I love one piece of Fridge Brilliance in Dogma. The Metatron expresses himself as a Seraphim, being the highest choir of angels. In angelology, one of the defining features of seraphim is that they cannot tell a lie — ever. And that's exactly what the Metatron does. He almost compulsively answers with the truth to every question. Watch the film again; not once does he ever lie or fail to tell the truth to Bethany. When he's asked an inconvenient question, he always tells the truth — but usually in a literal way. When Bethany asks him why God wants her to handle it: "Because of who you are." Bethany asks him, "And who am I?" The absolutely truthful answer would be, "Mary's descendant", but the Metatron's quick — and strictly speaking, truthful — reply is "The girl in the PJs! Stop asking so many questions!" -Saintheart
The ending provides a quite literal example of Deus ex Machina when Bethany pulls God off life support. God out of the machine indeed.
Azrael spends over a million years in hell because he can't think of a way to get himself out but promptly locks onto a plan to get Loki and Bartleby back into heaven, and Serendipidy goes from inspiring 9/10ths of the top grossing movies to being stranded in a strip club because she has writer's block. As muses they were meant to inspire others, not themselves.
Bethany's refusal at one point is screaming at Jay that "NOBODY is FUCKING ME!!" Which turns out to be the literal truth, since the conception she has at the end of the film is immaculate — the Virgin Mary, in a way.
Except that immaculate conception and virgin birth aren't the same thing, but who's counting?
Yes, but the child would be immaculately conceived.
Point of clarity. Mary was immaculately conceived, meaning "born without sin", so that she could be a proper vessel for the birth of Jesus. Jesus is the virgin birth, not the immaculate conception. If you wish to disagree, I demand you look it up first, since this misconception is so prevalent that most people will assume I'm wrong after reading this.
Both would be true for Bathany if you were to look at it as Metaphorically True. She died and then reborn through God's power. She's at the start of her second life so she would be both a virgin and without sin.
A Catholic Cardinal with an Ashkenazi Jewish surname?
Obviously, he or his father converted. While rare, it's perfectly normal for a convert to rise in Catholic hierarchy. Just look at the first Pope...
Jay's role as a Prophet. At several parts of the film, his dialogue actually predicts events that will later happen.
"Guys like me don't just fall out of the sky, you know?" "The whole world is against us dude. I swear to God." "Beautiful, Naked, Big-Titted women don't just fall out of the sky, you know?" Cue stripping former Heaven denizen, Serendipity, played by Salma Hayek.
Even before he talks about re-taking the role he once renounced, Loki is still acting as an angel of death: in his first scene, with a rational debate, he kills a nun's faith.
"Serendipity" means "a happy accident." Whereas Rufus sought out Bethany and Jay and Silent Bob seem ordained by a higher power to find her, Serendipity only meets the gang because Jay just happened to find himself in a position where he needed to prove his heterosexuality. Hence, he and Silent Bob go to the nearest strip club...where by pure coincidence, a muse has taken up a job as a dancer. All of this ends up being very fortunate for Bethany and company. Thus, they meet Serendipity by pure serendipity.
Best part: if this wasn't intentional naming by Kevin Smith...then they meet a character by Serendipity by serendipity and the fact that she's named Serendipity is itself complete serendipity!
Why the triplets didn't fare well against Jay and Silent Bob? Because they are so used to targets that don't fight back.
When you consider that Bartleby and Loki were trapped in Wisconsin for thousands of years, with modern culture only just emerging (from their POV), you can see why Loki is so pissed that he had to miss his morning cartoons.
As the main page notes, God is presented as One of Us in the film, loving skeeball and maybe some other bits of pop culture. Well, Adam was made in God's image...
Perhaps the female Mooby executive whose life is spared is the former schoolteacher who created Mooby in the first place. And the company went on to take a friendlier stance by the time Dante and Randal work for them in Clerks II.
God answer's Bethany's question of "Why are we here?" by tweaking her nose and going "Nyrp!" isn't just Her saving Bethany from an exploding head. That was actually Her answer: "Be happy."
