him because “there is no rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2). He is the foundation his children stand on and cannot be manipulated to change his nature, which is to do his own will according to his own glory and for the good of his people.
Yet, how often does any person, Christian or not, beg God to do otherwise? We cry out “why, God?” when he thwarts our plans in favor of his own, better, eternal plans.
When we come to our senses, we can approach the throne of grace, confess our sin of impatience and frustration, of not trusting God, and then repent. We can ask him to change us.
Maybe a god like the one Gorr sought out would actually deny certain wishes. Who knows? But a loving God doesn’t give us what we want; he gives us what we need in order to glorify himself first and then to transform us, not into better people but into godly people.
We are being “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
That is, we come to resemble Christ more and more, not to the point of perfection during our mortal lives, but it’s our desire that the Lord will continue to sanctify us until we go home.
God is not granting the wishes of evil people. Their evil longings have nothing to do with him. He is answering the prayers of his people, whether to say “yes,” “no,” or “wait,” but always on his own terms.
God doesn’t leave us when we grieve but walks with us personally. Gorr was distraught because the promise of life was a false promise. He had nothing left for himself except vengeance.
Jesus’ followers have good reason to hope for more and to lay their anger and vengeance aside. He proved at the resurrection that he really is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Our hope for eternity is based on a well-documented fact: Jesus defeated death.
7. The God Who Never Leaves Us
The Triune God is not content to leave us where we are; he loves us too much to leave us in despair. He gave himself according to his promise because of who he is, not as a reward for the good we do or the sins we don’t commit.
I don’t know if Waititi was trying to spark conversation or just make a fun film, but he sure inspired me to think about the reasons I love my Savior and to contrast God’s deep, life-giving love with the dead center of a pantheistic vision.
For further reading:
4 Things You Should Know about Thor: Love and Thunder
How Does the Lord Love with an Everlasting Love?
Photo Credit: ©WaltDisneyStudios
