Bruce Almighty
Film title: Bruce Almighty
Director: Tom Shadyac
Starring: Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 2003
Certificate: 12A
'We find it comfortable to imagine that most of what we experience in life
is imposed from outside. This saves us from having to take responsibility for
the way things are in the world. But to a large degree what happens in the
world derives from choices that human beings have made. War and famine are not
inevitable: they result from a long series of choices that people have made.'
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (IVP)
Introduction
We have all said it or at least thought it: 'God why do you hate me?'
Although our expressions of helplessness in the face of suffering can be
incredibly diverse, most of us have reacted to wretchedness in this kind of way.
Those of us who know the heavy feel on our hearts of those questions know how
difficult it can be to stop, to turn off the radio or the TV, and sit in silence
thanking God for his goodness. Sometimes doing that seems ridiculously
unimaginable.
Everything seems to be going well for Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey), who is the
central character in Bruce Almighty. His live-in nursery teacher
girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Anniston) is positively drooling for a marriage
proposal. Bruce has a job as a television reporter for Eyewitness News covering
social interest stories. He also has a nice apartment, a sports car, a dog and
is on the shortlist to land the anchorman position, which would mean a big
promotion.
I'm So Angry!
Bruce: 'I'm not okay with a mediocre job, I'm not okay with a mediocre
apartment and I'm not okay with a mediocre life.'
After seeing his team lose and his dog pee on the sofa, arriving late for
work, losing his job, being beaten up and publicly humiliated, Bruce has had
enough, and he returns home to tell Grace. Bruce is ready to explode. 'Thank God
you are okay!, ' Grace exclaims sympathetically. Grace's assurance that some
kind of providence is acting around Bruce is enough of a prompting for Bruce to
turn his fury upon the Almighty. Bruce's accusing finger points at the King of
Creation as he spits, 'God is like a mean kid on an anthill, burning ants with a
magnifying glass. And I'm the ant. '
In Bruce's view, God is fairly boxed in. He is either in control of the world
in which suffering exists, and is therefore bad. Or he is not in control - and
not God. But, imagine that you had a view of your father that he would either
give you everything you wanted whenever you asked, or that if he didn't then he
is a bad father, and you can see the problem with this kind of view of God.
The next morning Bruce is woken up by his pager. It urges him to call a
number but Bruce mutters, 'Sorry don't know you; wouldn't call you even if I
did,' as he throws the pager out of the window. Eventually he responds and is
led to the 'Omni Presents' building. Bruce is directed upstairs by a kindly
cleaner who asks if he will help him clean the floor. Of course Bruce tells him
that he is much too busy. When Bruce gets up to the top floor he meets the
cleaner again who reveals that he is God. God gives Bruce all his powers along
with a challenge to try and do better himself. But Bruce may not break the
rules: he may not tell anyone what has happened and he may not mess around with
free will.
Why Am I Significant?
God: You've been doing a lot of complaining about me, Bruce . . . you
think you can do it better, now here's your chancece . . when you leave this
building you will be endowed with all my powers.
Bruce uses his new powers to make sure that his rival, Evan Baxter, doesn't
remain in the anchor job at Eyewitness News for long. He makes an utter fool out
of Baxter live on air and uses his powers to guide himself to the best news
stories at just the right times. Soon Bruce has the anchor position and he
begins to revel in the fame that comes with it. Finally, Bruce is taken
seriously. It seems that by doing and dealing in the important side of life,
Bruce hopes he will absorb value and importance himself.
The idea that Bruce could create for himself a meaning or an importance is
basic existentialism. Bruce seems to have a conviction that this world is not
the product of chance and that a relationship with God is possible. But he also
thinks that he must work to create meaning and significance for himself. Bruce
is so similar to so many people: they know that God is there -they aren't in any
real doubt about that, but they are keeping him at arms length. He isn't the
reference point for their own significance, nor the one they work hard to give
glory to. It's a lip service religion and a self-service lifestyle.
Any meaning we create for ourselves, which is without a point of objective
reference is relative. In the full picture, it is in very real danger of being
ultimately meaningless. And yet we must somehow find a way to reconcile that
with our desire to be ultimately meaningful, significant and of genuine value.
Today's Hollywood fashionistas and starlets are discarded as tomorrow's
has-beens, and the richest people in the world are often the unhappiest.
