What is the Christian Response to Nihilism?
(Note: spoilers for Everything Everywhere All at Once)
In a recent interview, Keanu Reeves mentioned that when speaking to a younger girl who had watched The Matrix (1999) for the first time, he asked her if she would take the red pill or the blue pill. She responded that she would take the blue pill because if everything was set and alright for her in this fabricated world, why would taking the red pill matter? I believe her answer is somewhat telling of an element of the younger generations’ worldview – something the recent film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, captures quite well.
In a world of multiple universes, this bizarre, heartfelt, unique action-comedy focuses in on a family that owns and operates a laundromat in the midst of needing produce tax paperwork. Feeling depressed and neglected, the daughter of this family, Joy, attempts to seek comfort from the multiverse only to find existential dread in the lack of meaning after opening her eyes to every possibility the multiverse has to offer. Meanwhile, her mother is so consumed by doing her taxes for her business that she cannot be bothered when approached to help save the multiverse. Her immediate world is so small and in constant need that she also is feeling a lack of purpose.
Everything Everywhere All at Once rides on a sense of nihilism – absolutely nothing matters. Joy looks for true meaning away from her life and comes up empty. In the case of the girl Keanu Reeves talked to, the prospect of finding meaning and purpose was separate from the prospect of finding truth. In addition to comedic writing and captivating visuals, it appears Everything Everywhere All at Once has done well at the box office because of its emotional impact. When a piece of art has this sort of impact, in some ways, it conveys how the culture at large is thinking.
So, as Christians, how do we respond to nihilism? Perhaps your mind turns to Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity… What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecc. 1:2, 9) The author of Ecclesiastes captures the meaningless of life, but this meaningless only holds without a relationship with the true God.
Even before the coming of Christ, as people made in His image, we have a divine purpose given to us by God. Proverbs 16:4 says, “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” For those that feel neglected or alone, know that God cares uniquely for all of humankind. Jesus says in Matthew 6:25-26, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
The Bible also reminds us that there is more than just this current, physical life. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:17-18) Not only is there more to life, but our death does not mark the end (Heb. 9:27).
As Christians, we have the unique calling that Christ gave His church before His ascension following His glorious resurrection. “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matt. 28:18-20) Those who know Him are called to share this good news – "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) As we look towards eternity with our God and King, our lives on this earth are not meaningless as we are called to serve the One who saved us.