Audio only:
Loki now has his own TV show on Disney+, and the god of mischief raises serious issues of atheism, polytheism, freewill, and conversion. We get Joe Heschmeyer’s take on all of it from a Christian perspective.
Cy Kellett:
Disney’s Loki raises big questions. Joe Heschmeyer’s glorious purpose is to answer them, next on Focus.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. And like many people, I have watched Loki, the new Marvel series on the Disney+ platform, and it’s pretty good. And one of the good things about it, is it raises some ultimate questions, some questions of meaning, and purpose, and God, and gods, and all that kind of stuff. And if you’ve got some ultimate questions, who better to ask them one of these Catholic Answers Apologists. So here’s what Joe Heschmeyer had to say about Loki.
Cy Kellett:
Joe Heschmeyer, Apologist, here at Catholic Answers. Nice to have you in the studio.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Thanks. It’s good to be in the studio.
Cy Kellett:
And you’ve seen Loki?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I have seen Loki.
Cy Kellett:
The six-episode TV series from Disney+.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yes. I’m a lifelong Marvel fan. I did it before it was even work.
Cy Kellett:
Well, a lot of guys here in the building, mostly from the video department, really wanted us to take a look at Loki. And the idea was, it raises quite a few issues that are related to what we do. Ultimate questions kind of issues. You felt that way?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I did. Even as the show is going on, they occasionally almost flag like, “Here’s a big issue to think about.” And then they actually kind of move forward while you’ve got those big questions in the back of your mind.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. I didn’t think that it resolved all of them.
Joe Heschmeyer:
No. I don’t think it intends to.
Cy Kellett:
Maybe it’s not supposed to resolve all them. I don’t know. But it was kind of cool to see that they were raised.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. It’s not like a Terrance Malnick film. It’s a Marvel-like superhero show.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so I think it’s intending to just say, “Oh, yeah. That’s kind of an interesting thought,”-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… and then it plays with it a little bit, more than trying to come up with any real conclusion to it.
Cy Kellett:
Well, how about if I show you some clips, and we’ll talk about issues that these clips raise?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Should we give a spoiler warning? If you haven’t seen the show-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Don’t watch what we’re about to do.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Exactly. You’re going to be annoyed with us.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. And we both enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I think maybe a content warning for parents, especially maybe think about it for their kids. There are a couple scenes, one in particular that sort of eludes to bisexuality, and I think there’s a little bit of language throughout. It’s, I think, intended for teenagers and older. So bear that in mind.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. And as much as we appreciate the work that Disney does, they, this is something that’s common in Disney work now.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Unfortunately, I think they’ve really tried to use this as a bully pulpit for the cultural revolution.
Cy Kellett:
Exactly. All right. Let’s go time traveling and we’ll… First of all, I probably should set this up. There are two characters, that you’re about to see, if you’re watching this, or hear. One of them is Loki, and the other one is Loki. Because one of the themes of this show is a multiverse, where there might be another Joe Heschmeyer that’s just a little bit different from you and then there might be other Joe Heschmeyers that are very different from you. And it goes on and on. Maybe there’s an infinite number of Joe Heschmeyers. They don’t say, but…
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I feel like the Latin nerds listening to this show are like, “Isn’t Loki already plural?” But this is a L-O-K-I.
Cy Kellett:
This is an Anglo-Saxon term. This is not Latin. Ready?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
All right, here we go.
Loki:
“All right. Slow down, Variant.”
Sylvie:
“What part of imminent death confuses you? Don’t call me, Variant.”
Loki:
“I’m sorry about not calling some faded photocopy of me, Loki.”
Sylvie:
“Good. Because that’s not who I am anymore. I’m Sylvie now.”
Loki:
“Oh, you changed your name. Brilliant.”
Sylvie:
“It’s called an alias.”
Loki:
“It’s not very Loki-like.”
Sylvie:
“Yeah. What exactly makes a Loki, a Loki?”
Loki:
“Independence, authority, style.”
Cy Kellett:
All right. So there’s the two of them talking. Both of whom are Loki. I like the, “It’s not very Loki-like.” It’s a little play on, “Not very lady-like,” that people often say to women. So what does that raise for you? When you watch that, what can… Because I know this one was one that you thought, “Oh, that’s a major issue that [crosstalk 00:05:30].”
