In the movie The Maltese Cross, Humphrey Bogart plays the role of Dashiell Hammett’s famous hard-nosed detective, Sam Spade. Hammett’s world is a godless world, ruled by chance and violence with individuals being alone in a meaningless world. Macbeth lives in a similar kind of world. Macbeth is a tragic figure. Michael Rockler sees Macbeth as “defined by the people and circumstances around him. The weird sisters and Lady Macbeth define his choices, diminishing his freedom as they help him hurl himself into the abyss” (Philosophy Now [Sept/Oct 2009] 6).
However, Sam Spade is very much what Rockler calls an “existential hero.” Existentialism starts with the idea that “existence precedes essence.” This way of thinking does not accept that a person has an essence at birth. It’s up to each individual to define his or her reality throughout the course of life. This is because there is no meaning to be found in the universe, only existence. So each individual has to make his or her own meaning. This means that to live a meaningful life a person must continually be defining himself or herself, not by empty claims, but by what he or she does.
It’s fascinating to see Sam Spade playing out this philosophy. At various points Spade faces definitional choices, decisions which will determine whether he allows others to define him or whether he himself will be his own self-made man. He comes across as a hero of sorts when he turns down a chance to become exceedingly rich and even turns into the police a woman with whom he has become romantically entangled - a woman, he discovers, who killed his partner.
The reality is that we do not live in a meaningless world, but in a God-created world. We are not left to create our own meaning, to give ourselves a meaningful existence and to make ourselves meaningful, authentic human beings. Rather, it is the Lord who invests our lives with meaning and we are meaningful, authentic human beings because we have been created in God’s image and loved by him. Yet, we must make “every effort” to add to our “faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:5-7):
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (verse 8).
Even here our efforts involve dependence on God’s grace and empowerment by his Spirit. Nevertheless, there is an existential dimension even to the Christian life. That is, we are expected to make decisions and to act in ways that will define us as the Lord’s people.
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
Posted October 21, 2009
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