The Downward Spiral Heaven and Hell in Constantine By Roberto Rivera February 17, 2005 What if I told you

that God and the devil made a wager, a kind of standing bet for the souls of all mankind? My reply would be when did you stop taking your meds? That, or something close to it, was Angela Dodsons (Rachel Weisz) initial response at least until all Hell literally began to break loose around her. Then she had little choice but to believe John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), the title character of the new movie Constantine, and begin what, for both her and the audience, was the roller coaster ride from Hell. I mean that, at least as regards the audience, in a good way. For at least the fourth time in his career (Little Buddha, Johnny Mnemonic, and the Matrix), Reeves plays the reluctant savior/deliverer of mankind. John Constantine is blessed (or cursed depending how you look at it) with the ability to see the demonic half-breeds in our midst. This ability drives him mad and then to suicide. In the moral universe of the film and the comic book, Hellblazer, upon which its based, suicide is a one-way ticket to Hell. (Its interesting that, of all the Catholic teaching out there, fantasy and comic book writers cling to this one even though its, strictly speaking, no longer Catholic teaching.) However, Constantine gets a second chance: he might be able to enter Heaven if he deports enough of these half-breeds back to Hell. Hes not exactly happy about this second chance since he didnt ask for the ability in the first place and the half-breeds hit back. Hard. Still, having seen Hell first-hand, he grudgingly does as he is told. Its only when he meets Angela that he begins to see beyond his own circumstances and understand that there are better reasons for doing good than simply trying to save your own eternal skin. Constantines learning that good must be done for its own sake, rather than as a means to selfish ends, keeps the movie from falling into the nihilism that characterizes so many horror movies. I could continue with the plot synopsis but, lets be honest, were talking about a comic book. And the recent trend toward calling comic books graphic novels changes nothing except the length. Theres something about the spear that pierced our Lords side and an Angel, Gabriel (Tilda Swinton), who definitely has gone off her meds, but dissecting and parsing the theology of films like Constantine is like trying to empty the Everglades with an eyedropper: tedious and not a good use of your time. Yes, parts of the plot are silly and differ greatly from the Christian tradition. But you could say the same about The Omega Code and Left Behind, and do I have to tell you which is the infinitely better use of your entertainment dollar? What makes Constantine worthwhile, aside from its considerable entertainment value, is its particular window into our cultural moods. That term comes from Alistair McGraths The Twilight of Atheism , which I also recommend if you promise to remember that recommending a book or movie isnt the same thing as endorsing every idea contained therein. Many of the things our contemporaries say and do arent the products of explicit or even implicit assumptions about the world. They are ad hoc responses and coping mechanisms that help them get through life without expending too much mental or spiritual energy. In Nietzschean terms, theyre not overmen, who see themselves as beyond good

and evil; theyre last men, superficial creatures who live for simple pleasures and are happy with mediocrity. In this case, its the paradox that, while we live after, in Andrew Delbancos words in his book The Death of Satan, its not difficult to find contemporary cultural references to Satan and Hell. It isnt only Constantine. In comics like Spawn, and television shows like Point Pleasant and, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hell is constantly on the verge of breaking loose and Satans minions are everywhere, stirring up trouble. Whats more, the pop culture depictions of Satan and his realm are in at least some continuity with their biblical and Christian counterparts: Hell is a place of torment and Satan is, for the most part, a malevolent charmer. Whats missing in Constantine and these other cultural artifacts is a half-way decent depiction of God and Heaven. In fact, they are often conspicuously absent and when they are mentioned, its usually in the context of a Manichean dualism that regards God and Satan as rivals, that is, equals. Part of the reason that heaven isnt shown as much in these kinds of movies is that film is a visual medium and as Constantine screenwriter Frank Capello told Terry Mattingly and other writers, no one knows how to depict [Heaven] in a cool way. This isnt new. William Blake famously said that Milton was of the Devils party without knowing it because of his depiction of Lucifer in Paradise Lost. Others, like C.S. Lewis, disagreed with Blake but the fact they thought it necessary to tell us that Milton never meant to invoke admiration of Satan kind of proves Blakes point, doesnt it? That still leaves us with the question: why are evil and the evil one so much easier than to depict in an interesting way than Heaven and goodness? Something Ive heard attributed to Lewis on this point is that its easier because of our familiarity with evil. Whoever said it was right: human fallenness makes us capable of almost unimaginable evil. As Jared Diamond notes in The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal, instances of mass murder and even genocide are frequent throughout human history at least thirty such events happened in the twentieth century. Sadistic serial murder, while thankfully rare, is frequent enough that forensic psychiatrists can identify the personality, environmental and physical traits that make such horrors more likely. The evil being expressed in these acts is intrinsic, albeit in a extreme way, to human nature. In other words, theres a continuity between human evil, whether were talking about Stalin or the Hutu peasant taking advantage of the chaos to settle some scores with his Tutsi neighbor, and what has been called the malevolent will to undo. It could hardly be otherwise, at least in Western Christianity (I wont presume to talk about Eastern Christianity). As St. Augustine , the greatest Berber of all time, famously called put it: malum est privatio boni. Evil has no independent existence; it is the absence and privation of good that results from the misuse of our free will in defiance of Gods will. As Genesis tells us, this privation mars us and quickly leads to discord and even bloodshed but it doesnt change the fact that evil is parasitic, a corruption of the good, and literally no thing. To speak of Evil itself as if it were completely discontinuous from human evil is, in Western Christian terms, nonsense. (As every Catholic kid once knew, Satans counterpart isnt God; its St. Michael the Archangel. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in our day of battle; protect us against the deceit and wickedness of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God banish into hell Satan and