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. The principle of identity stuff going on there is really interesting. This is going to sound very strange. There’s actually a really solid disproof of atheism embedded in that dialogue.
Cy Kellett:
I just want to repeat that, because that’s actually strikes me. You think that there’s something here that disproves atheism?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I do.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So what’s that?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I think what they’re flagging is that a materialistic… And materialistic here, I don’t mean like greedy. I mean people who think matter is all there is.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That kind of materialistic. That view of the universe doesn’t account for identity. It doesn’t account for how you can be Cy. I can be Joe. Forget clones, forget Variants, and replicas.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
It doesn’t account for what makes us, us. And you can see this. Actually, Carl Sagan had a line. I actually printed it out, to make sure I was able to quote him fairly. He says, “I’m a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here, but molecules? Some people find this idea somehow demeaning to human dignity.” Do you think? “For myself, I find it elevating that our universe permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we are.”
Joe Heschmeyer:
Well, here’s the problem with Sagan’s view. And I think that Sylvie is tapping into it. If you are just a collection of molecules, that collection of molecules is changing as we speak.
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So you don’t exist. There’s no meaningful sense in which Cy… That’s just the label we slap onto whatever molecules happen to be roughly shaped like you-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… at any given moment. There’s no continuity. There’s no principle of any kind of underlying unity-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… that makes you the same person that you were a year ago, or 10 years ago, or tomorrow, or in the next breath. And so there’s just no person… There’s no good account for identity, meaning there’s no good account for personhood. That’s a really basic thing for a worldview to need to provide.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And the fact that even brilliant scientists are saying it. The issue is not just that it’s demeaning. The issue is that it actually fails to meet the-
Cy Kellett:
It doesn’t explain it.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. It totally doesn’t explain.
Cy Kellett:
It’s non-explanatory. And you just have to live with a non-explanation, if you’re going to accept that.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Exactly. And so the great thing about the Loki show is there’s this multiverse, so you have different matter and you have… So there is this question of, “Okay. Well, if it’s no matter in common at all”… We see them next to each other. They’re clearly not using the same atoms.
Cy Kellett:
Right. So what’s the identity of-
Joe Heschmeyer:
In what sense can he- Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… Loki? I see.
Joe Heschmeyer:
What does it even mean to say both of them are Loki on different timelines?
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Why wouldn’t we just say they’re two different people? For that matter, because-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. They’re not the same person.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… they’re not the same person. Like identical twins have more in common-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… than these two Loki.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so then the question becomes, “Okay, so what does?” And it’s funny-
Cy Kellett:
What makes a Loki a, Loki is a great…
Joe Heschmeyer:
Independence, which is like a terrible answer to like how you can all be the same, is that you’re all unique. You’re all independent.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Wonderful.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so there’s like a certain harmony of style-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… that Loki kind of points to as to what makes a Loki, a Loki. But, of course, that can’t be a good answer.
Cy Kellett:
No. That’s descriptive. It’s still not explanatory.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Cy Kellett:
You only go by a thing that is stylish and independent. That’s a Loki? No. What is a Loki? Like, “What is a Joe Heschmeyer?” is a great question. And Sagan’s description is demonstrably wrong.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
It’s demonstrably wrong. Because he says, “Well, you’re a group of molecules and calcium and whatnot, water, that’s labeled Joe, and I’m labeled Carl Sagan?” Well, actually, the label is not what makes me, me. Clearly,-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
… everything about me says, “This is not just a matter of labeling that makes me, me.” There’s something here that you’re labeling. What is it?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right. You can have two strangers whose names you don’t know, and you still know they’re not the same person.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Very well said. Yeah. Right. And also, I think this is also demonstrably false. He says, “It’s ennobling to say that the universe has permitted me” or something like that. Well, relative to what? It’s not ennobling relative to the claim that I am made in the image and likeness of God. Like clearly, one of those is a nobler thing. You may believe that it’s a fantasy, but it’s still a nobler thing.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right. Yeah. So both, in terms of which one’s a more plausible theory.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And in which one’s a more noble theory. Christianity and theism more broadly-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… winning hands-down, compared to an atheistic view that says, “You’re just a clump of cells or-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… atoms or molecules, or fill in the blank.” That fails to pass the basic threshold test. Now you’ll notice this kind of stuff comes up a lot in the abortion debate. It’s like, “Well, the unborn child is just a clump of cells.” And it’s like, “Yeah. But you think I’m just a clump of cells.”
