“There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God”!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?
“So it is sort of a Rubicon. One goes across; or not. But if one does, there is no manner of security against miracles. One may be in for anything.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, ch. 11)
I found this so “me” that it is embarrassing. Yes, I was searching and dabbling, and then it became real. I am telling you frankly, believe it or not, embarrassing though it might be for us intellectuals (as it was for Lewis and other intellectuals at Oxford), that the Holy Spirit is real. No kidding. And, just as they say, it comes through you like a river and you know it is as real as if it were water. But then it leaves. Then it leaves and you are left standing in the desert with a choice to believe or not. It has been given; now, do you revert back to what, from the perspective of the Spirit, seems blind, or do you now shake your head and say, “that was an illusion! Enough of that! That’s for crazy ignorant fanatics!” You are split; you don’t want to abandon what you have found – or what has found you - because you realize that in this different reality there are miracles, marvels, the possibility for anything - the end to tedium and meaninglessness. But you don’t want to be played the fool. And there are so many reasons to disbelieve.
It is so that I was struck after seeing the movie, “The Clover Field Paradox.” There is no theological intent, pro or con, at all in this movie. Rather, it is a fairly well-done sci-fi pic that uses the outlandish and controversial physics of a “multi-verse” to create a horror thriller. The plot goes like this: Earth is running out of energy. Nations are gearing up for war. An international effort has been put forth to take a particle accelerator into space, where it can (somehow) smash through space-time to create endless energy for our planet. Test after test fails and rumblings of war increase down below. They only have enough power to have two more tests. They run it again and “bam!” Power surges! Yay! But then something goes horribly wrong. Parts of the accelerator blow up, and then very weird things happen. A crew member’s arm is swallowed by a wall, and then comes back on its own to communicate with the crew by writing; a woman is found partially enmeshed in interior wiring, a woman who was not on the space station before; a tech crew member goes crazy and dies, but the “arm” writes that the missing gyrocompass is inside him. It is. And the strange woman turns out to be a crew member – from an alternative reality.
And so it goes, weirdness followed by weirdness, catastrophe followed by catastrophe. There is no appreciable order in this in-between state. We learn that there is order in other states – just very different order. In fact, as the multi-verse goes, all possible universes exist infinitely, some with natural laws that are impossible from our perspective – space and movement without time, for instance, or existence of objects at different locations at the same time, and so on.
A real nightmare from our reality, which is why it is such a good theory for horror movies (also, because it is so weird and complex, the writers can make up anything at all. A writer’s dream). It is a nightmare because there is no ultimate order in the multi-verse – all things can and do happen in every possible way, which is infinite. The problem is, in such a reality (or infinite set of realities), where is truth? While an omnipotent god can, by definition, make and handle such a situation, we cannot, nor ever will be able to. In this infinite set of realities, what is death? The beginning or end? Even, presumably, good and evil? There is nothing firm, no values, no behaviors, nothing to hold on to at all. How could we be capable of handling such a broad reality? How could we judge ourselves in any possible way? We could say that we should determine our behavior and truth by our own dimensional laws, but that would not be universal truth. Where, then, do we gain footing? Where can we even begin to say, “there is truth?”
The multi-verse theory is controversial, to say the least, and perhaps we shouldn’t even think about it, but such movies force me to, and force me to consider: under what circumstances do I still hold firm to the “spirit”? Of the 12 Apostles, (not including Judas, but including his replacement, another Judas) all died as martyrs, holding firmly to their beliefs even under extreme torture. They did not have ideas about multi-verses, but the ancient world was awhirl in ideas and beliefs about gods and different realities. What made these guys hold out against such pain and death – and, just as importantly, why? Was it the desperation of the ego, so committed to a reality that its loss was considered worse than death? We hear of such stories about people overwhelmed by invaders such as the Taino Indians of Cuba, who purposefully killed themselves en masse rather than become part of the Spanish colonial system. Was this the way of the Apostles and early Christians?
It could be, and so movies about the multi-verse, as well as others about inherent evil, throw me off any pedestal of certainty that I might have. On the other hand, I have to recall just what the Holy Spirit gives us – a glimpse of a totally different reality that puts our normal view on a par with a child’s game. This goes for other views we might have of reality, including theories about a multi-verse. These, too, become small potatoes in light of Spirit, which is beyond all thought and “laws.” It is the living water, lived only as IS because it IS what is. No mind games, no arms merging with walls, nothing freaky, but so different that freaky is normal in comparison.
What happens when one goes over this Rubicon of the Holy Spirit? In ancient times, crossing the Rubicon River from Rome meant leaving the homeland to embark in war. Once war is started, there is no going back, because bringing in another side takes away that choice. Here, we seemingly have a choice; the war is with common reality, but we can and often do return to it almost instantly after crossing the “Rubicon” of the Spirit. It seems we can turn from it at a whim, at any time or forever.
But maybe not. Maybe once we are immersed in the waters of that river, it brings it into play, if not against our will, then against our normal judgement. Why else would some consent to being tortured instead of simply bowing before a statue of Zeus, and then continuing on as usual? That, I believe, is what I would do. But again, maybe not. Maybe once we have crossed this Rubicon, we can never be safe, as Lewis said, from miracles. Anything can happen. We do not know what, and we also do not know how we have been changed. We have been placed into a multiverse that reaches to a firm foundation that, somehow, has no end, but it is not chaos. It is peace and light. We can turn from it, but once crossed, can we ever forget it? And if not, can we really go on as if nothing at all has ever happened?
Again, I don’t really know; but I do believe that once we cross the river, we witness a fantasy land that is more fantastic than imagination and more real than real. It just might reach us once we are safe – and bored – back home. Maybe against our will, but more likely, with a will that is ours but that we never knew we had - at least not in this dimension, or this side of the river.
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