The movie Forrest Gump is one of my favorites. Yes, I know one must suspend belief to hold on to the story line. And, yes, I know that there is a certain sappy sentimentality in it. Nonetheless, I like it for the interaction of its main characters and the certain philosophical message summarized at the end.
Now, I’m not an extremely emotional person. However, I can never get through the scene of Forrest‘s monologue at Jenny’s grave with a dry eye. At the same time, I find the underlying existential question Forrest is wrestling with very engaging because I think we all struggle with it. Forrest, standing over Jenny’s grave, tells Jenny…
“I don’t know if mama was right or if it’s Lieutenant Dan.
I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze.
But I think maybe it’s both.
Maybe both is happening at the same time.”
The man with the IQ of 75 probably has it right. Life is most certainly like a box of chocolates, like his mother told him: “You never know what you’re going to get.” Some of life is made up of an apparent series of accidents. Thus, as is often said, “You have to play the hand your are dealt.” Like a feather blowing in the wind, as the ending screen shot of Forrest Gump shows us, life can take us in unexpected and unplanned directions. Forrest’s life seemed to be one accident after another.
This worldview is comforting to those who find themselves unable to control the direction into which the circumstances of life has thrown them. Tossed into a raging river, one does well just to keep afloat and the head above water. In truth, we cannot always control life’s apparent unfeeling and meaningless events cascading our way, but we can only control how we respond and deal with them. Thus, we retain some sense of autonomy and determinism and, thereby, meaning and purpose. I have a feeling that the great majority of people in the world, intentionally or unintentionally, operate their lives with this in view.
Struggling to squeeze some sort of meaning out of life seems to be a part of the human condition. There is a longing to know, “Why am I here?” and “What does this all mean?” At one point, Jenny asks Forrest, “Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you’re gonna be?” Forrest responds, “Who I’m gonna be?” Jenny, “Yeah.” To which Forrest replies, “Aren’t – – aren’t I going to be me?” Struggling to be someone other than himself completely escapes Forrest.
On another level, Forrest Gump’s life may seem to be divinely ordained. His destiny has taken him in a different direction than Jenny’s or Lieutenant Dan’s. Jenny tells Forrest as she is about to leave him again, on a bus heading back to Berkley, California, this time, that they have two different lives meant to come out differently. Lieutenant Dan tells Forrest essentially the same thing, believing that he missed his by not becoming a martyr for his country on the battlefield in Vietnam. Does Forrest’s life tell the tale of a destiny fulfilled? This is what Forrest is trying to figure out while talking to Jenny over her grave.
World religions attempt to answer the question of life’s meaning amidst apparent chaos. In fact, it seems that humankind has spent much of its existence from the beginning attempting to find meaning in the chaos of existence. Religious answers run the gamut. Some suggest meaning can only be found by escaping chaos through mindless detachment to the physical realm of chaos. A dichotomy between the physical and spiritual realm results in a metaphysical battle between the two. The physical in any form is bad. The non-physical must be pursued to escape the physical.
Other world religions suggest that chaos is a result of humankind insulting gods or interfering with the unseen spiritual realm. The only correction is to make some type of appeasement, usually a sacrifice or penance of some sort. Chaos results in life because humankind is constantly offending spiritual beings. The work is to somehow keep them happy. Other religious strains portray these spiritual beings as capricious and outside human influence or control. Thus, one can only hope to offer some type of offering that will please the immaterial beings so that they will leave the material beings alone. But there is no guarantee.
These two existential attitudes reflect the “flight or fight” approaches that humankind takes towards most threatening things. It should not surprise us, then, to find them evident in its worldviews or world religions. We all seek to escape our troubles or wrestle some kind of meaning out of them.
Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. “Mark Twain”) remarked that existential meaning may also be determined by class. He noted that the Christians had one god for the rich and another god for the poor. Taken another way, this may also mean that there was, and perhaps still is, one kind of theology for the rich and another kind of theology for the poor.
When one is born into privilege or arises to privilege, it is easy to assume that it must be because of some sort of “manifest destiny.” However, it is hard to come to that same conclusion when one is born underprivileged or descends into want and poverty. It beggars the prosperity gospel message of American Evangelicalism to think that God would destine some to affluence and some to poverty even though it fits seemingly well with American Calvinism.
For example, Forrest Gump knew his mental condition effected his life. Was it a part of his destiny or just an accident of nature? Visiting his mom just before her death, he asks, “What’s my destiny, Mama?” Mrs. Gump responds lovingly, “You’re gonna have to figure that out for yourself.” In other words, it is not something that is handed to you. One must figure it out as he or she moves through life.
When one is born into a low class, it is easier to accept that life is simply what you make it than it is to accept that it is your destiny. No one faces life’s tormenting trials and failures and says to their self, “I was born for this!” No. Rather, one accepts it as one of the capricious circumstances of life.
Even Job, in his unfailing faith in God, when struck with heart rending and life altering tragedies, declared to his embittered wife, “Should we accept only the good things that come to us as from the hand of God and not the bad things that come to us also?” Or, to put it as Mrs. Gump did, “You have to do the best with what God gave you.” This view lends itself towards a self-determinism that supports an Arminian approach to one’s destiny. We may not be able to control what comes our way in life, but we can control our own choices and outcome. At least, we hope so.
I have often argued that the tired and worn out Calvin versus Arminian debate is attempting to make too simple what is really very complicated. I do not think proper theology fits neatly into all of our categories and systems. So narrowly defining whether our meaning and purpose in life is divinely determined or self-determined attempts to remove life’s questions and mysteries when, instead, we should probably leave them alone. As Forrest answered, “I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.” And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg Jr. (2010)