Further supported by dialog from other characters. Bartleby's main beef with God is that he gave humans so many great things that the Angels don't have and humans don't realize how good they have it and are ungrateful. Rufus also suggest that Jesus was happiest when the Apostles were going on about their little problems, he was listening and smiling to them. Glick's problem is that he thinks the Crucifixion of Jesus is gruesome and turning people away from the church and chooses to use the "Buddy Christ" to highlight the Jesus Was Way Cool part of the faith. Azreal even says that Evil is a human construct designed to blame their sins on demons rather than just fess up because humans don't believe God can forgive them. Even the fact that Angels can't drink alcohol but humans can stealthily hints at this, alluding to Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, "Beer is Proof that God loves us and wants us to have fun." And keep in mind that of the 10 commandments, 7 are sins against your fellow man, I.E. stopping them from having fun. God explaining the idea like this is dull and boring and contributes to the problem everyone is having in the film: They are looking a gift horse in the mouth. The world is ours, enjoy yourselves, so long as you aren't stopping others from doing the same (which, is very much in line with Catholic dogma to boot.).
At the start of the film, Bethany admits to having no faith, working in an abortion clinic and otherwise not really being an ideal Catholic by any real measure. Her abrupt death in the film's climax when she takes God off of life support to save existence is simply a very direct application of Redemption Equals Death, and her resurrection is the sign of her having earned forgiveness for her sins, and being born again to carry out God's work.
Silent Bob carries a mini air-freshner around with him. He and Jay are stoners, so of course he'd have it in case of emergencies when they need to get rid of the smell of weed.
Bartleby's jab at Loki about E.T. and Krush Groove ("This from the guy who owes me ten bucks over what was gonna be the bigger movie, E.T. or Krush Groove?") is pretty funny on its own, but funnier still when you peel back a few layers. Krush Groove came out three years after E.T., meaning Loki made that bet already knowing how big a movie E.T. was. (Either that or his knowledge of pop culture is just that lacking.) Loki's retort ("time's gonna tell on that one") is just as absurd, but then again - these are immortal beings who have witnessed all of human history. The 14 years between Krush Groove and the events of Dogma are pretty short in that light. King Lear was not a real popular play for contemporary audiences given its utterly depressing themes and ending, but is now considered one of Shakespeare's very finest works. Loki may just be dodging payment of a bet he made in a less-enlightened moment, or might sincerely believe the ravages of time will be kind to (what we think of today as) a completely forgettable and mostly unknown movie.
The movie's finale sees Bartleby stab Loki, killing him. Loki, having lost his wings, is a mortal and is as dead as any other human. However, he never walked through the arch, meaning his sins have not been absolved. Throughout the film, Loki has repeatedly broken the fifth commandment: thou shalt not kill. He is a serial killer and will be banished to hell for all eternity for what he's done. Loki, it ends up, is a pretty decent guy who thought he was doing God's work and was repelled by Bartleby's wish to kill humans indiscriminately. Azrael claimed that non-existence is better than hell, and he also said that Lucifer was really pissed at Loki and Bartleby. The two fallen angels are going to spend an eternity in hell with a vengeful Satan, and all Loki really wanted was to go home.
Purgatory could exist, and God could change Her decree to let them atone for their sins. After all, them getting into heaven doesn't go against God's word if God Herself changes their sentence to allow it.
But both of them repent of their sins; Loki realizes what they are about to do and backs down, his sin was wrath; Bartleby's sin was pride, as he thought he didn't deserve his punishment, but also repents in the end and allows God to kill him when he finally accepts His authority and love; so it's possible they both went to heaven AS HUMANS.
Except that was their plan all along, and heavenly forces working against it means that it would not be allowed.
Kevin Smith in the commentary said that it's up to the audiences and their own faith to determine whether they believe they went to Heaven, Hell, or in-between.
Apparently, God mellowed out (maybe learning from her mistake in this film) and allowed Loki back, as he explains in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. As for Bartleby, it's hard to know for sure. It could be possible that she realized they were being unwitting pawns and granted them both forgiveness for what happened (though the decree that Angels aren't allow to drink alcohol was probably kept in place).
