Religious Interpretation of EoE's Conclusion

[LeoXiao]

I think that while there is no exclusively Christian meaning in Evangelion, the Christian references are far from pointless. They serve to create an atmosphere (as an allusion) that enhances and brings out the humanistic themes of the show.
If the Christian references are "meaningless," then that's the same as saying that the Freud/Jung stuff is meaningless as well.

[NemZ]

I interpreted Shinji’s decision as a realization that evolution—or at least, ascension—wasn’t something that could be forced, only brought on by personal experience and willpower. While SEELE wanted to “cheat” the whole process by bypassing all that meditation and personal introspection and whatnot, Shinji realized that it didn’t matter how close to other people he was—he still wouldn’t be satisfied until he was able to be happy with himself, first. And going off of this, finding personal contentment from within himself would best be achieved without being part of the tang. I guess this is also my attempt to reconcile EoTV with EoE.

I have to disagree, because I see the two endings as fundamentally incompatible in how they resolve 3I.

In EoTV Shinji makes these connections and realizations concerning his need for self-acceptance, and thus passes through complementation into a higher state of being along with most of the cast. In realizing that all he needs to justify his existance to is himself, he has cleared the last barrier and transcended the both the purely individual and the purely gestalt to arrive at a state of shared existence. It is also implied that at this level reality itself is fluid, subject to the desires of the will, and thus mankind has achieved paradise.

In EoE, on the other hand, Shinji makes one selfish choice after another. In the course of instrumentality he forcefully robs all of humanity of their individuality, rejects complementation, and then refuses the ability to reshape existence because his first attempt is not to his liking. He ends up sending everyone back to the wreckage of civilization (if they choose to return, and who can blame them if they decide it isn't worth it?), except for Rei, who seems to die (or otherwise leave reality as we know it) in the process, and all of this is once again because of what he wants... in this case, the company of others.

EoTV: I'm me! Nothing more, nothing less!
EoE: I just want to see them again...

See the difference?

[Allemann]

Christianity doesn't teach that souls are detachable from the body and float somewhere away.

That's quite a different picture than you will find in any church I've ever seen.

Sadly, this is the popular thought of today. It all began with the Church fathers who embraced Platonism, and then, with the help of Descartes, the idea continued to be spread all the way to the common man.

from whence comes your information?

I'm very curious about things, so I read. I have to thank some highly knowledgeable people, because their information helped me a lot.

[Allemann]

I interpreted Shinji’s decision as a realization that evolution—or at least, ascension—wasn’t something that could be forced, only brought on by personal experience and willpower. While SEELE wanted to “cheat” the whole process by bypassing all that meditation and personal introspection and whatnot, Shinji realized that it didn’t matter how close to other people he was—he still wouldn’t be satisfied until he was able to be happy with himself, first. And going off of this, finding personal contentment from within himself would best be achieved without being part of the tang. I guess this is also my attempt to reconcile EoTV with EoE.

SEELE is not speeding up evolution. Their theses is that something is missing in humans, and that they achieved the evolutionary end. The CI is speaking about the Human Limitation Theory.

What they are trying to achieve is to return to the primordial state before the evolution began.

That throws an interesting question. When the FAR made Lilith and it came to Earth, did they anticipate or know that the Lilin will get to the evolutionary end? Was that engineered intentionally? If yes, than perhaps the missing part of humans are the FAR who has to reveal to the Lilin and give them the real Tree of Life. If we to are in a random-religious-reference mood, than I would say that Rev 22: 1-5 illustrates my point.

[oOoOoOo]

Sadly, this is the popular thought of today. It all began with the Church fathers who embraced Platonism blah blah blah fuck you SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO!

Yeah, this is sort of what I was getting at. The problem with Christianity (or any religion) is that once we start talking about the original concepts, it ultimately becomes pointless. If we want to talk about Christianity as it was, then Christianity is 100% bullshit (by its own rules, not by my dislike of theism) since Jesus was preaching that the world would end before his followers died. Clearly he was wrong. We also know that the majority of the pages of the New Testament come from a gentile who had never met Jesus, and often spoke of things (homosexuality, girls being stupid) that Jesus didn't seem to mention himself. And then there is the evidence from Mark that tells us Jesus not only had no intention of bringing his message to gentiles, but he actually thought they were "dogs".