Cy Kellett:
Right, yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
“You think we’re all just a clump of”…
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
How could that possibly be your argument?
Cy Kellett:
Well, it’s just a tiny clump of cells.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Oh, yeah.
Cy Kellett:
So we add a modifier to it, somehow that changes it. Well, look at you in comparison to the universe.
Joe Heschmeyer:
I can’t die, or I’ll lose some of my dignity.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Right. So you’re a tiny clump of cells. Literally, everything that’s made out of cells is tiny relative to the size of the universe.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Thank you. That’s very flattering.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Or do you want to say… Do you have one?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I’d say maybe just a couple more things.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So the totally materialistic kind of explanation doesn’t cut it. You also can’t do it on a genetic basis either. You can’t say, “A Loki is a Loki because they had such and such genes,” because identical twins share the same genes. And you also have these rare cases where a person will have two-
Cy Kellett:
Sets of genes.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so that’s not a good enough explanation. So you ultimately end up needing to point to something like the soul. That you need some sort of form to animate the matter, to put it in kind of mystic or Aristotelian terms. And in that case, Loki and Sylvie, this parallel universe Loki, they’re not the same person. They’re actually just two different people who maybe had-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… similar starting conditions. But they actually have what sounds like pretty different upbringing.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So they just have two different people who were kind of being flagged as the same person without any real explanation for why.
Cy Kellett:
No. Right. And I don’t believe in the multiverse. I’m not interested in that. I think the multiverse is a silly idea, myself. But let’s say there is a multiverse. And they’ll go, “Well, there’s a U in this other universe.” Actually, there is not a me-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
… in this other… There another person, but that person is not me. It’s not just like me. And then another me, and then another me. That’s impossible, given what an individual is.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Exactly. This question comes up in much more practical terms, with twins, with cloning, with all of those things where it’s like, “No, no.” You could take the same genes, and another person could have the exact same genetic code. There are real life situations where that happens. Tim Staples, his wife is a twin. I don’t know if she’s an identical twin or not. But my sister is married to an identical twin. Like twins exist in real life. This is not a theoretical question of, “Are they the same person?” They’re clearly different people.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so you can’t do it on that basis. You can’t do it on the basis of just molecules. Something more than that gives distinct personality-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… to each person. And to make it even more complicated, you have what are called conjoined twins or someone’s called Siamese twins where they actually will share, even in some cases,-
Cy Kellett:
Organs.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… some organs. Yeah. And so, whatever it is that’s making us unique isn’t reducible even to organs, which is fascinating.
Cy Kellett:
Because no matter how conjoined those two people are, conjoined means there’s two of them.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
There’s two people. We all know that that is two people. Okay. First of all, plaudits, applause to the Loki program for raising this question, because it’s a basic fundamental question that is very easy to avoid. What does it mean to be me?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
What is this? You know? And we may come to different answers, but it’s very, very worth at least exploring and trying to answer that question.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yes. Oh, and by the way, Carl Sagan… Like the bad answer he has is a pretty standard bad answer.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Like David Hume, the Scottish philosopher from, what it was it, the 17th Century? He has a very similar kind of answer. You will find very smart people failing this very basic question of, “What makes me, me?” pretty regularly, if they even think to ask it.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So, yeah. I like that they raise it.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. We’ll go on to our second clip.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Okay.
Mobius:
“The TVA is my life and it’s real, because I believe it’s real.”
Loki:
“Fair enough. You believe it’s real.”
Mobius:
“Yeah.”
Loki:
“So everything is written, past, present, future? There’s no such thing as free will?”
Mobius:
“Well, I mean… You know, it’s an oversimplification.”
Loki:
“So, in fact, in a way, you and I, here at the TVA, we’re the only ones who are actually free.”
