Adjustment Bureau Makes Predestination Palpable?
Adjustment Bureau is not-so-well-made movie about a very interesting idea. I love movies which are based on complex ideas. I couldn't help being drawn towards this movie because it depicts the tension between Free Will and Predestination. But I think the movie didn't capture the tension as well as it could have. Free Will' is about man having the free ability to make his choices. 'Predestination' is about God deciding what human beings would choose.
In 'Adjustment Bureau', the world has two groups of people the Human Beings and then the secretive Adjusters. Both look human. The Adjusters live much longer lives than human and have seemingly Super Human powers within the Natural realm of life to control human destiny. The Adjusters makes sure that Human Beings use their Free Will in a safe way. In other words, they make sure that Human Being don't end up abusing their 'free will' to, for example, destroy life to the point of extinction. When things go out of control, these Adjusters intervene with Human Choice to make things go 'as per plan'. Whenever there is a glitch in the plan, a new plan is created to counteract the imbalance.
Congress man David Norris (Matt Damon) is a man who according to 'Plan' is destined to become the President. A prior glitch in the plan caused a change of his sweet heart, a beautiful Ballerina. He was supposed to fall in love with the Ballerina, but because of the glitch in the plan the Chief Adjuster decides that David Norris and the Ballerina shouldn't fall in love. As per revised plan, he is not even supposed to meet her, except once. The Adjusters are supposed to make sure things go as per plan. But this revised plan has a glitch too, he meets her more than once and both fall irrevocably in love. The Adjusters try to intervene to keep them apart. And the battle continues... not as engagingly as you would think it ought to be.
Anyways, the movie is interesting because the counter-cultural idea that there are Super Powers exercising control over human lives is made palpable. In a Naturalistic age (one believes that only what one can see/touch is real), this idea of Super Natural control is not just considered as radical but stupid. People may quite legitimately comment that a movie such as Adjustment Bureau cannot prove or disprove the existence of the Super Natural. I would agree. But I think, to blithely brush the idea of the Supernatural gaining credence off, may be akin to missing the forest for the trees.
I think the reason why the modern progressive culture does not give credence to the supernatural is because modern presuppositions about life does not even allow the urban progressives to even consider the plausibility of the Super Natural. I think movies such as Adjustment Bureau tend to work on the sub-conscious presuppositions of the mind and creates a more favourable disposition in the mind towards the plausibility of the Super Natural. Brining about such a change of modern man's presupposition about the plausibility of the Super Natural may be the key to help him ask better questions about God and the Super Natural world. As against, insisting as Richard Dawkins and his ilk do, that any talk of God and the Super Natural is patently incredulous.
In 'Adjustment Bureau', the world has two groups of people the Human Beings and then the secretive Adjusters. Both look human. The Adjusters live much longer lives than human and have seemingly Super Human powers within the Natural realm of life to control human destiny. The Adjusters makes sure that Human Beings use their Free Will in a safe way. In other words, they make sure that Human Being don't end up abusing their 'free will' to, for example, destroy life to the point of extinction. When things go out of control, these Adjusters intervene with Human Choice to make things go 'as per plan'. Whenever there is a glitch in the plan, a new plan is created to counteract the imbalance.
Congress man David Norris (Matt Damon) is a man who according to 'Plan' is destined to become the President. A prior glitch in the plan caused a change of his sweet heart, a beautiful Ballerina. He was supposed to fall in love with the Ballerina, but because of the glitch in the plan the Chief Adjuster decides that David Norris and the Ballerina shouldn't fall in love. As per revised plan, he is not even supposed to meet her, except once. The Adjusters are supposed to make sure things go as per plan. But this revised plan has a glitch too, he meets her more than once and both fall irrevocably in love. The Adjusters try to intervene to keep them apart. And the battle continues... not as engagingly as you would think it ought to be.
Anyways, the movie is interesting because the counter-cultural idea that there are Super Powers exercising control over human lives is made palpable. In a Naturalistic age (one believes that only what one can see/touch is real), this idea of Super Natural control is not just considered as radical but stupid. People may quite legitimately comment that a movie such as Adjustment Bureau cannot prove or disprove the existence of the Super Natural. I would agree. But I think, to blithely brush the idea of the Supernatural gaining credence off, may be akin to missing the forest for the trees.
I think the reason why the modern progressive culture does not give credence to the supernatural is because modern presuppositions about life does not even allow the urban progressives to even consider the plausibility of the Super Natural. I think movies such as Adjustment Bureau tend to work on the sub-conscious presuppositions of the mind and creates a more favourable disposition in the mind towards the plausibility of the Super Natural. Brining about such a change of modern man's presupposition about the plausibility of the Super Natural may be the key to help him ask better questions about God and the Super Natural world. As against, insisting as Richard Dawkins and his ilk do, that any talk of God and the Super Natural is patently incredulous.