Thus thus thuuuus~ when talking about "Christian beliefs" in reference to Evangelion, it is pointless to speak of anything but the commonly accepted mythology/concepts. If you keep on following religious influence back and back, much like music, you're going to eventually arrive at cavemen hitting walls with sticks, rather than something that can be discussed. ^_~

But I understand where you're coming from. I took courses on the development of Christian theology, and it is fascinating to see how things changed. It really is similar to the development of pop music or art, in terms of burrowing and stealing and whatnot.

[AuraTwilight]

That throws an interesting question. When the FAR made Lilith and it came to Earth, did they anticipate or know that the Lilin will get to the evolutionary end? Was that engineered intentionally?

Apparently, both Adam-derived and Lilith-derived beings are at a dead end because, unlike the FAR, neither race has both Fruits, which was apparently engineered this way by the FAR (who do have both fruits).

[the_seventh_child]

Then Shinji must kill and kick Asuka from the "paradise" so tha Rei can enter, who waits for the expulsion of Lilith.

Hahaha. Hahahaha.
This is blue gem right here. You know actually, i do not really have an issue with anything else, (..just for the sake of it) but, first comes the killing and then the kicking? Kay.
Lol, the OP-er, deserves a medal solely for that.

[carla]

i was about to freak out that we'd gone back to the lilith/adam/eve thing. and then i noticed that this is a really, really old thread.

whew.

[Raiden]

A few years ago I've got interesting discussion with real Jewish rabbi (he wasn't EVA fan and does not seen it :) - I've just asked my questions ) on this topic.

I was glad to found myself right in a few moments of my conceptions.

Unfortunately, I can't translate this ICQ dialog to English- it is too complicated.

[Sun Stealer]

All religious apocalypses have certain elements in common, but Evangelion steers clear of the theological elements that would define it as Judeo-Christian in any way. If this was the case, the material body would be portrayed as revolting, while freeing the soul from its cage (Rapture, tanging, etc) would be seen as joyous and wonderful.

If anything, Evangelion is a strongly anti-Christian work, as it insists the material world is something worth fighting for. Both Judaism and Christianity believe the complete opposite. The human body is filth. Death is a gift. If you want to see a proper allegory of Christian mythology, read Lord of the Rings. Evangelion is decidedly Japanese in all but terminology.

To quote the main man, Himself, "Do not call profane, that which I have created." The only sect I know of which are anti-materialistic are the gnostic heresies, and they don't even qualify as christians under the Nicene and Apostolic creeds.

While the religious symbolism in Eva is hardly pointless, Anno definitely does his own thing with them. Though, one should exercise caution when trying to decipher the religious symbolism. Oddly enough, the story's ethos struck a cord with me as a christian and a stoic, even though he arrived at his morality as an existentialist and a Cordwainer Smith-fan. Moral Philosophy makes strange bedfellows.

[Allemann]

To quote the main man, Himself, "Do not call profane, that which I have created." The only sect I know of which are anti-materialistic are the gnostic heresies, and they don't even qualify as christians under the Nicene and Apostolic creeds.

^This

One can be a thoroughgoing Christian materialist like van Inwagen or I. The idea of a soul that floats detached from the body is a platonistic import. Christian have no business in imagining themselves outside of their bodies. We aren't built to be immortal; eternal life is a gift of God given at the Last Judgment.

[The Abhorrent]

While the religious symbolism in Eva is hardly pointless, Anno definitely does his own thing with them.

I'll second that opinion.

It could generally be assumed that Anno's view on the christian mythos is that of an outsider looking in. If I read this correctly, one of the reason that specific imagery was chosen was because christianity isn't a common faith in Japan, it's deliberately foreign to the initial target audience. It's very easy to forget that other cultures have different beliefs and values than our own, so it makes perfect sense that he's using the imagery in a way that is different from the accepted norm.

