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The Downward SpiralHeaven and Hell in ConstantineBy Roberto RiveraFebruary 17, 2005What if I told you that God and the devil made a wager, a kind of standing bet for the souls ofall mankind? My reply would be when did you stop taking your meds? That, or somethingclose to it, was Angela Dodsons (Rachel Weisz) initial response at least until all Hellliterally began to break loose around her. Then she had little choice but to believe JohnConstantine (Keanu Reeves), the title character of the new movie Constantine, and beginwhat, for both her and the audience, was the roller coaster ride from Hell. I mean that, at leastas 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 ourmidst. This ability drives him mad and then to suicide. In the moral universe of the film and thecomic book, Hellblazer, upon which its based, suicide is a one-way ticket to Hell. (Itsinteresting that, of all the Catholic teaching out there, fantasy and comic book writers cling tothis 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 enoughof these half-breeds back to Hell. Hes not exactly happy about this second chance since hedidnt 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 meetsAngela that he begins to see beyond his own circumstances and understand that there arebetter reasons for doing good than simply trying to save your own eternal skin. Constantineslearning 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 thelength. 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 thetheology 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 fromthe 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 makesConstantineworthwhile, aside from its considerable entertainment value, is itsparticular window into our cultural moods. That term comes from Alistair McGraths TheTwilight of Atheism, which I also recommend if you promise to remember thatrecommending a book or movie isnt the same thing as endorsing every idea containedtherein. Many of the things our contemporaries say and do arent the products of explicit oreven implicit assumptions about the world. They are ad hocresponses and copingmechanisms that help them get through life without expending too much mental or spiritualenergy. In Nietzschean terms, theyre not overmen, who see themselves as beyond good

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and evil; theyre last men, superficial creatures who live for simple pleasures and are happywith mediocrity.In this case, its the paradox that, while we live after, in Andrew Delbancos words in hisbook The Death of Satan, its not difficult to find contemporary cultural references to Satanand Hell. It isnt only Constantine. In comics like Spawn, and television shows like Point

Pleasantand, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hell is constantly on the verge of breakingloose and Satans minions are everywhere, stirring up trouble. Whats more, the pop culturedepictions of Satan and his realm are in at least some continuity with their biblical andChristian counterparts: Hell is a place of torment and Satan is, for the most part, a malevolentcharmer. Whats missing in Constantineand these other cultural artifacts is a half-way decentdepiction of God and Heaven. In fact, they are often conspicuously absent and when they arementioned, its usually in the context of a Manichean dualism that regards God and Satan asrivals, that is, equals.Part of the reason that heaven isnt shown as much in these kinds of movies is that film is avisual medium and as Constantine screenwriter Frank Capello told Terry Mattingly and otherwriters, no one knows how to depict [Heaven] in a cool way. This isnt new. William Blakefamously said thatMilton was of the Devils party without knowing it because of his depictionof Lucifer inParadise Lost. Others, like C.S. Lewis, disagreed with Blake but the fact theythought it necessary to tell us that Milton never meant to invoke admiration of Satan kind ofproves Blakes point, doesnt it?That still leaves us with the question: why are evil and the evil one so much easier than todepict in an interesting way than Heaven and goodness? Something Ive heard attributed toLewis on this point is that its easier because of our familiarity with evil. Whoever said it wasright: human fallenness makes us capable of almost unimaginable evil. AsJared Diamondnotes in The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution & Future of the Human Animal, instances ofmass murder and even genocide are frequent throughout human history at least thirty suchevents happened in the twentieth century. Sadistic serial murder, while thankfully rare, isfrequent enough that forensic psychiatrists can identify the personality, environmental andphysical traits that make such horrors more likely. The evil being expressed in these acts isintrinsic, albeit in a extreme way, to human nature. In other words, theres a continuitybetween human evil, whether were talking about Stalin or the Hutu peasant taking advantageof the chaos to settle some scores with his Tutsi neighbor, and what has been called themalevolent will to undo.It could hardly be otherwise, at least in Western Christianity (I wont presume to talk aboutEastern Christianity). AsSt. 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 privationof good that results from the misuse of our free will in defiance of Gods will. As Genesis tellsus, this privation mars us and quickly leads to discord and even bloodshed but it doesntchange 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 WesternChristian terms, nonsense. (As every Catholic kid once knew, Satans counterpart isnt God;its St. Michael theArchangel. 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 humblypray. And you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God banish into hell Satan and

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all of the evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls.) Evil is onecreated being heeding the deceitful counsel of another created being and rebelling againstour Creator. Thats why we have little trouble imagining what Hell and the evil one might belike. 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 isexperiential and empirical, our knowledge of Goodness, in particular Gods goodness, isanagogical. 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 Psalmistput it, made a little lower than angels, the gap between the angels and God is immeasurableas is, a fortiori, the gap between God and us. My favorite attempt at depicting this gap is inLewis The Great Divorce. The radiance and solidity of Heaven and the redeemed hurts andfrightens the ghosts. Like Moses, the effect of having been in Gods presence makes themalmost unbearable. Imagine what meeting the cause of that effect would do? You cantimagine it, much less do it justice.The most you can stand are fleeting moments in your life that give you an inkling what beingin the presence of the source of goodness and joy is like: the birth of your children, a sublimepiece of music. Like a hungry man who has caught a whiff of something delicious, we cantdescribe what is creating that fragrance, much less cook it for ourselves. All we know with anycertainty is that we want whatever it is. Its a testimony to incomparable superiority ofgoodness that, while succumbing to evil seldom, if ever, satisfies and then only for a shortwhile, the merest glimpses and fleeting foretaste of the glory that awaits us can sustain usfor 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 thescale against the least moment of the joy that is felt in Heaven, would have no weight thatcould be registered at all.Saying we cant come close isnt the same as saying we cant do better. That non-Christianmovie makers and comic book writers cant grasp the differences between good and evil andHeaven and Hell is hardly a surprise. What is a surprise or, more accurately, a source ofconsternation is how few Christians seem to get it. S. M. Hutchens, in the May 2004issueofTouchstone, described what passes for worship in some churches these days: a song,accompanied by writhing, closed eyes and beckoning gestures that [begs] Jesus... to comefill... [the] emptiness. It isnt only Evangelicals. Three generations of Catholics have beenpreparing for the Sacred Mysteries by singing music that seems to be confused as to which ofthose present is actually God: I, the Lord of sea and sky, I danced in the morning when theworld 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 itsimplications for humanity in the wrong direction it wouldnt be so bad. But, lets get real. Theseare symptoms of what Russell Hittinger means when he says that God has gone from beingbonum in se (His own good) to bonum meum (my own good). God is worshipped if you cancall it that because of what He does for us and how He, or more precisely, the act ofworship, makes us feel, not because of who He is: the Almighty, maker of heaven andearth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

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In this setting, God is almost inevitably reduced, domesticated or, even worse, turned into akind of best version of ourselves. He ceases being wholly Other and our already limitedunderstanding of Him is stripped of any sense of mystery or danger. (Aslan is not a tamelion.) Whats left is not only wrong, its boring. Instead of one whose presence in the Eucharistcompels all mortal flesh to keep silence, we get a workout companion in the garden. Whenwere 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, theenormity of that statement flies right by us.

WhenConstantine describes a standing bet for the souls of all mankind, we shouldnt expectmore from the movies. We should, however, expect more on Sunday mornings. Christianitywithout mystery and awe is little more than sentimentality a tame carousel that practicallydrives us to that roller coaster.