The Problem Is Choice ~Neo

When Neo is confronted by the Architect the final issue he's presented with is the one he's been working through the whole time.

Consider a few scenes earlier with the Oracle:

Oracle: "Would you like some candy?"

Neo: "But you already know if I'm going to take it, Right?"

Oracle: "Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't"

Neo: "How can I make a choice, if you already know what I'm going to do?"

Oracle: "Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it, you came here to understand it."

Let me explain why I love this piece of thinking. In God's reality everything is already complete. He's seen it all. It's already happened. All my choices are forever determined, either by 1Consider a quote from the earlier movie;

Oracle: "Don't worry about the vase"

Neo: "What vase? (Crash)"

Oracle: "How did you...?"

Neo: "What's really going to boil your noodle later is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"

If you watch the movie again, you'll see that Neo is stuggling not with fatalism, or determinism, but free-will. He believes that he's ultimately the result of his choices and they are free and immutable; that is, they stand on their own and are unchangeable. He's the ultimate cause of them. Yet, he experiences a person who seems to continually demonstrate that he's not the ultimate cause. Because, if he was, then how could anyone know what he's going to do, before he's done it? Unless your thoughts, or even pre-thoughts exist on some cosmic ticker tape that people can read?

This is exactly the problem we have. As Neo so adeptly puts it. Choice. The problem is choice. It's a confusing master. It deludes you into a sense of power, or control. When ultimately it's real purpose is to set you away from the King.

The Bible makes it clear that God not only knows, but he also chooses and plans the destiny and the comings and goings of man. Man has the ability to think, and act and choose, in the same sense that he has the capacity for these things, but ultimately he cannot do them on his own. He's not the first cause of anything.

It's interesting to me that the foe of Neo understands this concept, while Neo, the Christo-Hero of the movie does not. But whatever, it's just a movie.

The reason I wanted to point this out is because, while I'm not saying that what the Oracle says is completely in-line with scripture, it gives me an angle to think about God's sovereignty. This is the reality, all of our choices ARE already made. It's all done already. So then, thinking about the meaning and purpose of them can be more useful than trying to think through the "right" choice. I can also tell you what I'm sure of, the point of our choices IS NOT the making of them, but rather how the results totally glorify God in all His majesty. SO, in that sense of "understanding your choice" I totally agree with the Oracle. If you spent your whole life trying to understand God, this would be a life well spent. 

 

^{1 - note; I do not believe our choices are determined by anything but God. I made this point to demonstrate how even foreknowledge demonstrates that choices are determined despite, free thinking, sentient capability or causality.}