Gregory A. Boyd - Escaping the Matrix: Setting Your Mind Free to Experience Real Life in Christ

2005 by Gregory A. Boyd and Al Larson

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-0137-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Scripture marked NRSV is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

Contents

Most of her life Mary had been depressed. She didnt know why and didnt know how to get out of it. She loved Jesus, had a near ideal upbringing, and went to church regularly. She had been in and out of therapy most of her life, took antidepression medications, and had been prayed for repeatedlyincluding several attempted exorcisms. Yet Mary remained depressed. A not-quite-professional term Mary used to describe her condition was that she was stuck.

In one way or another, most of us are stuck. You may be stuck in a rage you cant control or an inability to get angry when you should. You may be stuck in a fear of intimate relationships or an inability to avoid them, even when theyre inappropriate. You may be stuck in an inability to get excited about much of anything or in a virtual addiction to excitement. You may be stuck in a pattern of lustful thoughts or in an inability to become sexually aroused toward your spouse. You may have a compulsion to shop, an inferiority or superiority complex, a judgmental attitude you cant shut off, a persistent feeling of guilt, an ongoing and pervasive anxiety, a tendency toward self-hatred, or an addiction to pornography. All are evidence of being stuck.

Now, no one likes to be stuck. Its always life-inhibiting, usually painful, and often downright destructive. In all likelihood youve tried hard to get unstuck. Yet, despite all the self-help techniques youve tried, the willpower youve exerted, the resolutions youve made, and the prayers youve prayed, you remain the same.

Whats particularly frustrating and puzzling about this for believers is that Scripture seems to promise us that things would be very different. Arent we supposed to be more than conquerors (Rom. 8:37)? Arent we supposed to be new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)? Arent we supposed to experience abundant life and be filled with the love, joy, peace, and power of God himself (e.g., John 10:10; Phil. 4:18; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Tim. 1:7)?

What is the problem?

Oddly enough, we submit that a most profound clue to an answer to this question is found in the blockbuster movie TheMatrix.[] Few movies have captured the imagination of people like The Matrix, along with its two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. These three moviesbut especially the first onehave inspired a remarkable amount of philosophical and religious discussion. Much has been said about the ingenious way in which the Wachowski brothers weave together Christian, Gnostic, Buddhist, and ancient Greek ideas, myths, and symbols. And a good deal has been written on the assortment of intriguing philosophical and psychological questions raised by these movies. Are humans free or determined? What is the nature of reality? Is technology a friend or a foe?

Yet, what is in our minds the most profound aspect of the Matrix movies has not been addressed. It concerns the basic metaphor of the Matrix itself.

In the movie The Matrix, humanity is enslaved by an artificial intelligence we ourselves created. Humans are kept in pods while their bodies are used as energy sources to support the machinery of artificial intelligence. To keep us enslaved, the artificial intelligence creates a massive, interactive, virtual reality for humans. And by meticulously controlling the neurons in our brains, the artificial intelligence manages to deceive us into thinking this virtual world is the real world. Though we are in fact enslaved in cocoonlike pods, we experience ourselves and our world just as we do now. Everything seems normal. Everything feels real.

The neurologically controlled virtual reality that keeps us imprisoned is the Matrix.

The most profound aspect of The Matrix and its sequels is the powerful way in which the Matrix metaphor fuses biblical truth with the findings of neuroscience. On the one hand, the metaphor illustrates the biblical concept of a pattern of this world (Rom. 12:2) that has an evil, cosmic forcea god of this age (Satan)as its architect (2 Cor. 4:4; see also Eph. 2:2; 1 John 5:19). On the other hand, the metaphor brilliantly illustrates the neurological truth that our entire experience of reality is rooted in the electrical-chemical firings in our brains.

At one point Neo asks Morpheus if his experience in the Matrix is real. Morpheus responds, What is real? How do you define real? If youre talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

The plausibility and profundity of the Matrix concept resides in the fact that Morpheus was speaking accurately to Neo. The fact is our entire experience of ourselves and the world is indeed a neurologically generated constructa matrix. Everything we experience is at base a network of neurons in our brains firing on one another in patterned ways. Everything you experience is in fact electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

The book youre holding and the words youre reading right now, the smell of your coffee nearby, the feeling of the weight of your body on the chair in which youre sitting, the room youre in, the sounds youre hearing, your memory of yesterday, and your thoughts about tomorrowall are electrical-chemical reactions in your brain. Based on information stored in neurons, your brain automatically attaches meaning to every distinct aspect of this electrical-chemical activity. It interprets one pattern of electrical signals (called a neural-net) as a book, another as the smell of coffee, another as a chair, and another as a thought about tomorrow. And it interprets each of these activated neurological networks as conveying the real world.

Yet, its just possible that your interpretation of your electrical signals is wrongand herein lies the neurological plausibility of the premise of the