Cy Kellett:
All right. I think that’s enough. There’s a lot to consider in-
Loki:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… that clip. They covered a lot. First of all, if I may just say, Owen Wilson is magnificent. Just his pausing and kind of struggling when he says, “Well, that’s an oversimplification.” That is, I think, brilliant, because what he’s really saying is, “None of this makes any sense, and if you get it right down to what I’m actually saying, it is ridiculous.”
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
It doesn’t hold up.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
It doesn’t. So [crosstalk 00:13:52]-
Joe Heschmeyer:
He articulated a view that doesn’t really-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… make sense and he’s choosing to try to believe something he knows isn’t entirely true.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Okay. So what struck you about all this?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I think there are several things. First, this question of predestination is a big one. People always raise this when it comes to, “If the past, present, and future are written in some way,-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… does that mean people aren’t free?” And the Catechism actually addresses this, in paragraph 599 and 600.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Because it talks about this in terms of God’s salvific plan. Like scripture is really clear that there’s a plan of God for Jesus to come into the world, to be crucified for our sins, to die, to rise again.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And there are a lot of bad actors in that story. I mean a lot of people who do bad things.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And the question becomes, “Well, how do we make sense of that?” If they’re doing the things God wanted done, in some sense, how can we say those are even bad things?”
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And are those people free?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Okay. So the catechism, of course, is Judas.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. Exactly. Judas highlights-
Cy Kellett:
Judas plays this key part in God’s plan. Well, in what way is a Judas free? In a certain sense, what Loki is saying, when he talks about the TVA… I mean in the context of the show. It’s outside of time in a certain sense.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
So what he’s saying is only those who are outside of time are-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… truly free. Anybody in time is not free, which is the same thing that many people would say about God. That, sure. If God’s outside of time, he’s free. He can do what he wants. But those of us in the story, we’re not free because he knows how the story ends. He knows how it progresses.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. There’s a couple things that are really interesting there. The timeline of the TVA, itself, is not super clear. Meaning that you still have an apparent progression of time. You have them having a conversation with back and forth.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
There’s clearly some sense of time passing, even within the Time Variance Authority.
Cy Kellett:
Right. So that’s not like what God-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. That’s not like what God is experiencing, in which everything is the eternal present for him. But the questions they’re trying to raise there are raised in an even more profound way of, “Well, if everything is present to God, how do we make sense of us still being free?” And I think that there, again, the catechism has a couple answers. And in paragraph 599, we’re talking about the subject plan of God.
Joe Heschmeyer:
It says the biblical language, because he is looking at St. Peter’s statement that Jesus was delivered up according to the definitive plan for knowledge of God. And the catechism says that language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God. That God is using people’s free actions. He’s not taking away their freedom to make those choices.
Cy Kellett:
Right. But we couldn’t do that.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
We’re not omnipotent and omniscient. So people think because we couldn’t do it, therefore God can’t do it. He’s the one that’s holding every cork and electron in the universe in existence. He can do that. He can have that intricate a plan that allows for the story to unfold and for each of us to be free within it.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. All of the analogies we use to try to explain this are going to fail because we’re not God.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so we can talk about certain things. For instance, penalty kicks in soccer. When you have a kick on goal, the place that statistically you’re most likely to get the ball in is kicking it right at where the goalie is, because the goalie usually goes to their left or right. So if you knew, “Okay, this goalie always goes to the left,” which would be a terrible thing to be that predictable as a goalie. But if you know he always goes to the left, you could kick with the knowledge of what he’s freely going to choose to do, and you’ve still worked that into your plan.
Cy Kellett:
Right. How interesting.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Now, that’s a pretty lagging kind of analogy because God isn’t just guessing, or even guessing with certainty. He sees these things unfolding as it were in real time. That still doesn’t make it any less free on our part. It just is harder to visualize, because that’s not how we imagine things.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Likewise, if you record the game and go back and watch it 20 times. That goalie doesn’t suddenly become a robot. There’s still a free choice.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Even if you know what’s going to happen, because you’ve already seen the game. Even if you know with certainty because you’re sort of standing outside of the time of that game-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… looking back. So, again, none of those things perfectly capture what’s going on from God’s perspective. But it points to this idea that when we talk about freedom, we usually conflate two things. One is this probability question, like what is the percent chance I’m going to do something other than what I choose to do? And the second is a capability or volitional issue of, do I actually choose it, or is it forced upon me?