all of the evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls.) Evil is one created being heeding the deceitful counsel of another created being and rebelling against our Creator. Thats why we have little trouble imagining what Hell and the evil one might be like. Whether we believe in them is another matter. And thats why its impossible to come close by which I mean within five space-time continuums of doing justice to Heaven and Goodness. While our knowledge of evil is experiential and empirical, our knowledge of Goodness, in particular Gods goodness, is anagogical. We know what evil is; we only know what Goodness with a capital G is like. There is no continuity between Gods goodness and our own. While we are, as the Psalmist put it, made a little lower than angels, the gap between the angels and God is immeasurable as is, a fortiori, the gap between God and us. My favorite attempt at depicting this gap is in Lewis The Great Divorce. The radiance and solidity of Heaven and the redeemed hurts and frightens the ghosts. Like Moses, the effect of having been in Gods presence makes them almost unbearable. Imagine what meeting the cause of that effect would do? You cant imagine it, much less do it justice. The most you can stand are fleeting moments in your life that give you an inkling what being in the presence of the source of goodness and joy is like: the birth of your children, a sublime piece of music. Like a hungry man who has caught a whiff of something delicious, we cant describe what is creating that fragrance, much less cook it for ourselves. All we know with any certainty is that we want whatever it is. Its a testimony to incomparable superiority of goodness that, while succumbing to evil seldom, if ever, satisfies and then only for a short while, the merest glimpses and fleeting foretaste of the glory that awaits us can sustain us for a lifetime. As the narrator in The Great Divorce put it, all the loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies and itchings that [Hell] contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Saying we cant come close isnt the same as saying we cant do better. That non-Christian movie makers and comic book writers cant grasp the differences between good and evil and Heaven and Hell is hardly a surprise. What is a surprise or, more accurately, a source of consternation is how few Christians seem to get it. S. M. Hutchens, in the May 2004 issue of Touchstone, described what passes for worship in some churches these days: a song, accompanied by writhing, closed eyes and beckoning gestures that [begs] Jesus... to come fill... [the] emptiness. It isnt only Evangelicals. Three generations of Catholics have been preparing for the Sacred Mysteries by singing music that seems to be confused as to which of those present is actually God: I, the Lord of sea and sky, I danced in the morning when the world begun, and my favorite, I am the Resurrection; I am the Life. No, sorry you arent. Now, if I thought that all of this was the product of somebody taking the Incarnation and its implications for humanity in the wrong direction it wouldnt be so bad. But, lets get real. These are symptoms of what Russell Hittinger means when he says that God has gone from being bonum in se (His own good) to bonum meum (my own good). God is worshipped if you can call it that because of what He does for us and how He, or more precisely, the act of worship, makes us feel, not because of who He is: the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

In this setting, God is almost inevitably reduced, domesticated or, even worse, turned into a kind of best version of ourselves. He ceases being wholly Other and our already limited understanding of Him is stripped of any sense of mystery or danger. (Aslan is not a tame lion.) Whats left is not only wrong, its boring. Instead of one whose presence in the Eucharist compels all mortal flesh to keep silence, we get a workout companion in the garden. When were told that Christ Jesus was in the form of God, emptied himself and came in human likeness so that he who consecrates and we who are consecrated are all one stock, the enormity of that statement flies right by us. When Constantine describes a standing bet for the souls of all mankind, we shouldnt expect more from the movies. We should, however, expect more on Sunday mornings. Christianity without mystery and awe is little more than sentimentality a tame carousel that practically drives us to that roller coaster.