What is quite remarkable however, is when an outsider starts looking at a mythos, they aren't subjected to preconceptions. What people consider the important parts of the story changes over time, and quite often the modern believers of a faith are given the "watered down" version. I suppose it could be said that many of the other uses of christian symbolism in NGE go unnoticed but are still eerily accurate if you should go back and read the source material.


The most obvious example of this would be the angels themselves. Most people perceive angels as winged humanoids, which is true to an extent. Those angels and the archangels both hold the two lowest ranks in the grand scheme of things. Many of the higher ranks of angels are described to have appearances more similiar to cosmic horrors rather than flawless beauty. They often introduced themselves by saying "Fear not!", and there was a damned good reason for that.

Looking at Adam and Lilith specifically, we can see some definite inspiration. Given some creative interpretation, they closely fit the description of Seraphim, the highest order of angels in the medival heirarchy. "Seraphim" literally means "burning ones", representing God's love. They have six wings (Lilith is shown to have at least double that in EoE, but it seems more wings means having a higher rank as an angel in the mythos... so I guess we can let it slide), used to cover their true forms. Should a mortal see a seraph with their wings spread (which is exceedingly bright), it's a one-way ticket to heaven at the expense of having your physical form incinerated or otherwise obliterated. Interestingly enough, Satan was a seraph prior to his fall from grace (in Dante's Divine Comedy, he has six wings).

This image from NGE's opening has a strong resemblance to a seraph, particularly the use of the wings to cover the body:
http://wiki.evageeks.org/images/b/bd/OP_C001b_a_big.jpg

The creative interpretation part is that Adam and Lilith (in NGE) don't use their wings to cover themselves. But in any event, when they spread their wings (and reveal their true form), we get the events known as "Second Impact" and "Third Impact". The wings themselves are sign that they are producing Anti-AT Fields, which turn everyone into LCL. Their physical form is obiliterated, and with everyone's souls joining together they get a one-way ticket to some sort of "heaven". Futhermore, both Adam and Lilith are also very bright and frequently glow. Adam was even called a "giant of light" (Lilith is less obvious, but she definitely has a glow of sorts during 3I), and while not "burning" exactly they still are never the less exceeding bright. This little effect extends Rei (best seen in EoE, prior to merging with Lilith.... and maybe all her ethereal appearances), if to a lesser extent. Whether or not Kaworu benefited from it isn't really seen.

For more info, here's the wikipedia article:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphim[/url]

But I find the TV Tropes article to be quite informative as well, with some interesting commentary:
[url]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurAngelsAreDifferent[/url]

Interesting food for thought, often overlooked.


Anyhow, again the use of christian symbolism in NGE isn't to be seen as following their typical and contemporary meanings. The series was made for Japan, it was meant to be foreign. As such, the view and implied symbolism cannot be assumed to match that of contemporary beliefs.

[Sun Stealer]

What is quite remarkable however, is when an outsider starts looking at a mythos, they aren't subjected to preconceptions. What people consider the important parts of the story changes over time, and quite often the modern believers of a faith are given the "watered down" version. I suppose it could be said that many of the other uses of christian symbolism in NGE go unnoticed but are still eerily accurate if you should go back and read the source material.

QFT

The most obvious example of this would be the angels themselves. Most people perceive angels as winged humanoids, which is true to an extent. Those angels and the archangels both hold the two lowest ranks in the grand scheme of things. Many of the higher ranks of angels are described to have appearances more similiar to cosmic horrors rather than flawless beauty. They often introduced themselves by saying "Fear not!", and there was a damned good reason for that.

I have also heard that they were beings of flawless beauty as well as mindbreaking fear. I have also heard that when they appeared before humans they were also prone to say, "Do not worship me!" However, I can't confirm that and have heard both accounts. Btw, which angel hierarchy are you going by? It's pretty late so my memory might not be the best right now, but I thought that archangels were either higher than seraph or that archangels led each choir. After all, Michael single-handedly smote Satan and all the rebellious angels, and I'm pretty sure the mail couriers of the Heavenly Host don't get to hand out asswhoopings. As for the human appearance, I was under the impression that even the angels we do see in human form were not in their "true" form. Didn't the angels in who visited Lot break up a mob that was about to break into their home by showing a glimpse of their true form and causing the mob to go blind or temporarily insane?

