Four Reasons to Think Critically About “Soul”

I love jazz music, and I love good animation and good storytelling. That’s why I was looking forward to Disney/PIXAR’s “Soul”. The animation was colorful and detailed. The music was wonderful – almost heavenly (I may be biased, but if jazz isn’t the music of heaven, I can’t wait to discover the music that God thinks is better.).

Unfortunately, “Soul” hit quite a few clunky notes thematically, and sometimes it’s music just faded into silence – unresolved. Before I go any further, if you are looking for mindless entertainment you could make far worse choices that “Soul,” and if that’s what you are interested in, I don’t want to spoil your 96 minutes of escapism – and you might want to scroll on.

While I understand that “Soul” is just a fun story, and cannot be taken literally, and I understand that it is not designed to teach theology, it DOES present a spiritual and philosophical worldview. Additionally, when we understand that the target audience for PIXAR movies are children and young adults, incorporating this worldview into a personal understanding of spiritual truths can have real and detrimental consequences.

The first story element we are presented with in “Soul” is that souls exist in the “Great Before” – a place for souls before they are placed in human bodies. These souls are identified only by number, as if they are manufactured in a divine assembly line. Each soul is arbitrarily assigned several personality traits solely based on the whims of host-guardians (and for some reason, every host-guardian is named Jerry).

Of course, this impersonal “creation and formation story” runs contrary to a God who knows us by name (Isaiah 43:1) and has known each of us before we were formed in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:5). God knows us intimately and individually – we are not a product of a divine assembly line. How we see ourselves, and our perceived value, will suffer greatly if we believe we were mass produced and randomly assigned personality traits by impersonal divine beings.

The second troubling story element in “Soul” advances the idea that souls in the “Great Before” (what comes before life on earth) and the “Great Beyond” (what comes after life on earth) are bodiless spirits and they are somewhere other than earth. We embrace this image because we swim in the ocean of Platonic philosophy – a worldview that believes the “true essence” of a human is the unembodied soul. But clearly, this is not a biblical worldview – despite what popular hymns and Hollywood say.

While scripture reveals that we are more than our bodies (that we have an eternal soul), it also elevates the body as a beautiful, and necessary, part of God’s creation. Humans were designed to have bodies and to interact with the physical world. The incarnation (God taking on flesh) and the bodily resurrection of Christ (Jesus being raised from the dead with a new glorified body) highlight the importance of the body/soul design.

Jesus could have been revealed to humans as an unembodied spiritual being. After his resurrection, Jesus could have existed without a resurrected body. But scripture shows us that Jesus’ body could be physically touched (John20:24-29), and he ate physical food (Luke 24:36-43; Acts 10:39-41).

Additionally, scripture reveals that the physical world will not be simply destroyed but recreated – and heaven will come to this renewed earth, and God will dwell with humans on this new earth (Revelation 21:1-5).

The Platonic view (that the spirit is good, and the body is a prison from which to escape) is not found in scripture. Humans were designed by God to be souls with bodies, and God declared it “Good!” (Genesis 1:31) The current creation, including our current bodies, are marred by sin, and enslaved to decay and corruption. But God is making all things new – including a new earth and new bodies that are free from corruption and decay (1 Corinthians 15:51-55).

The majority of the plotline in “Soul” assumes that the most important goal for pre-born souls to pursue is to discover their purpose – their “spark.” The storyline emphasizes that everyone’s spark (or purpose) is different. Unfortunately, it plays into a familiar but un-Christian meme – “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” This may be a good bumper sticker slogan, but it has no biblical support – at least the way we interpret it.

To be sure, God loves us – the cross tells us that. But the idea that he has one, unique plan for each life (and your purpose is to discover that one unique plan) sends many people on a wild spiritual goose chase. Some people become obsessed with finding that “one perfect plan.” We’ve developed tests and workshops to help people in this pursuit. Many individuals become stressed thinking that if they “miss” God’s plan, their lives will be wasted.

The reason we embrace this slogan is that we have mis-read, or mis-memorized, scripture. We think we know what Jeremiah 29:11 says (but we fail to read the rest of the chapter), and we think we know what Ephesians 2:8-9 says (but we forget that this is just the first part of a more complete statement).

Jeremiah29:11 is part of a sermon given to the elders, priests, prophets, and all of the people who had been taken into captivity in Babylon. In verse 10, God says, “You’re going to be in captivity for the next 70 years, but I’ll bring you back to Jerusalem.” And then God says, “I know the plans (plural) I have for you.” There isn’t just one plan, there are multiple plans. God doesn’t just have one plan for you – he has multiple plans for you. There isn’t just one purpose (at least the way we think of it), there are lots of purposes. How do I know?

Look at a passage many Christians have memorized – Ephesians 2:8-9. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We’ve bathed in this scripture for so long, many have forgotten that it’s an incomplete thought. We forget the next verse: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We are not saved BY, or as a result, of works; but we were created FOR good works “which God prepared beforehand.”

Humanity has a common purpose, and we see it in Genesis 1:26-28, and Genesis 9:1 & 7. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over it. Our common purpose is to be coregents with God, stewarding all of creation, finding the “not good” and making it good, and advancing the Kingdom of God – accomplishing his will on earth as it is in heaven.

Every pursuit of “purpose discovery” that is not based on the truths found in Genesis, will be futile and unproductive. The writers of “Soul” clearly understand this – “discovering your unique purpose” is insufficient and often elusive. This is where the final twist occurs in the storyline.

“Soul” recognizes that pursuing “your unique purpose” is futile, but instead of directing viewers back to the common purpose of mankind, the final plot-twist presented by the movie is to abandon your pursuit of purpose altogether. The all-wise host-guardians named Jerry reveal that finding your purpose is not the goal; your goal should be to just live life.

The spark that is supposedly required in order to send a pre-born soul to earth is not to discover their purpose, but simply to desire to live life. The whole goal in earthly life, the movie tells us, is to basically eat, drink, and be merry – for tomorrow we die (Luke 12:16-21). This philosophy, or worldview, falls somewhere along the spectrum between Epicureanism (enjoying the simple things but not overindulging, while avoiding pain) and hedonism (the singular pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of any kind of suffering).

The spark that “Soul” wants us to pursue is a self-centered, pleasure seeking, temporary existence, which will be followed by eternal disembodiment in an unknown nonphysical place. And if this picture is accurate, if this earthly life is all that exists in a physical reality, then maybe they have a point. But what kind of life is that?

Paul rejects that idea and says to the church in Corinth, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

There is nothing wrong with good jazz, and good animation. And mindless entertainment is a welcome distraction from seasons in life like we’ve experienced over the last twelve months. But all entertainment takes us on a journey – a journey with an underlying worldview and assumptions about how the world works and what is good, true, and beautiful.

In many cases, mindless entertainment passes along ideas that are simply untrue, but sometimes they are toxic. Watching a movie will not destroy your life, and there many movies that are far more destructive that “Soul.” However, building your life and worldview on the premises found in this movie will result in a self-centered, hopeless existence, and prevent you from discovering the real reason that you were given this great gift called life.

One positive outcome of viewing the movie is that it raises several questions. What if you were created for more than you currently see in your life? What if the plans God has prepared for you, go unaccomplished? What if you are settling for temporary pleasures and avoiding the struggles that have the potential to transform you and the world around you? What if there’s more?