Star Wars Analogies for the Catholic Faith

There are some very profound analogies in the first star wars trilogies (IV, V, and VI) that are surprisingly deep and touch on very key aspects of the Catholic religion.

“Vader Betrayed and Murdered Your Father”: Physically [Old Cov] or Spiritually [New Cov]

The first one concerns the Old and New Covenants, and the developing dialogue between Obi Wan and Luke.

More specifically, we all know the true nature of Anakin and Darth Vader. What actually happened is that Anakin died SPIRITUALLY when he turned dark, when he became Darth Vader. In this sense, Darth Vader “betrayed and murdered” the good man who was Anakin. This is the ultimate revelation that Obi Wan, in the vision of Return of the Jedi, gives.

However, in the first encounter [A New Hope], Obi Wan gives Luke only a physical picture. He leaves out the deeper spiritual reality, knowing that Luke will take it literally. This is deliberate. “A sinister Jedi named Darth Vader hunted down the Jedi and killed them. He betrayed and murdered your father.” Why deliberate? Because Luke is not in a position to handle the deeper reality. (“You can’t handle the truth!”) Luke knows nothing of the force, of the great struggle that brought down an already crumbling Republic and degraded it into a diabolical, totalitarian Empire. He is not prepared for the reality that the second most powerful, evil monster in the galaxy is in fact his own father, at least biologically, much less that the most powerful monster is his master and the orchestrator of the spiritual death of what was the good man of his father. This is just too much for a young, naive mind.

So also the Old Covenant:

God can now enter Incarnate into a fallen world immediately after a fall in antiquity if it is to be in any way significantly efficacious for the creatures' renewal. Rather, at least several stages of Revelation and development are necessary in order that the Coming of Incarnation might be most effective.

This can be argued as follows:

Firstly, we remember that whereas the angelic creature, freed from the impediments of physical steps of intellectual development, is able to digest the profound mysteries in a single instant, the material creature of necessity can only progress in stages to comprehend the profound. In other words, just as a child must develop in intelligence into maturity only by a slower process, so also must humanity as a whole progress in its capacity to comprehend the spiritual mysteries.

This is the first reason to argue that God can only progress humanity in stages of Revelation to prepare for their capacity to accept the fullness of truth that comes in the Incarnation.

The second reason for preliminary ages to precede the Incarnation is humanity's severe tendencies toward materialism and paganism because of its fallen nature. To illustrate, we perhaps recall the infamous "mark of the beast" in the New Testament apocalypse and that its number is 666. A mystical way to look at this symbolism is to reverse the relationship between God and man. We see this by first recalling that 7 is the number of perfection and so, in one sense, of God. It follows that 6 is a symbol of imperfection and therefore of man, who falls very short of God. But then, just as God is three Divine Persons in one Nature, so three 6’s in one number symbolizes man [6] making himself as God [three in one].

Consequently, whereas God made man in God’s Image and Likeness, the flip side is that, through the evil number above, man makes God in man’s image.

Subsequently, when man makes God into man’s image, one greater result is paganism, which is precisely the nature of man projecting his image onto the Divine. For, in paganism, the deities are largely a reflection of the fallen nature of man, themselves finite in power and in constant struggle according to diverse, and many times arrogant and selfish, passions.

An additional severe hurdle in the nature of man making God into his image is the blasphemous tendency of humanity to even deify themselves, presuming utter independence from God, the makers of their own destiny and fulfillment, and the final arbiter of truth.

This very construct presents the supreme problem of the mystery of God's Plan to impart the Revelation of the Incarnate One to a fallen world. Why? Well, firstly, because of paganism, man tends to see God in multiplicities and with conflicts , whether through the multiple gods of polytheism, or pantheism, where the god of the universe is having a bad dream from which man must help "him" [and therefore themselves also] to wake up.

Then, from this, we see that, preliminarily, God must first overcome the hurdle of multitheism and limited power of the deities by emphasizing the Unicity, Omnipotence, and Omniscience of God. Likewise, the emphasis on God's unicity and infinite transcendence must also be ground in first to make certain the reality that man cannot ascend above God, fashion his own fulfillment, nor determine the truth independent of God.

Only after this hurdle can the next much more profound mystery of the Incarnation and Trinity be made manifest, where we see the threefold family of love within God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each different Persons but all fully God (which must not be confused with a multiplicity of limited deities ) and of the Son Himself taking on human nature, so as to suffer in humility for the creatures (not to be confused with a lack of potency on God's part, nor to imply that man, as a mere creature, can ascend and become God, but to reveal His Immeasurable love to suffer in solidarity with and for fallen man).

Hence, our first conclusion is that before the Incarnation, the Spiritual Nature, Unicity, Omnipotence, and Omniscience of God must be firmly grounded in Revelation.

Furthermore, we now come to an additional argument of what the preliminary Revelation and stages must include to prepare in a unique way for the Coming of Incarnate One.