One can be a thoroughgoing Christian materialist like van Inwagen or I. The idea of a soul that floats detached from the body is a platonistic import. Christian have no business in imagining themselves outside of their bodies. We aren't built to be immortal; eternal life is a gift of God given at the Last Judgment.

Just because a christian is not anti-materialist does not make them a pure materialist. The body and the soul are established as separate things. Unless of course you believe the Church Fathers themselves to be heretics and whole parts of canon to be apocryphal? I see no reason to believe that the soul is tied to the body in death, while I can't quite say the soul goes anywhere seeming as how I doubt the concept of space and time can be applied in the metaphysical plane. Furthermore the jews believed the soul left the body after two days, and Revelations states that we will be given new bodies(implying that these would be different from our old bodies). I wouldn't say neoplatonism infected the Early Church, considering neoplatonism didn't come about till the Renaissance, but that some platonic ideas were virtually identical to Christian thought and helped explain why Plato is considered one of the "Virtuous Pagans".

I think I've figured out why bodies turn to lcl when the soul is removed in Eva. It is supposed to represent the "bodies returning to the Earth", the opposite image of God breathing his essence into the clay.

[The Abhorrent]

Which angel hierarchy are you going by?

Christian Angelic Hierarchy

[Sun Stealer]

Christian Angelic Hierarchy

I assume you mean psuedo-dionysus', specifically.

[Xard]

not that I want to balloon some kind of tangent but...

One can be a thoroughgoing Christian materialist like van Inwagen or I. The idea of a soul that floats detached from the body is a platonistic import. Christian have no business in imagining themselves outside of their bodies. We aren't built to be immortal; eternal life is a gift of God given at the Last Judgment.

What.

You're not making any sense. Materialism/naturalism by definition excludes the possibility of God's existence, supernatural in general etc.

Jesus's miracles & Resurrection and God's deeds in general in Bible are imposible within naturalist frame of thought. Same goes for meaning of life, objective moral values etc. that are incompatible with materialist worldview. And myriad of other issues too.

As I'm sure you know already.

On top of all this I clearly remember you refer yourself as a property dualist at least once in the past.

Only way I can make sense of this is if you're talking about strictly philosophy of mind and mean "materialist" in sense that you believe existence of material body (to be particular: brain) is needed for emergence of consciousness ie. it cannot exist separately from the body on its own.

Or ( a bit similarly) you have thomist pov on the mind/body problem which is somewhat similar yet distinct case.

Bleh. You're just not making any sense to me.

To be honest "Christian materialist" to me sounds like a very definition of contradiction in terms and because being Christian requires adoption of non-materialist framework in any case it feels incredibly redundant and silly to then think mind obviously ontologically depends on brain (like I know some minor, heretical christian sects that hold that there's no such thing as "soul" and God simply recreates brain & rest of the body during the last judgement). Just a superficial reflection of spirit of time in my opinion.

(On top of it all it's a viewpoint that - even if technically rational - is utterly wrong too as far as I can tell. But that's not the point here)

and before you bring up the fact that immortal soul is unbiblical teaching and that original hebrew has no word that exactly corresponds to that of soul: yes, I know that.

That doesn't change the fact that Christian view of man includes both soul AND body (the two are distinct even if soul cannot exist separately from the body). And on top of it all a spirit too!

more links for the interested:

http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/S/SOUL/ (more on subtle yet crucial differences between nephesh and pneuma which other links do not make)

http://www.ucg.org/bible-faq/soul-nephesh.htm

http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn23/immortalsoul.htm

--------------

Oh well, it's not like this is case of personal concern for me since "original biblical" view on soul is irrelevant for my thinking

[Allemann]

Just because a christian is not anti-materialist does not make them a pure materialist.