Philosophy promised that in the scientific endeavour we would uncover the
answers to the big questions of significance, but it has failed to deliver
answers. Perhaps it is time to take another look at God, or at the human face of
God - Jesus, and see if he can give us an answer to the question of what this
world, this universe, and this existence really means? The Christian conviction
is that only by doing so can we find answers to the questions of value and
significance that we can use as sound foundations on which to build our lives.
Self-Control
'We live from our heart . . . how we live in the world now and in the
future is, almost totally a result of what we have become in the depths of our
being - in our spirit, will or heart. That is where we understand our world
and interpret reality. From there we make our choices, act and react, try to
change the world. We live from our depths - and we understand little of what
is there.'
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (IVP)
Bruce finds himself the centre of attention of fickle socialites at a party.
He sneaks off upstairs to call Grace to try and persuade her to come along too.
As he puts down the phone Susan Ortega, his opposite number on the newdesk, who
he has been playfully flirting with all the way through the story, then appears.
Tempted and naïve, Bruce kisses Susan and at that exact moment Grace, who has
had a change of mind about coming to the party, walks into the room.
In some ways you want to feel sorry for Bruce as Susan's approach was very
forceful. But thinking back through the story you realise that Bruce hasn't had
a momentary slip up, so much as he has been cultivating lust in his heart all
along. One of the first things that he does with his powers is to indulge his
hunger for lust by making the wind blow a woman's skirt up. Instead of choosing
to have integrity in his working relationship with Susan, he goes giddy at the
knees every time he sees her. Grace moves out the apartment and breaks up with
Bruce, who is devastated.
A heavenly answer
Bruce Nolan: How do you make someone love you without changing free
will?
God: Welcome to my world.
'The greatest need you and I have, the greatest need of humanity in
general, is renovation of our heart. That spiritual place within us from which
outlook, choices and actions come has been formed by a world denying God. It
must be transformed. Indeed, the only hope for humanity lies in the fact that,
just as our spirit has been formed, so also it can be transformed.'
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (IVP)
When Bruce thinks of God he probably isn't thinking of a father like mine. My
dad allowed me to go to the doctor when I was younger, the doctor stuck a needle
in my arm and it hurt! The needle also delivered various different vaccinations
which was handy in hindsight, but didn't make sense at the time. Bruce doesn't
understand suffering as being part of the biblical story. According to the
Bible, the cause of suffering is located both in the fall of humanity through
Adam, and in the personal moral failure that we each cook up in that laboratory
of evil that is the human heart. We see the casualties of human rebellion in a
world which once was good but now lies broken by violence, bitterness, cancer,
and AIDS.
And so Bruce meets God the cleaner and realises that he just can't be angry
at God. It is no good pointing the finger at God and telling God to sort it out
when he has already given us the ability to make a start. Bruce must become
selfless and serve others. This is true for us all. We must be God's hands to
the poor, and God's messengers and witnesses to the truth. We must fight
passionately for social justice, for reform of trade rules that make the western
world richer and the developing world poorer. But how is all this possible on
limited human resources without having our hearts renovated, without having out
very identity changed? How can we begin to have any confidence that we can
resist the temptations that surround us in an erotica-obsessed culture without
falling into a cold, puritan legalism that stifles our dreams and smothers our
hopes?
But here we have God the cleaner: God the cleaner of the world, who first
took upon himself on the cross our failure to be good people. Jesus paid for
every dirty thought and every angry word with his death on a cross. He hung on
the cross and died as the wrath of God for all human rebellion was placed upon
him. The only way to have a relationship with God is to be born again. This is
the way to a new identity and the significance for which Bruce Nolan was
seeking. It is only through this new birth, and through this empowering, that we
can resist the desires and lusts that we battle with. This allows our caring for
others to be a sharing of the goodness that God has shown to us, rather than a
striving to be right with God under our own steam as a result of the things we
do.
Conclusion
Bruce comes to terms with the problems of life by coming to understand the
role of human free will and his responsibility to use his freedom for the good
of others. It's not a complete answer to the problem of evil and suffering, but
it is an important part.
Bruce also recognises that submitting to God's will is vital not just for his
own survival, but also for his own sanity. The rub is that God doesn't just want
us to survive, or to just stay sane, he wants to give us significance and
self-control as we walk through each day with him having our minds are renewed
by his word, the Bible.
Bruce does seem to find the sense of significance for which he longs. But it
is not so much that his relationship with God leaves him with identity and
meaning, as it is that he starts doing different things. This is part of showing
a relationship with God, but it is not itself the relationship with God. The
danger is that we confuse the doing with the knowing.
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