Free Will And Angels in Supernatural
2009-11-07 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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dodger_winslow with the title Angels V2.0 (spoilers for 5.08) reminded me of something that has confused me for quite a while: the assumption that angels in Supernatural don’t have a free will. It shows up in fanfic a lot. Now, this might have to do with the fact that I am not religious and certain religious assumptions generally just confuse the hell out of me, but I’m not sure it’s just that.
There are a number of assumptions in this post, to name a few:
Angels were, to my limited knowledge of the Bible, created to be God’s messengers on earth and his warriors. Kind of like, well, middle management. I always assumed that it was God’s plan to create humans all along, and that he just set up the infrastructure before he started on that and that that’s why angels were made before humans. The perfect vs. imperfect dichotomy is also very confusing because, according to the author, perfect equals imperfect while imperfect equals perfect. I love a good paradox, but by saying that angels are essentially imperfect they are also perfect, which means … and then my head starts spinning, at least when it appears in a text that argues that humans are better than angels because they’re imperfect.
Now, I think it’s quite a leap to say that free will is something that can only ever be attributed to humanity and that it even exists (not all religions will agree on these points either, I’d wager). As far as I know, philosophers still haven’t decided who wins the determinism vs. indeterminism (free will) debate. In fact, I think you could make the argument that Sam and Dean’s actions are clearly determined by what has happened before. Just like Lucifer and Michael’s actions are determined by their history. I have to admit that I was never comfortable with determinism myself, but I think it is entirely possible to argue that everything that happens in Supernatural happens according to God’s plan, so that there aren’t really any choices any of the characters can make. They’ll always choose the same alternative, no matter how often they try. And of course previous experience shapes how people decide when they’re faced with a decision.
Now, I also think it is entirely possible to argue that every creature in Supernatural has a free will, if we define free will as being able to choose between A and B and C. A being God’s side of the war, B being Lucifer’s side of the war and C being every option the characters come up with themselves. Let’s see what choices were made by the angels:
So I’d say that the angels actually can choose between two options and the individual angels would choose differently. They even come up with their own options. They can decide to resign themselves to fate. On the other hand there are Sam and Dean, who seem to be stuck repeating the same thing over and over again. I think defying destiny isn’t so much a choice for them as it is something that they just can’t help doing. They’ve been fighting their destiny with varying degrees of success for the entire series and giving in never occurred to them. And when they did follow their destiny, they thought they were fighting against it.
In conclusion: I really don’t think that the angels have more or less free will than the humans in Supernatural. Or did I miss something? If so, please explain it to me in the easiest way possible. I am that dumb when it comes to Christianity.
dodger_winslow with the title Angels V2.0 (spoilers for 5.08) reminded me of something that has confused me for quite a while: the assumption that angels in Supernatural don’t have a free will. It shows up in fanfic a lot. Now, this might have to do with the fact that I am not religious and certain religious assumptions generally just confuse the hell out of me, but I’m not sure it’s just that.There are a number of assumptions in this post, to name a few:
- Free will is the defining character trait of humanity as a whole.
- Angels have no free will because they do what God said would happen.
- Angels are created to be perfect.
- Humans were created because something went seriously wrong with angels.
Angels were, to my limited knowledge of the Bible, created to be God’s messengers on earth and his warriors. Kind of like, well, middle management. I always assumed that it was God’s plan to create humans all along, and that he just set up the infrastructure before he started on that and that that’s why angels were made before humans. The perfect vs. imperfect dichotomy is also very confusing because, according to the author, perfect equals imperfect while imperfect equals perfect. I love a good paradox, but by saying that angels are essentially imperfect they are also perfect, which means … and then my head starts spinning, at least when it appears in a text that argues that humans are better than angels because they’re imperfect.
Now, I think it’s quite a leap to say that free will is something that can only ever be attributed to humanity and that it even exists (not all religions will agree on these points either, I’d wager). As far as I know, philosophers still haven’t decided who wins the determinism vs. indeterminism (free will) debate. In fact, I think you could make the argument that Sam and Dean’s actions are clearly determined by what has happened before. Just like Lucifer and Michael’s actions are determined by their history. I have to admit that I was never comfortable with determinism myself, but I think it is entirely possible to argue that everything that happens in Supernatural happens according to God’s plan, so that there aren’t really any choices any of the characters can make. They’ll always choose the same alternative, no matter how often they try. And of course previous experience shapes how people decide when they’re faced with a decision.
Now, I also think it is entirely possible to argue that every creature in Supernatural has a free will, if we define free will as being able to choose between A and B and C. A being God’s side of the war, B being Lucifer’s side of the war and C being every option the characters come up with themselves. Let’s see what choices were made by the angels:
- Lucifer chose to defy God and come up with his own way of doing things ‒ C
- Michael chose to stick with God ‒ A
- Gabriel chose not to choose a side ‒ C
- Uriel chose to follow Lucifer ‒ B
- Zachariah chose to go through with Gods plan, not because of obedience, but because he preferred the outcome ‒ A
- Castiel chose to help stop the apocalypse and came up with a plan for it ‒ C
So I’d say that the angels actually can choose between two options and the individual angels would choose differently. They even come up with their own options. They can decide to resign themselves to fate. On the other hand there are Sam and Dean, who seem to be stuck repeating the same thing over and over again. I think defying destiny isn’t so much a choice for them as it is something that they just can’t help doing. They’ve been fighting their destiny with varying degrees of success for the entire series and giving in never occurred to them. And when they did follow their destiny, they thought they were fighting against it.
In conclusion: I really don’t think that the angels have more or less free will than the humans in Supernatural. Or did I miss something? If so, please explain it to me in the easiest way possible. I am that dumb when it comes to Christianity.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 05:15 pm (UTC)Which is pretty much what happened in the Bible so far (I just finished the first book of Samuel). Angel shows up, is generally Castiel-like and disappears once the humans were taught or not taught their lesson. But since I'm not very far yet, I wasn't sure if the topic comes up in the other 4/5th of it.
(And this is where I was interrupted writing this comment by Jehovas' Witnesses knocking on my door who wanted to convince me that reading the Bible will surely turn me into a devout Christian. Gah!)
But it's also fairly standard to say that angels have to have free will, at least in a general Protestant worldview (and SPN has always struck me as fairly Protestant)
I don't know. Protestants are a pretty diverse bunch. I grew up in a Protestant family and SPN feels far more Catholic to me. Or at least not Lutheran. Maybe just because my family is of the general opinion that hell and everything related doesn't exist. There is only being near God/in heaven and being not near God, in a very abstract, neutral way.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 05:43 pm (UTC)And since I'm from a country where "Protestant" more or less equals "Lutheran", I'm really not in a position where I can talk about the way things are in America.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 08:28 pm (UTC)Nice. Yeah, in college I realized that my views on the whole thing came pretty much directly from Milton.
It's definitely interesting to me realizing just how many different kinds of Protestantism there are in the States, and which ones are ascendant where--between my nominally Catholic family and my Quaker education, I sort of lived in a bubble that I didn't know existed until after high school.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 08:38 pm (UTC)Yeah. Where I grew up, almost everyone was Lutheran and then there were the few odd Catholics, a Jehova's Witness here and there and atheists weren't really talked about.
So it was weird when I moved across the country and suddenly knew more about the Bible than everyone else around me, even if they were Christians. And I really don't know much and learned most of it in elementary school by painting comicstips in religious education.