Joe Heschmeyer:
And we experienced the difference. Right? There are things that you do, because you have no choice in doing them. Your heart is beating right now and you had no say in the matter. There are some things that you can’t help but to do, or can’t help but not to do. Like I’m not choosing not to float into the air right now.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
I’m not capable of doing other than obeying the law of gravity.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That’s a matter of that second category, kind of volition or choice. But there’s also the question of like, “What’s the likelihood I’m going to choose a certain thing?” Oftentimes the likelihood is 0%. I’m not going to have like a sardine sandwich with metal shavings. And you know with perfect knowledge that in no multiverse, am I going to start eating that. There’s a 0.0% chance.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That doesn’t make me not free to do it. It just means that I’m never going to choose that thing.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
The fact that I’m never going to do it is not the same as saying, “I’m not free to do it.” That’s a really easy mistake for us to make. So the flip side of that is that God can know with perfect certainty, the things that we freely choose to do or freely choose not to do, and he can work that dynamically into his plan.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Something else in here though. “It’s real, because I choose to believe it’s real.”
Joe Heschmeyer:
Oh, yes.
Cy Kellett:
I really love Owen Wilson’s character. I think he’s a great character because he’s good. He’s clearly good, but he doesn’t think through. In many ways, Loki is better at thinking things through, than his character, Mobius, is. He has a kind of, almost like a despair at the root of his thinking, which is, “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t reason that out. So I choose to believe this, and that believing it real.” Well, clearly believing does not make it real.
Cy Kellett:
I mean, the classic example is the person who believes they can fly. As soon as they jump off the side of the building, the believing fails to make the thing real.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. It’s this kind of condescending view that some nonbelievers take towards belief.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
It’s this idea that believers really know that their religion and all religion is false, but because they don’t have the courage to face the grim reality of meaninglessness,-
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… they have to invent some sort of magical story. In the same way that if you had like a loved one die and the grief was just overwhelming. You might pretend they were still alive and just on vacation somewhere. The thing is anyone should be able to hear that and say, “No, no, no. That’s actually deeply unhealthy.”
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That’s just willful, delusional thinking.”
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yes.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And someone who says, “Yeah. I’m pretending my dead wife is alive and in the next room, you wouldn’t be like, “Well, I applaud that. To believe it is for it to be real to you.” You would hopefully say, “Oh, something is deeply troubling here.” Like, “There’s something really traumatic that you’re not coping with.” And the problem is…
Joe Heschmeyer:
I think we get a sense of this with Sagan. There are atheists who realize that their worldview is traumatic. The idea that the universe comes from nothing means nothing. That human dignity is an illusion.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
All of the things. Yeah. There’s something very traumatic about that. The mistake is that they think other people also believe this on some level, know this, and just pretend otherwise. When it’s, “No, no. Actually, other people maybe just don’t have that dark of a vision of reality. They actually believe this, because they think it’s true. Not just because they’re telling themselves a funny story.”
Cy Kellett:
All right. I’m going to move on to the next one-
Joe Heschmeyer:
All right.
Cy Kellett:
… if we may. All right. Let’s get another clip.
Speaker 6:
“Maybe you started an uprising, or we’re just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a Nexus Event, which left unchecked, could branch off into madness leading to another Multiversal War.
Cy Kellett:
All right. I’m going to just going to leave it there. That’s a very small clip as part of an explanation of this whole multiverse that Loki inhabits. But I particularly like the graphic, where it’s a red line, what they call the Sacred Timeline, and then all of these branches coming off. It’s madness. As I watched the show, this was something that stuck out to me, and I wanted to ask you to reflect on it.
Cy Kellett:
It’s it occurred to me that this is essentially a polytheistic world that… And not polytheistic in the sense of all of these various gods created this world. Just we’re presenting completely from that question. We’re not even much like often ancient polytheism was. What we really need to concern ourselves with are the gods that can affect us. There are these timekeepers. Loki, himself, is a god. There’s god-like powers here and there. And all of it is chaos. It is utter chaos, and terrifying.
