The Antithesis

After twenty years, I finally watched the Grand Canyon, and I'm glad I did. I didn't really know much about it other than it dealt with the intersection of Angelenos from different class and racial backgrounds.

What the film dealt with that I found so interesting, however, was the exploration of good and evil. Neal Plantinga actually uses a line from the film in the title of his book "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be." The film explored this from several different levels, exploring both structural evil and personal sin. But it maintained a degree of tension throughout--bad things continue to happen, but where the film repeatedly hinted that worse things could happen, those often didn't come to pass (and thus also pointing to common grace).

Lynn and I kept looking at each other thinking "wow, this filmmaker gets the antithesis." In fact, one of the characters puts it eloquently near the end of the film. I can't find a clip of this scene, but part of her words serve as a voice over in the trailer at 2:11.

After waking suddenly in the night, Claire says to her husband, Mac,

Everything seems so close together.

Hm?

All the good and bad things in the world. Everything.

I feel it in myself even.

And in us. Our marriage.

This film beautifully captures how God's good creation and his image bearers struggle day and and day out both with their personal short comings, the short comings of others, and the corrupting influence of evil throughout society. On the other hand, it also points to God's gracious hand to restrain sin and bring about good in the world (it never explicitly identifies this force, but there is a helicopter that hovers around a lot).

Officially reformational

It's official. I'm reformational.