The Ten Commandments were handed down to Mankind, not angels, so Loki couldn't break any of them...he's not bound by them. Loki had entered Heaven numerous times after committing murder, because angels aren't judged by the same rubric. Therefore, Loki's actions as an angel weren't sinful. Once Loki became human, he didn't commit any sins (aside, arguably, from Gluttony by getting drunk). He wasn't even guilty of Original Sin, since he wasn't born of Man. As far as their direct sentence by God Herself: we're not made privy to the exact wording of the sentence. Perhaps She, in Her omniscience, decreed something like "The 'angels' Loki and Bartleby shall never re-enter Heaven." The mortal versions, however...
Reporter Grant Hicks is shown murdered on live TV. Think about what was going on in Dante's head at the time.
Worse than that... Imagine what Randall must be saying to Dante at that moment.
Consider the fate of the woman who was the victim of one of the Corrupt Corporate Bureaucrats. It was stated in dialogue that one of them "got her drunk and let a coworker take advantage so he could break up with her conscience-free." The end of that story is an off-hand "she killed herself." What's the worst sin in Catholic dogma? Suicide. This poor woman was the victim of a person that is certainly Hell-bound, but has to go to Hell herself for committing a sin in response to the man's. Brrr!
Sin doesn't work that way in Catholic Dogma. Specifically, a sin is only committed when one knows it is a sin and still does it. With her judgement clouded by trauma and depression from a sin against her, she clearly is not in the right mental state to be considered sinful. Unlike real life, ignorance of divine law is an excuse. Catholics actually make no judgement on whether God has judged them damnable or not as it is not their place and they are big on forgiveness. The closest they get is declaring someone a Saint, as Saints are people who are most definitely in heaven... but not declaring a person a Saint does not mean someone is in hell... it just means the evidence of going to heaven has not been presented.
A somewhat more humorous example, that nun is going to be AWFULLY SURPRISED when she dies and wakes up in the afterlife being judged for robbing the Church and leaving her vocation on Loki's advice.
Loki and Bartleby are supposedly trapped in Wisconsin for all eternity, and yet they have the freedom to travel all the way to New Jersey.
By the time Loki and Bartleby start their journey to New Jersey, God had already been trapped inside the body of the old man by Azrael's flunkies, meaning that God couldn't stop them from leaving Wisconsin.
But if God stated they were supposed to stay in Wisconsin and they left, wouldn't that end existence too?
This troper was under the impression that Wisconsin was just where the two were dropped off and nothing said they had to stay there.
It's the difference between what God commands one to do, and what God outright states as fact. God's commands can be defied (sin), but God's outright declarations cannot ('Bartleby and Loki will never reenter Heaven').
I'd say that the Metatron's statement "for the whole of human history" pretty much covers it. But if they followed the rules, we wouldn't have a movie. Oh wait, God is out of commission, which means the rules cannot be enforced.
This is actually addressed in a deleted scene. When asked why they simply didn't just leave Wisconsin, Loki replies that they thought God would have sent them someplace worse, like New Jersey.
Rufus says that Jesus owes him twelve bucks, even though dollars didn't exist two thousand years ago, and presumably they wouldn't need American currency in heaven.
He's probably spent some time figuring out the exchange rate and adjusting for inflation.
You may notice he's not speaking ancient Hebrew either; Translation Convention in full effect.
Most likely, it's just a figure of speech. Also, if you think about who Rufus is, there is quite a bit of Fridge Brilliance in the number twelve.
What Rufus said was, "Knew him? Nigga owes me 12 bucks." Sure, modern currency may not have existed in those times, but what did? Deer & Bucks.
Rufus is almost certainly just bending the situation slightly to accommodate his audience, a motley group of late twentieth-century Americans who likely don't know the local currency of ancient Judea or how it translates to a two-thousand year exchange rate. Jesus probably owes Rufus a few Roman dinari or something, Rufus has just altered that to "twelve bucks" to get across the fundamental point that he knows Jesus well enough to be willing to lend him a reasonable amount of money.
This movie postulates that Catholic Dogma (or even just a single Cardnial's interpretation of it) can doom the universe. What happens when millions of Orthodox and Protestants disagree on what God decrees? Certainly, they all have dogma of their own. Wouldn't they cancel each other out? And if it's that easy to negate all of existence, wouldn't that mean that the universe has essentially been in grave danger for thousands of years as Christianity evolved and split apart into different denominations?
