Last Friday I went to see Interstellar with a few of my family members. I had heard a lot of great buzz about the film and was excited to see it. The film was very exciting indeed! I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end, with all of the unexpected twists and turns of the plot, the virtually incomprehensible scientific jargon, and the tear-jerker ending, which served as the perfect finale for the richly relational emotional overtones that pull the viewer through the movie with gravitational force.
Yet, while the viewing experience was indeed enjoyable, I have a much different perspective on it’s philosophical plausibility. And while you might say that philosophical plausibility should not be expected of a movie, I would argue that we do and should expect movies to be philosophically plausible. Movies are designed to present an alternative to reality; good movies make that alternative reality at least foundationally plausible. Interstellar did not succeed in doing this.
At the ground level, the problem is the basic premise behind the plot: the three-dimensional present version of humanity is saved from impending annihilation by a five-dimensional future version of humanity. Do you see the problem with this? In order for future humanity to save present humanity from impending destruction, present humanity would need to survive impending destruction. If present humanity survives impending destruction, there is no need for it to reach back through time and save itself.
While this is enough to make the entire plot completely implausible (although no less enjoyable because you don’t realize this problem until the movie is ending), my real problem with the movie is much deeper.
The narrative that comprises Interstellar is a contribution to a theme that has become more and more popular over the past few decades. That theme is what I call Darwintheism.
Now I know you might think that Darwinism and Theism are irreconcilable categories, but they are not. Darwinism cannot be reconciled with Creationism, but it can definitely be reconciled with Theism. In fact, I would say that Darwinism is inherently theistic. You cannot be a darwinist and an atheist at the same time; if you believe in Darwin, you believe in god.
Darwinism is what you might call eschatological anthropotheism. The difference between creationism and darwinism is that creationism puts God at the beginning and at the end and darwinism only puts him at the end.
The theory of evolution is not just about our past; it is about our future. Those who hold to it believe that we are living on the continuum of an infinite evolutionary progression. Where does it end? Only one thing can end it: the destruction of the human race. As long as we don’t destroy ourselves, we will become gods.
This is the big idea behind not only Interstellar, but a whole host of darwintheistic flics. The great crisis is that humanity may not survive. Will we destroy ourselves in a nuclear holocaust, or by poluting the earth until it is uninhabitable, or by building machines that we ultimately cannot control? We may not survive at all. But if we survive, we will evolve to become beings of extraordinary sophistication. We will transcend our three-dimensional limitations and create for ourselves a five-dimensional world. Today we take dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air; tomorrow we take dominion over the entire space-time continuum. Today we worship God (or choose not to worship him); tomorrow we become god. This is the message of darwintheism, and this message has become highly popular in the movie industry.
This theme can be seen very clearly in the recent blockbuster, Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, although the premise of Lucy is that the evolutionary process will simply give us access to increasingly higher percentages of our brain. The power to transcend space and time is already resident within the human brain; we just don’t have access to it yet. Ah, but Lucy does! And the moment she reached 100% access, she becomes . . . omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, and eternal: she becomes god. Her last words: I am everywhere.
Darwinism is not atheism. You cannot be a darwinistic atheist. If you are a darwinist, you believe that we are becoming god. The only difference is that while creationists, like myself, believe that God is past, present and future (who was, is, and is to come), darwinists believe that god is coming, and we are him. And when we become god, we will be able to save ourselves.
Both darwinists and creationists believe that God/god is coming. Darwinism believes that a big bang creates god; Creationists believe that a big God creates humankind. Which is more plausible?
