Life is a Movie Directed by the All-Loving God. By Dr. Chapman Chen
God asserts, "I am who I AM" (Exodus 3:14), and rhetorically asks, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24). Likewise, Jesus says, "I AM” (John 8:56–59)m and "The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
1. How God May Experience Himself?
As God is all there is, He could not possibly experience Himself. In order to experience Himself relationally, God decided to play a game. Out of nothing, He created a playground called the world, differentiates Himself into innumerable individual expressions or droplets or beloved children of God (1 John 3:1), each of whom, by way of God’s breath (ruach [Genesis 2:7]), descended into the earthly realm, and temporarily took up residence in a physical body, becoming the individuals they are at this very moment. God thus lives through us, and thinks through us. Forgetting our real identity, we, humans and animals alike, interact with one another through our little egos, mistaking these temporary identities for our ultimate selves.
2. Life is a Projection of Shadows
And this connects with another common metaphor: life as a movie or a dramatic performance. “Our days upon earth are a shadow” (Job 8:9 KJV). “Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away” (Psalm 144:4 KJV). A movie is, both literally and philosophically, a projection of shadows. Literally, traditional cinema creates moving images through rapidly changing patterns of light and shadow, normally at twenty-four frames per second. Philosophically, in The Republic, Plato describes prisoners chained inside a cave, facing a wall and seeing only shadows cast by objects behind them. Having known nothing else, they mistake those shadows for reality itself. In this sense, cinema can almost be regarded as a technological version of Plato's cave. Incidentally, Shakespeare also wrote, “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII).
3. God Plays All the Roles
God is this movie’s or this play’s protagonist, but also its producer, director, and playwright. Indeed, God is every supporting character, the screen/stage, the scenery, the lighting, and the musical accompaniment, the props, and the cinema/theatre itself. God is even the audience, the film reviewer, and the owner of the movie company. As a beloved child of God (1 John 3:1), each of us, human or animal, is also everything above at the same time.
4. Life as a Movie is Good Fun
In the current movie, I am constantly trying to understand the character I am playing, doing my utmost to immerse myself in the role and interpret and bring to life the function of this character within the script, hoping to win a standing ovation. Why does such a character exist? Why has the plot unfolded as it has? I have yet to fathom all these mysteries, but when the time is ripe, everything will eventually become clear.
One thing is certain: this movie/play is fascinating and tremendous fun. Everyone is enjoying it. The only reason this movie “has” to be made is that it is fun. Everyone is playing along with me.
5. “I Am Not of This World”
Equally certain is that, precisely because this is a movie/play, its characters and plot are fictional. The joys and sorrows, anger and delight experienced on the screen are merely “required by the plot”. The character who is stabbed to death dies within the story, but the actor is not thereby annihilated. The blood that flows is fake. “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV). When the production is over, the actors remove their makeup and costumes and step out of their roles. Tomorrow brings another movie/play: today's governor may become tomorrow's poet. No actor of sound mind would become so infatuated with a role as to be unable to detach themselves from it. That’s why Jesus asserted, “I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
6. God is Love
This, however, does not mean that the pain experienced within our present embodied lives is unimportant. Quite the contrary. While we inhabit these roles, joy is experienced as joy and pain as pain. Compassion therefore matters enormously. What the movie metaphor changes is not our responsibility towards pain, but our understanding of who we ultimately are.
God is love (1 John 4:8 NIV); God loves the world (John 3:16), including ALL His creation (Psalm 140, 145:9); Christ is compassion (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). You are the embodiment of love. Everything in the cosmic movie is driven by one single energy: Love. Your existence has but one purpose: to manifest Love.
7. The Character vs. The Actor
Thus, on the one hand, I can face the setbacks of everyday life with calm detachment. After all, the “false” self on the screen is merely performing in a tragedy. The next scene will be entirely different. Whatever happens to the character is simply what the plot requires and has nothing whatsoever to do with the “real” me. The “real” me can continue to live freely and joyfully, enjoying inner peace. On the other hand, I also have the opportunity to continually examine whether my thoughts and actions in this world are appropriate, and to offer timely and suitable guidance to that other self of mine in the movie.
Once I realise that I am not merely an actor but can also continually create and rewrite the script, my horizons expand enormously. Everything before my eyes ceases to seem quite so important. All I need to do is immerse myself wholeheartedly in the performance and savour every moment of the movie. There is simply no need to worry excessively about how the script is written, what the future may bring, how the performance will turn out, or which scene I happen to be playing at any given moment.
In a word, God lives, thinks, talks, and acts via each of us, animal or human, as in a vast cosmic movie. And this has profound ethical consequences.
8. You Reap What you Sow
“Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back,” says Jesus (Luke 6:38). “Judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy,” says James the Just (James 2:13). So when we help other sentient beings or characters in this movie, we are also helping ourselves. When we abuse other sentient beings or characters in this movie, we are in fact abusing ourselves. “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).
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