More specifically, precisely because of man's materialistic existence, he will tend to need to learn or discern the spiritual dimensions through visible signs, or types, before the abstractions that transcend the material signs are more palatable, just as a child must first learn through illustration before graduating to the raw abstractions of written word without images.

For this reason, it in fact implies that God must first establish stages of Revelation and Covenant that, in the beginning, use material things that only later shall be unveiled to point to their respective fulfillments. For example, killing a literal lamb must prefigure the sacrifice of the Eternal Lamb, the Christ; a literal land, or nation, will prefigure the ultimate Promised Land, heaven , the union with God in the eternal Beatific Vision; the miraculous but merely physical bread fulfilled in the spiritual bread of God Himself, the Eucharist. One must abstain from literal unclean meats , to be fulfilled in the abstinence form unclean moral actions. Henceforth, this special covenant that uses these material signs is, of course, the Prefiguring or Foreshadowing Covenant, the Jewish Covenant.

This, again, mirrors the physical picture that Obi Wan gives to Luke: Obi Wan, effectively, tells Luke that Vader LITERALLY murdered his father, when the ultimate reality is that he murdered him SPIRITUALLY. Only later, after greater maturity, is Obi Wan able to divulge the bigger picture, the DEEPER reality, just as only in the Coming of Incarnate One, is the fuller picture of the ultimate MEANING of the many diverse elements of the Old Covenant made manifest in the New.

Han, Obi-Wan, and the Millennium Falcon: Jesus, the Jews, and Sanctifying Grace

Another analogy that is strikingly indicative of the doctrine of justification in the Catholic faith is the desperate situation that Luke and Obi Wan find themselves in Mos Eisley, where they have no ship and yet are under the relentless, closing-in threat to confiscate the droids that hold the key to possibly saving the universe from diabolical terrorism, and the possible demise of the yet remnant rebel cause.

More specifically, they find themselves at the mercy of the cocky, self-assuraned Han Solo and his sidekick, Chewie.

Obi Wan cuts to the chase. “Look, let us just say that we want to avoid any Imperial entanglements.”

Han Solo suavely smiles, “Well, that’s really the trick, isn’t it. And it’ll cost you.”

Here, Obi Wan is a type of the naturalist, or Pharisee, and Solo, the Christ. The naturalist, or Pelagian, says, “Look, we just want to keep the ten commandments.”

And Jesus is like, “Well, that is really the trick, isn’t it!”

“We just want to keep the ten commandments.” But can man, who is stranded on the natural plane of the fallen nature, or Tatooine, really keep the moral law as ultimately pleasing to God? In no way! “Man cannot even approach God apart from actual grace.” Dogma. “Every salutary act requires actual grace to assist and the presence of habitual grace.” Dogma.

Without an outside help, no man can keep the moral law for an extended period of time. “It is morally impossible for a normal adult person to avoid mortal sin for an extended period of time apart from grace.” Dogma. Similarly, if Luke and Obi Wan do not get off Tatooine soon, the stormtroopers will find them, take the droids and kill them. It will mean the end. They need an assistance to get off there, to be elevated to a higher plane where they can try to escape the grasp of the diabolical hunters.

This sanctifying grace is the Millennium Falcon. Only a fast wonderful ship can elevate them off the planet. But they have no means to pay for it. Exactly. Sanctifying grace cannot be bought. It is given. In fact, the ultimate price for sanctifying grace is infinite, the death and resurrection of God Himself. They might as well be God Himself. “What?! We could buy our own ship for that!” Only God can supply the ship to elevate us from original sin to the plane of space, in the heavens. “Sanctifying grace is already a taste of heaven, a participation in the Divine Life and Love, which is infinitely above man”.

But alas, even if we HAVE the ship, who is gonna fly it?! “I am not such a bad pilot myself!” Are you? If you give a gift that is priceless, you still need to know how to use it. This is actual grace and the teachings of the Church, and the way of the saint. There is a beginner, or the purgative way, (A New Hope, Luke uses the force as a beginner to blow up the death star), there is proficient, or illuminative (Empire Strikes Back, Luke has a proficient understanding of the force and is adept, but not in full control, not yet an expert), and there is perfect, or unitive (Return of the Jedi, in return of the jedi, Luke finally masters the force: he is able to rescue his friend from a vile gangster against all odds, defeat darth vader by nearly crossing the threshold, and save his father. He becomes perfectly adept in the force). Even when you HAVE sanctifying grace, you still cannot DO saving acts apart from supernatural pushes from God that enlighten your intellect and strengthen you to do the right thing, or avoid the wrong thing.

Too, the demons are after you, and they are NOT amateurs. They are utter professionals, smarter than you, stronger than you, and dreadfully skilled. The empire is out to get you with star destroyers, tie fighters, and such. And they are skillfully trained. Only a ship guided by the Church’s teachings, a well trained will and skills in the virtues can navigate at light speed away from the relentless demons who still wish to catch you and destroy you.

There you have it. Star Wars could be seen as very CATHOLIC, at least in SOME ways!

Eternal Rest grant unto Alec, Carrie and her dear mother, Debbie, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. And may their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace!