Holy Ancient Heresies, Batman part 2

Holy Ancient Heresies, Batman part 2

Oct 09, 2014
By stlukesattic
In Uncategorized
0 Comments

Last time we dealt with the possibly heretical implications of Batman. Today, I hope to muddy the waters just a little further before I try to clear them up. Potentially clear them up, that is. I won’t rehash since you can just read the preceding post here.

Batman really, really believes in the power of art.

I left off with a teaser about who the next divided character would be. Well, to no one’s surprise I want to talk about Two-Face. Here we have a guy who is literally split right down the middle. He has his good/rational side and his evil//irrational side. (Interestingly, I think, his evil side is his left side.) Well, as all the best stories are, his story is a sad one. Harvey Dent was an attorney who was doused in the face with acid by one of the men he was prosecuting. Only half of his face was burned, he went nuts and began to believe that everything in the world was determined by chance. From that point, he began to run around with a double headed coin that was scratched up on one side and unmarred on the other. He would use this coin as a means of making decisions – clean side up, all is well, scratched side up, look out!

The thing about that coin is he would pursue either the good or evil with single-minded determination (pun intended) depending on what the coin told him to do. He could be good or evil depending on what chance determined that he should be. He attached no moral weight to either choice. So, if my high school math teachers were right, we can flip a coin a thousand times and we are likely to approach something like 500 heads and 500 tails. In Two-Face’s world that is perfect balance between good and evil. This is the perfect dualist, Manichean balance.

Batman is also passionate about an aggressive drawing posture.

So what are we to make of this? Does Batman live in a Manichean world? Is it important? It is important because we do not live in a dualist world. Good and Evil do not exist in harmony nor do they seek balance. There is no god of evil at all. God is good and Satan is evil, it is true; but Satan is no god. There is no struggle on God’s part when it comes to Satan. He allows Satan to have some freedom for a time, but that allowance will run out, and when it does, there will be no struggle, just capitulation on Satan’s part.

All of this would make Batman’s world a false one if it is dualist. But I’m not sure it is dualist at all. It certainly looks like it is from what we can tell from the stories. But our own world looks like a dualist one from our perspective as well. Read the news. Does it look like good and evil are striving with one another? Does it look like good is winning? We only say that it looks like evil is prevailing because we lack the perspective to see the end of all things. And this is precisely what we lack in the Batman stories – the end. Christianity has an eschatology – a doctrine of the end; but Batman does not. His is an ongoing story that will not have a resolution as long as it is profitable to DC Comics!

While I have no illusions that DC is run by a bunch of seminary students, I chose to believe that, in the end, Batman and Bruce Wayne can be resolved into one, whole man; that the Joker will be finally defeated; and Two-Face, like Bruce, will be made whole again. I think this is what we all hope for ourselves, to be made whole and not to live divided against ourselves, doing those things that we do not want to do and not doing those things that we do want to do.

So I can’t say if Batman is a Manichean or not because I can’t see the end of all things. But the good news is, neither can he, so he will continue to fight evil in the hope that it can be defeated and the Batman version of the Kingdom of God can be ushered in so Gotham can enjoy rest and peace without worry of evil.