Spiderman 3 vs. Romans 1

I saw Spiderman 3 on Sunday. I must admit, apart from the play-by-play commentary from the couple behind us (to whom I wanted to say several times, “I was confused by that obvious plot development, thanks for clarifying”), I thought it was the best of the trilogy. The reason I liked it so much was because of the main theme: You always have the choice to do what is right.

Hearing this on the big screen was refreshing for several reasons. For one, the idea of personal responsibility today has given way to situational ethics. Who is to say what is right or wrong in a situation? He was just a victim of the circumstances; you can’t really fault him. Recall Lewis’ opening example in Abolition of Man of the person who believes this kind of thing—right up until he is the one wronged. At that point we discover he really does have a standard of Right and Wrong, to which he expects everyone else to adhere.

Second, today we tend to suffer from a myopic, if not outright blind, view of the past. For example, when someone says, “I didn’t choose to be such and such,” they are thinking about their current state. But do they give thought to the perhaps thousands of decisions they did make to arrive at this state (if you have seen the movie, think about the Sandman)? This reminds me of Romans 1:21-32:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

At the point when God gave them over to their desires, they may well have said, “I didn’t choose to be this way.” And in the short-term, they didn’t. God chose for them to be this way. But in the broader context, in effect their whole life was a choice to edge closer and closer to the precipice. When the Wind knocked them off the ledge, they had no choice but to fall. But they did choose where to stand.