“Big cosmology has become our secular religion, a church even atheists can join.” – Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine
I cannot stop thinking about Interstellar.
In the interest of full-disclosure, my husband and I named our son Nolan (after the film’s director, Christopher Nolan), so I am predisposed to think that anything Chris Nolan creates is worthwhile. My hope, however, is that you will judge for yourself and go and see this movie.
I am not going to say anything about the film itself because I don’t want to spoil any of it for those who haven’t already seen it. (If you really want to delve into the content of the film more deeply, listen to the Empire Magazine spoilers podcast [http://www.empireonline.com/podcast/], which includes interviews with Nolan and Jessica Chastain.) What I will say is that it’s a hauntingly beautiful movie that, in Nolan’s characteristic style, has its head in the stars and its feet on the ground. It is eminently relatable, probing both life’s big, far away questions and small, at home ones.
The whole movie, which is very much grounded in astrophysics and cosmological theory (Kip Thorne, professor emeritus at CalTech known for his work on relativistic astrophysics and gravitation physics, is an executive producer and scientific advisor on the film), clearly operates within a naturalistic worldview. “Anomalies” are all explainable without reference to the supernatural because, by definition, naturalism does not hold the existence of anything outside (super-) the natural world, perceived with the senses. The closest any of the characters gets to making any sort of religious statement has to do with that which cannot be neatly quantified: love.
It reminds me of something Dallas Willard wrote in Knowing Christ Today: “…does Christ still make himself present at the most elevated levels of modern thought? Yes, and intellectually careful people know that it is so, even if they will not or cannot speak his name or use his word, ‘love’” (p. 86). Even if many cannot admit that there might be a nonphysical being that initiated and relates with the world (not to mention a resurrected Christ), they hopefully will relate to the idea that love is something spiritual and meaningful, outside of science and data.
This film, to me, is an example of how people try to make sense of the world, including its anomalies, within a naturalistic worldview. It gives us a window into the soul of many in our society and points out what could be fruitful common ground for considering together life’s ultimate questions.
That’s all I will say for now. Go see the movie, then email me so we can talk more.
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