Dogma is pretty much exclusive to Catholicism; ever since a Pope came up with the bright idea that Popes have infallability, meaning Popes CAN NEVER BE WRONG; this same guy also came up with the rules to get excommunicated. So yeah, while a single priest cannot enforce such levels of dogma, a Carnidal or a bishop certainly can, along with the Pope. Unlike other Christian sects, Catholics are supposed to be "universal", meaning they are the only holders of the Truth. The Pope is on a direct hotline with God and is the only person in the entire world capable of actually interpreting what God says. And if you don't believe this, you go to hell. That, is Dogma. You don't even have to have faith in it, just accept it as a truth, THE truth. While a televangelist, for example, may lead people to believe he speaks to God, each person is free to believe it or not. In Catholicism you are required to accept as fact that all clergymen speak to God directly, specially if it's the actual Pope.
Papal Infallibility does not mean, and never has meant, what you think it does.
Since, again, Christianity is Catholic in the world of this movie, the mistakes by Orthodox and Protestants don't risk unmaking existence. (However, it does mean that everyone who lived in a period when Catholic doctrine taught that non-Catholics went to Hell is in trouble...)
It should also be noted that Catholic dogma was not the first Christian theology, so why would it matter more than older versions?
It might be that there is the danger present from every religion, but it took an outright defiance of God's word (such as banished angels returning to heaven) to reach the point where existence was at stake.
Essentially, there's one specific line in the Bible, which, for the movie to work, must be assumed to be GOD'S WORD. "Whatever you hold true on earth, I shall hold true in heaven." I take this to be how the Pope essentially finagled System Administrator privileges over creation and can make some minor changes how it works. Now you've got one GOD'S WORD that won't let them into heaven. The Pope has created a backdoor into heaven that's 100% guaranteed (without cross-checking other exceptions first) on the authority of another GOD'S WORD. When creation runs Catholicism, basically, and some grievous contradiction comes up, it'll go into an unending logic loop, get a div0 error, etc. and then crash.
Why didn't Metatron go with them and repeat his fiery entrance to get the church closed?
He didn't want to get hosed again.
Being rather on the cynical side, he'd probably just assume someone had slipped something into his drink.
Probably the same reason he sent humans to stop angels instead of sending an army of angels to the church; they were trying to keep a low profile because, of course, any proof of God's existence wastes the point of faith.
Combine that with Fauxlosophic Narration: "It doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith." It makes a lot less sense than it sounds. Why is having faith in the wrong thing worse than no faith at all? And if none of the things are right or wrong, then what's wrong with not having faith in any of them?
Faith is not limited to religion. You can believe in undefined deity, spirits, or science. To function in this world, we must have faith that the universe is mostly constant. It isn't important why we think it is, just that we do.
Considering the previous sentence was "No denomination's nailed it yet," it's hard to read Serendipity as including those things. And also, the "faith" one has is science is widely considered to be fundamentally different. And she said "it doesn't matter what you have faith in", not "it's important that you have faith that the universe is mostly constant". What if I have faith that the universe is random and mostly shitty? According to Serendipity's logic, especially if it doesn't just mean religious faith, that's fine too, and still much better than not having faith at all.
Serendipity's whole speech also seems to contradict Rufus's idea that we shouldn't have beliefs, just ideas.
Rufus doesn't say you shouldn't have beliefs. He just says it's better to have ideas because ideas can be changed a lot more easily than beliefs can. This is dropping the anvil on the concept of Papal infallibility and that man's understanding of God must change as society moves from the medieval to the "enlightened". As for Serendipity — it's expressed in pop cliche, but "Don't matter what faith you have, so long as you have faith" is basically to wear the fundamental concepts of one's religion — hope, love, and charity — in one's heart rather than pay them as lip service, that God prefers what your heart inclines you to do rather than what you formulaically do according to childhood drilling. This is complementary to Rufus's suggestion it's better to have ideas rather than beliefs; that you pay more attention to your conscience and to the intent behind the words than the literal words themselves. Also, an actual moment of Fridge Brilliance — Serendipity is a muse. It's her job to inspire people, not work out the fine detail — she gets writer's block the moment she comes to Earth. So of course she's going to push inspiration and faith — because they're what she is.