I never meant the opposite. I'm not a pure materialist in the sense that I think there is a nonphysical domain where God resides; and God himself is an immaterial cause of the universe. I am a dualist, only not when it comes to human minds. What I said is that being a materialist about human minds is consistent with Christianity's teachings. Even more, having a physical mind is closer to the Biblical conception of humans then Cartesian dualism. Christians should be nonreductive physicalists.

The body and the soul are established as separate things.

I wouldn't be so sure. The Semitic Totality Concept tells that ancient Hebrews weren't radical dualists: We are our bodies, and they belong to our personal identity.

Unless of course you believe the Church Fathers themselves to be heretics and whole parts of canon to be apocryphal?

Not all Church Fathers were dualist. Tertullian denied the existence of an immaterial soul and even said that God is corporeal, for instance. The Canon itself can support my view. The Old Testament is hardly dualist. There is the constant theme of humans as made of dust and ashes and how humans will return to it (Gen 2:7, 3:19, 18:27), while in Job and Ecclesiastes, one can read the dread of going into She'ol. The Nicene and Apostles' Creed are also conspicuously without direct dualistic elements.

Furthermore the jews believed the soul left the body after two days,

Hebrews believed we bodily descend into She'ol, where humans live as material remnants of their prior selves. There are lamentations of such view in the Wisdom literature.

and Revelations states that we will be given new bodies(implying that these would be different from our old bodies).

How can you reconcile dualism with such insistence on having a body? If we're our souls/minds and nothing else, what is the good of possessing a body? These bodies will be different in the sense that they don't decompose; obviously, everlasting life is something we get, which further argues against having an immortal soul

I wouldn't say neoplatonism infected the Early Church, considering neoplatonism didn't come about till the Renaissance, but that some platonic ideas were virtually identical to Christian thought and helped explain why Plato is considered one of the "Virtuous Pagans".

This conclusion came after absorbing platonistic ideas. The idea of a bodily resurrection was repugnant to the platonistic atmosphere of that time, which deprecated the body as something of a ballast that we get rid at the moment of death.

...

Xard, there is plenty of literature that supports my view: Kevin Corcoran's Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul, Hud Hudson's A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, the debate between Dean Zimmerman and Lynne Rudder Baker debate in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, van Inwagen has an article "I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come" on his faculty web page, etc. It's not an oddball or a heretical view.

I'm not saying I'm right beyond a possibility of mistake; only that materialism, or neuroscience, or both aren't a threat to Christian theism as many think.

[Xard]

Well, initially I had written this huge offtopic post but because it's offtopic I'll reduce it (haw haw) to a much smaller one. Albeit it's still huge... ;__;

edit: I guess it's best option to end the OT, as interesting as I find the subject. Post removed

[oOoOoOo]

This stuff about Christian materialism has actually been quite interesting. My specific faith group really had a hard-on for the neoplatonism.

I'd be interested to see y'all tie this back into Evangelion. This thread's been pretty nifty to read.

[Carl Horn]

One of the encouraging things about this thread is that many of the posters are aware that the history of Judeo-Christian thought is complex and diverse in the extreme--not only a continuum from "orthodoxy" to "heresy," but thousands of different continua, depending on where any particular sect, present or past, draws its lines.

The upshot is that however unorthodox or jumbled the religious motifs in Eva might seem, it is not difficult to find comparatively wild beliefs in actual history. I've compared, for example, NERV to the alchemists and scholars of Renaissance Europe, who combined what we would call proto-science with notions of angels and their own interpretations of the Kabbalah (the Systema Sephiroticum in the opening credits was drawn by one such scholar, the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher). Issac Newton was both the greatest scientist in history and a profound believer in the occult side of Judeo-Christianity; Evangelion seems to present a world where such ideas go together.

I don't believe Gainax used religious symbols in Eva because they wished to argue or advocate any particular viewpoint, but the series does seem to present a fictional world where these things have some significance to the characters within the story. The new films don't do much to discourage that appearance either; after all, the original series didn't have NERV bases named after the sites of Gospel miracles, or a "Key of Nebuchadnezzar," nor talk of a "Vatican Treaty" by which nations agree to restrict the number of active Evas to three.