Cy Kellett:
And I think this is something that living 2000 years after the birth of Christ and all that Christianity… The Judaeo Christianity really contributed to a kind of assurance that the universe is the creation of a loving God, a father God, who cares for it. Without that assurance, this is what the universe is. And that’s exactly how it was for the Romans, and the Greeks, and the Indians, and the Ethiopians, and everybody before Christ came. Or certainly before the Jewish prophets began to teach about the loving God.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I think this really ties in nicely to what we were just talking about. There is this idea that a lot of atheists kind of have some sense that their philosophy is horrible. It’s horrifying.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Even if you think it’s true, you should hope it isn’t.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. My philosophy is so bad that you invented a religion to get away from it.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
That’s essentially what many atheists are saying,
Joe Heschmeyer:
It’s the opium of the masses.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Because you needed something to numb yourself to how horrible-
Cy Kellett:
Horrible. Right, to face the horror. Well, that’s an uplifting message. But here, polytheism is equally horrifying.
Joe Heschmeyer:
In a lot of ways, it’s the same thing. I know that sounds really weird. But none of the gods in Loki are real gods, in the capital G sort of God sense.
Cy Kellett:
They’re just more powerful-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. They’re just more powerful-
Cy Kellett:
… creatures.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… beings. Maybe you could hypothetically even have spiritual beings, although it doesn’t seem like they’re even spiritual. They’re just material beings that are just bigger and more powerful.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
What they mean by God isn’t capital G God.
Cy Kellett:
No.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So David Bentley Hart has a book that kind of explores this. That what Jews and Christians, and even late, like Greco Roman pagans, and Bahai and some Buddhists mean by God is the infinite uncreated creator of everything.
Cy Kellett:
Islam as well though. Does he-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. Sorry. Islam as well.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
But I’m thinking, focusing, especially on very ancient.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Islam is like-
Cy Kellett:
Islam is much less ancient.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Based in some heavyweights on Christianity.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
But I think his point is like this isn’t some Christian invention. The philosophers realized for there to be a universe, you have to have a God like this. Let me give you a-
Cy Kellett:
Or at least a demiurge. Something that create-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Something bigger than Loki offers.
Cy Kellett:
That’s right?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Because otherwise you have these just powerful beings that aren’t powerful enough to create everything.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
They still live in this uncontrolled anarchy, chaos, and then it just becomes might makes right. Aquinas’ argument from contingency, that there are some things that are contingent, meaning they have a creator. They only exist under certain conditions. You see that very clearly in a multiverse. If you go this way, this thing’s going to happen. If you go that way, it’s not going to happen. That’s the Nexus Event. Those are all contingencies. But if everything is contingent, why does anything exist? Becomes the question.
Joe Heschmeyer:
You need someone or something that’s uncreated that’s non-contingent. In philosophical terms, something necessary. And we can start to say things about that something. And so Aquinas raises this in Part 1 of the Summa. And in Question 7, he gets into the infinity of God. And one of the points he makes is, “Yes. You need one infinite God. Just to account for the existence of everything, you need a non-finite God. But you can’t have two infinite Gods, because you can’t have two contrary infinites.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So if you can’t have two all-powerful gods that disagree with each other, that’s a contradiction in terms.
Cy Kellett:
Right. And I don’t think a person like Cicero or Aristotle would have had any problem with that.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Oh, no. Aristotle pretty clearly believes in something like that.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Socrates-
Cy Kellett:
He wouldn’t have said it exactly as Thomas said it.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
But they wouldn’t have argued with Thomas, I don’t think.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Even like one of the reasons Socrates is put to death is because he realizes that the gods of the Greeks aren’t gods in this sense.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
He’s a corrupter of the youth for that reason.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so the Christians likewise were often accused of atheism because they said the gods aren’t gods.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And they weren’t saying, “We don’t believe in any gods.” They’re just saying, “What you guys mean by gods are just powerful spiritual beings,” which Christianity is fine with accepting. We’re fine saying, “They’re powerful angels. They’re powerful demons that are out there.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And we’ve been fine with calling them gods, in some senses. Like in the Psalms, God sits in the company of the gods.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
What we mean by gods, with a lowercase g, is not something equal, or equivalent, or even close to the infinite uncreated God.
