Monday, May 11, 2009

The Gospel According to Star Trek


I saw the new Star Trek Film this last weekend and I was blown away. I don't want to give away the movie in case you have not seen it, but there is one major idea from the film that I must bring up. The movie is action-packed but it does have great philosophical implications concerning Free-Will and Destiny. Are you who you are just because of the culmination of your choices, genetics, and the circumstances you live through? Or are you who you are because you were meant to be who you are and where you are? Let me explain how the movie bring this up.

The main plot of the Movie is that Spock and the Romulans accidentally go back-in-time (from the time of the Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager series) to the time that Captain Kirk was born and many things changed creating a parallel Universe. However in this universe Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Scottie, and Checkov still became the people we remember in the Original Series although they took different paths to the roles they end up in. Even their personalities and who they are as people did not change. What does this mean?

In the universe depicted in Star Trek, there is still the idea of destiny. Kirk and crew of the Enterprise have a destiny to greatness. I doubt that the film makers are making a claim of God's soveriegnty, but the question does come up: Who dictated that Captain Kirk would be captain of the Enterprise? For that matter who determines your destiny. The Bible has an answer in Acts 17:22-31 -

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."


Some great reviews for the Movie:
What NOW For "Star Trek" Warning Full-Of-Spoilers


A Movie Review

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