Okay, hear me out. Sure, this text just isn’t solely going to talk positively concerning the Grownup Swim present Rick and Morty, however it’ll illustrate how the present, significantly the sixth episode of Season Two (“The Ricks Should Be Loopy”) really argues for the existence of God. Now, I’m not naive to the emotions of its creators, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland—who might or might not determine as atheists themselves (Harmon a minimum of appears open to the numinous world)—nor to its characters’ pathos relating to God. The final contempt for God displayed by Rick, a stand-in for philosophical materialism and scientism, seems to be considered positively since he’s the brash anti-hero of the present. Nonetheless, one who pays consideration will see how emotionally and existentially bankrupt this philosophy leaves Rick, regardless of his devotion to the “fact” of his place. This doesn’t disprove these positions, however it actually just isn’t a powerful argument for his or her desirability.
In case you have not seen this episode, or any episodes, of Rick and Morty, here’s a transient synopsis. The battery for Rick’s spaceship just isn’t offering energy, so Rick and Morty are shrunk right down to go inside and “repair” it. Once they enter the battery, we discover out that what has been powering it’s a tiny neighborhood that Rick has created, which he calls a “Micro-verse.” The inhabitants of this Micro-verse have been conditioned to consider their objective is to maneuver a rudimentary pedal, which is what generates energy for the battery. They see Rick as a god as a result of he created them and gave them objective, not questioning the triviality of mentioned objective. Morty, after all, objects to this case, referring to it as “slavery however with further steps.”
The episode appears to current the notion of God as only a greater model of Rick, and all of us as simply residing in our personal Micro/Mini/Teeny-verse.
Rick discovers the explanation everybody has stopped pedaling and subsequently stopped powering his battery. There has emerged inside this neighborhood its personal model of Rick, a scientist named Zeep, who has created his personal battery that’s powered by (you guessed it) its personal smaller neighborhood known as the “Mini-verse.” Now Rick, Morty, and Zeep all journey to this Mini-verse the place they encounter one other model of Rick/Zeep named Kyle. They uncover that Kyle is on the verge of making his personal “Teeny-verse,” which can quickly be the supply of energy for his or her neighborhood, persevering with the chain of obsolescence.
At first look, this seems to be a scathing indictment in opposition to God (which is probably going the writers’ intentions). It appears to current the notion of God as only a greater model of Rick, and all of us as simply residing in our personal Micro/Mini/Teeny-verse. Whereas this might need rhetorical attraction as a result of it’s dramatized and consists of jokes, it really doesn’t make any argument in opposition to God’s existence. At most, it argues in opposition to God’s goodness, as a result of it presents our objective in life as trivial, just like the inhabitants of the assorted verses from the episode. The dearth of significance just isn’t confirmed within the episode both, since proving a detrimental (like lack of which means) is just about unimaginable, and the way one values which means is solely subjective. It does, nevertheless, current two associated concepts—that God is merely a “greater being” and that meaning-in-life is silly—in a memorable manner that may play nicely into one’s affirmation bias.
Mockingly, the motion between these verses and the truth that all of them are designed with a objective, presents two classical examples of arguments for God’s existence, as articulated by one among Christianity’s biggest academics, Thomas Aquinas. Within the first of his well-known “5 methods” for God’s existence present in his Summa Theologiae (half I, query 2, article 3), he provides what known as “the best way of movement.”
Ultimately, there has to be one thing exterior of nature itself to account for the motion inside nature.
That is really a re-fashioning of Aristotle’s argument from movement, which states that any object in movement needed to have been moved by one thing exterior of it. Every earlier mover requires extra energy to maneuver the entire objects after them, much like what we noticed in Rick and Morty, the place every battery powered the neighborhood above it. With the intention to get the “final” object, the one most current to us, there must be a primary object that began the sequence, one which was not moved by something earlier than it. This Unmoved Mover would have to be omnipotent, or all-powerful, as a result of it’s transferring all the pieces after it. Classical theists, together with Christians, would name this all-powerful Being “God.”
Despite the fact that the joke of the episode is that the communities preserve getting smaller and smaller, this can not go on indefinitely or there would by no means have been the “essential” neighborhood. With out Rick, the “first mover” on this sequence, there couldn’t have been the subsequent and the subsequent. It took extra energy to construct the preliminary battery in order that the battery may energy a small a part of that world, Rick’s spaceship. Even when they continued touring right down to smaller and smaller communities (insert yet one more synonym for “small” right here), it nonetheless took the First Mover to start out the sequence. If Rick was the pseudo-god to his Micro-verse, then wouldn’t it not work in the wrong way and get greater? If Rick was good sufficient to design his battery, wouldn’t it take One thing even smarter to design the world that created Rick? Ultimately, there has to be one thing exterior of nature itself to account for the motion inside nature. This One thing must be above nature, or supernatural: i.e. God.
If God liked humanity a lot that he freely selected to share in that humanity, then that isn’t a God who determines functions frivolously.
The second argument this episode presents is Aquinas’s fifth manner, typically known as the argument from design or objective. This argument states that all the pieces inside nature acts in the direction of a designed finish. We see this in residing issues that act in the direction of diet and procreation, in addition to in non-living issues which should be moved by one thing clever from the skin. Simply as in logic, if one thing applies to each half inside a gaggle, one can apply that precept to the group as an entire; so too is the case with nature. If all the pieces inside nature acts in the direction of an finish or objective, then nature as an entire acts in the direction of an finish or objective. If it should be directed in the direction of that objective by one thing exterior of it, then that which directs nature should be exterior of nature. The phrase for that is supernatural, and this classical theists and Christians would name God.
Because the episode exhibits, one can take challenge with the perceived triviality of a objective. The true objective of those smaller communities is hidden from the inhabitants exactly as a result of Rick and the others know this revelation would result in their abandonment of the work. Nonetheless, this doesn’t disprove design or objective as such. Sure, it’s good to really feel one has a deeper objective; Christianity, by uniting one to Christ by way of His Physique, the Church (cf. Col. 1:18), can moderately instill this in an individual, however whether or not one feels it or not doesn’t undermine the fact of design or objective in nature.
Humanity’s objective comes from God as a result of humanity was created in God’s “picture and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Possibly the traditional pagan conception of the gods noticed humanity as their servants and play issues, however to undertaking that onto the Christian understanding of God exhibits a deep misunderstanding of Christianity and says extra concerning the particular person than about God. If God liked humanity a lot that he freely selected to share in that humanity, even when it meant ache and demise (see Phil. 2:6), then that isn’t a God who determines functions frivolously, particularly of these with whom He shares a nature.
I do know, I do know, it’s a foolish tv present, however fiction has all the time been a car for proposing and fascinating with the deepest questions of life and actuality itself. It’s why this outlet exists and why gallons of ink have been spilled on the tales which have grabbed humanity’s consideration for ages. As evidenced by many different episodes of the present, Harmon and Roiland take questions of actuality, storytelling, and philosophy critically. We should always interact with these questions critically as nicely.