Catholic dogma's a little more flexible than that. Per the Nicene Creed, the Church — a human agency — only acknowledges one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, but it also accepts God's grace is wider than that, and all things being possible to God, that a person of another faith nonetheless living a good life might still (at God's sole discretion) be saved. The Creed does not say that Catholicism is the only available path; it only says that it doesn't recognise any others, but that God is omnipotent and might choose to save someone even though they're not Catholic.
What's "wrong" with someone's faith in dogma is that it's faith in dogma, not in God. It's believing in the words instead of the spirit behind them, missing the forest for the trees, as it were. And that it tends to lead to the sorts of awful things Rufus was decrying people carrying out in God's name, like war and bigotry. The less hung up you are on the specifics of "this interpretation vs. that interpretation, this law vs. that law", the better able you are to look at someone else and say "We believe in different things, but we both believe, therefore we're both the same."
The entire premise of the movie is that God is infallible. So how come He went through five Adams before realizing they couldn't cope with the sound of His voice?
Perhaps She delegated the creating to some angels? After all, the line is "we went through...".
God is still infallible even if He (She) went through five Adams; He (She) managed to create humans successfully. Even in the Bible, God is selectibly omniscient; Adam and Eve are able to hide from His gaze after eating the forbidden fruit, angels manage to go to earth and impregnate women without Him intevening; so on and so forth.
Judging that Angels were perfectly capable of getting hammered before Loki drunkenly mouthed off, God's decree that Angels can no longer imbibe alcohol thus seems to be an self-imposed rule, rather than something physically preventing them from doing so. By that logic, wouldn't the world have ended if Loki and Bartleby simply cracked open a beer and drank it?
But the point is that both Bart and Loki disobey God all the time; they are not angels anymore in the strictest sense, they are just immortal. They are unable to reenter Heaven AS ANGELS, which is why they have to become human, get their sins absolved without repenting, and then die. And no one is really sure reality would cease to exist if God is "proven wrong"; it's just it is too much of a gamble to take. God has been wrong before and has gone back on His word; the whole "God is unfallible" thing is Catholic dogma. It says nowhere in the Bible that God can't be wrong.
Probably. Good thing they didn't, eh?
Not necessarily. It depends how God put the decree. If it was simply something like "Angels are hereby commanded not to imbibe," then we would have been ok. The Angels' disobeying that command would no more prove a contradiction in God's decree than humans' repeated disobedience of the 10 Commandments. Only if God had said "It shall henceforth be impossible for angels to imbibe" would a contradiction be risked. My impression was that the latter is what happened with the idea of Loki and Bartleby getting back into heaven, because as far as God had thought things through this would have only been possible with God's intervention anyway. (So yes, apparently for this plot to work, God can't be either omniscient or omnipotent.)
Alternatively, God could have altered the angels so that they physically couldn't swallow alcohol anymore.
It makes sense that the pen-holders writing the bible would refer to God as 'Him', "any time some yahoo claims they've spoken to god, they're speaking to me... (or they're talking to themselves)" they didn't talk to god, they talked to the voice of god, and therefore, they were talking to someone who appeared to be male, and therefore, God is male by their logic.
You know when the Catholic Church celebrated its first Jubilee, with a great plenary indulgence for everyone passing through a certain door? In 1300. Azrael, Bartleby and Loki must have been terribly slow on the uptake...
After dispatching Bartleby and preventing the end of existence, God makes quick work of the mess he made in front of the church by clearing the street of debris—including the bodies of the crowd that Bartleby had slaughtered just prior. Those people's families probably don't even know they're dead yet, and now won't receive their loved one's remains to bury or cremate or complete any other human mourning ritual. Efficient, but kind of lacking in empathy, particularly since so many human mourning rituals are religious in nature, and most of the people in the crowd are mentioned to be Catholic parishioners.
, with a great plenary indulgence for everyone passing through a certain door? In 1300. Azrael, Bartleby and Loki must have been terribly slow on the uptake...