Cy Kellett:
The creator?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. And so what’s striking is that polytheism, in the sense that you kind of see in Loki. It really does become another form of atheism because you have gods with no God.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, that’s right. Instead of just having humanity with no God, you have gods with no-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
You have a universe where-
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so an atheist could believe in all of that. They could believe there are powerful aliens that are way stronger than humans that would appear as God to us.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
All of that is consistent with atheism. One of the things Loki says at one point, is that Asgard is who created him, and Mobius said, “Oh, yeah. The [inaudible 00:29:08].” And then you realize like, “Oh, yeah. Asgard is just one more in this.”
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Just as there’s this multiple Lokis, there multiple Asgards.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so- Excuse me. Multiple Odins. There’s all of these super powerful gods that aren’t actually-
Cy Kellett:
Again and again,-
Joe Heschmeyer:
… powerful.
Cy Kellett:
And again.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yeah. Right. Like Loki, himself, there’s a variety of Lokis. So in what sense, is he even the God of Mischief? If there’s an infinite number of other Gods of Mischief.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And it really does bring it back to that original point. Of like, then Loki becomes just a placeholder. That means like, “Well, in our universe, the kind of tricksters we have, we’ll call them Loki.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I guess this brings up something. The sense of chaos in this universe actually I think is reemerging. I think a lot of young people who are in the Nones category. They don’t have a religious affiliation, actually do experience a universe that’s much more terrifying than the universe that a Christian young person is exposed to.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I think rightly so. It follows from their belief system.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. And many would see that as a badge of honor. “Well, yeah. My universe is more terrifying because I’m not afraid to face reality.”
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right. It’s such a circular kind of argument though. Isn’t it?
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Like “Oh, I’m not afraid to admit my parents don’t love me.” It’s like, “Well, if that’s true,-
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… then maybe you get a badge for bravery.” Although I think it’s a weird thing to be really proud of. But if instead, you’re just having an overly pessimistic view, then like you can easily distort reality in a negative way. CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy deals with people who have not rose-tinted glasses, but gray-tinted glasses.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Everything looks wrong.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Everything is viewed as worse than it is in reality. The thing we should be striving for is not having the boldest, but the most accurate vision of the world. To see reality as it truly is. So like the reason Christianity is worth following is not because it’s rosy. The reason Christianity is following is because it’s true.
Joe Heschmeyer:
The fact that reality is good is a bonus, and a bonus that I think on some level we have to acknowledge we know. Meaning this. Like even an atheist who says, “Oh, reality is horrible. Just face the terror,” still avoids death. They still get up every morning. They don’t just kill themselves. They continue to fight this fight of existence, and that fight for existence.
Joe Heschmeyer:
In some ways it’s pretty hardwired in us, that I think is pretty decent evidence that on some level we all know reality is something worth fighting for. Reality is something that’s good, that we’re part of, and we want to continue to be a part of it.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Let me get to a point that Andrew made about this in his consideration of it, and that is actually a very positive thing. And so I want to end on a positive note about Loki, that-
Joe Heschmeyer:
He [inaudible 00:32:15] guts to face the darkness of this episode.
Cy Kellett:
Yes. What’s wrong with Andrew? He’s not brave enough to face how horrible Loki is. This character, Loki, is presented as evil in many ways.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Cy Kellett:
And he even says, at one point, he’s not a child. And what distinguishes him from a child is, he claims, that he knows that no one is really good, and no one is really evil. And that’s actually not wisdom. I mean that’s false wisdom, but he has that. But there is something very true in the fact that among human beings, none of us is perfect. None of us is irredeemable here, where we are now on this earth.
Cy Kellett:
And so I’m sure that, expressed differently, we could be sympathetic to what Loki is saying. But here’s this character whose evil, who now is taken out of his kind of path in the one universe that he knew, and brought into this multiverse. And now he begins to realize, “Well, maybe there’s another aspect to me, or there are other aspects to me, and maybe I’m even capable of being good.” It’s almost a conversion experience really.
Cy Kellett:
In a weird way, a conversion experience is that. It’s by some inspiration, you’re taken out of your usual narrative where you realize a whole different possibility. So that’s a very positive part of Loki. I wonder what you thought about it.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I think that’s true. One of the critiques that I’ve seen of Loki in a lot of the, especially the Marvel kind of stories, is that they have these redemption arcs for likable and often beautiful characters, while the victims just kind of go unaddressed.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, that’s interesting.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Like if you compare it to say like the 12 steps, where you actually make amends to the people that you’ve harmed.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Here, it’s enough to just kind of feel vaguely bad for it, or realize you’d go a different direction.
Cy Kellett:
I see.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So it’s kind of an incomplete redemption in certain ways.
Cy Kellett:
I’m sure they want to have a season two, and a complete redemption of Loki would ruin the drama.
Joe Heschmeyer:
True. And a long one where he just goes door to door, apologizing to families for killing their loved ones.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. I’m sorry.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That would be a little bit of a drag.
Cy Kellett:
Sorry about that Manhattan thing.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yes. Yes. Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Like there’s a reason we don’t see the cleanup after all the Avengers saved New York and caused billions of dollars in damage.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
So I get it. We should be aware that like true redemption often is harder than just vaguely feeling bad about the things you did. Judas felt bad about what he did. He even gave back the money.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
But it was an incomplete redemption arc.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so-
Cy Kellett:
So what completes the redemption arc, in your mind?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah. I think it depends a little bit on the context. I think making actual amends is an important part, when possible. The 12 steps work because like actually facing the consequences of what you’ve done without blinking. Not as a way of like, self-loathing, not as just, “I’m no better than this.” But realizing, “If I go this way, this is what happens to people.” Is actually, I think, a really important thing.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And the second, is really turning to Christ. Obviously, you’re not going to get that in Loki. But the difference between Peter and Judas is that Peter trusts in the mercy of God. Like Peter knows that there is a way for him to be redeemed.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And there’s something, even though it’s not explicitly religious in Loki, but I think it’s kind of hinting at that. That there is this, even if he wants to be better, the people around him don’t necessarily believe he can be anything other than he was.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Joe Heschmeyer:
That he’s in the need in need of actual mercy. He’s a need of actually someone saying, “Yes, you want to be better, and you can be better, and more exists for you.” And the beautiful thing about Christianity, is there someone who can do that for us.
Cy Kellett:
Amen. Amen. All right. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed our conversation about Loki,-
Joe Heschmeyer:
Good. I really-
Cy Kellett:
… Joe Heschmeyer, Apologist.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… enjoyed getting to talk about superhero movies on the job.
Cy Kellett:
I know. I had to spend $7.99 to get a month of Disney+, but now I’m watching everything on it. It’s been confirmed for me, again, just how bad those three middle Star Wars movies are. Oh, they’re horrible.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Wait. 4, 5 and 6?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. No, no.
Joe Heschmeyer:
The Prequels.
Cy Kellett:
The 1, 2, 3. Yeah.
Joe Heschmeyer:
You don’t mean the chronologically. If you were just like, “The Prequels are good, and I don’t like Return of the Jedi or”…
Cy Kellett:
I was rooting for Darth Vader to become evil. You just can’t wait because the rest of it’s so boring. No. The Trade Guild is fascinating though.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
I really wish there was more movies about the Trade Guild.
Joe Heschmeyer:
I like that spinoff.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks, Joe.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, my pleasure.
Cy Kellett:
If you feel like talking to Joe Heschmeyer, you could talk about just about anything, and you’d get a great answer. But it was fun to talk about Loki, who raised a lot of ultimate questions. I almost feel like since it was a Marvel production, we should have some kind of post credits thing on this episode, to fit in the Marvel comics mode.
Cy Kellett:
Hey, if you have an idea of some piece of media that you think that we should respond to, that’s something we’d like to do more of. We can’t watch all the platforms. I don’t even know all the platforms. You can always send us an email focus@catholic.com. focus@catholic.com. We want to hear from you.
Cy Kellett:
If you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe. If you’re here, if you’re listening on one of the podcast services, then subscribe, then you’ll be updated when there’s new episodes. And please, give us that five-star review, maybe a few nice words to help grow the podcast. As always, you can support us financially by going to givecatholic.com, giving any amount. Givecatholic.com.
Cy Kellett:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host. Thanks for joining us for this Loki episode. We’ll see you next time. Right here, God willing, on Catholic Answers Focus.