Loki and the Problem of Determinism

Warning: This article contains spoilers of the Disney Plus Series “Loki.”

Recently, my family and I binged the series Loki which is the latest of the burgeoning MCU[1] programs on Disney Plus. While all MCU programs thus far have been very well done—and mind you, I am a huge MCU fan—the Loki series proved to engage deep philosophical and theological questions which should be considered and pondered.

The series begins with a scene from the movie Avengers: Endgame where Loki steals the tesseract and warps himself into another dimension of time. Having thought that he outsmarted his foes once again, the God of Mischief discovered that he would soon be captive to an organization that protected time itself. Since he had disrupted the timeline, he had become dangerous to the TVA (Time Variance Authority) and thus labeled a “variant.” Eventually, Loki meets numerous iterations of himself including a female version known as Lady Loki. Lady Loki abhors the name and decides to call herself “Sylvie.” Loki finds himself in love with Sylvie, the only true love of his life. Technically, he falls in love with himself which creates a whole other set of problems for another time and another article.

The first season of the Loki series ends with Loki and Sylvie standing before a scientist who found a way to stabilize time. Known only as “He Who Remains” (most likely, he either is or will become the fierce villain Kang the Conqueror), the mystery man reveals that he has plotted the lives of every single person in every dimension to stabilize the flow of time. Free will is a farce according to this mystery man as each event was scripted which led Loki and Sylvie to the point that they would meet him. This led to a threshold event in which the One Who Remains found himself at a point that he did not know what would occur.

Sylvie and Loki found themselves at a crossroads trying to decide what to do with the timekeeper. Sylvie desired to kill the keeper of time because she deemed him responsible for what she considered a meaningless life, whereas Loki viewed the timekeeper as a necessary evil. After an epic combat scene, Sylvie warped Loki back to the momentarily defunct TVA before killing the timekeeper. This leads us to our current question: Is God like the One Who Remains? This question kept plaguing my mind as the series unfolded. For three reasons, God’s involvement with the arrow of time is unlike the timekeeper of the Loki series.

1. God grants moral freedom to creatures, unlike the MCU timekeeper.

While various sects of Christianity may differ in this concept, the cumulative biblical and philosophical data suggests that people are free. As Thomas Aquinas masterfully contended, “I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.”[2] Morally speaking, a strict determinist God may be likened to the MCU timekeeper. In such a universe, one discovers oneself in a situation not that dissimilar to the Hindu caste system, whereby a person cannot free oneself from the caste in which one is born. In contrast, as Baggett and Wells denote, “freedom is altogether at home in a universe that is the creation of a perfectly good God who freely created this universe and made us in his image.”[3]

2. God’s foreknowledge does not necessitate determinism unlike the MCU timekeeper.

Unlike the MCU timekeeper, Scripture defines God as a necessarily omniscient Being. The psalmist praises God as being “great, vast in power; his understanding is infinite” (Psa. 147:5, CSB). It is also noted that God knows a word that comes to a person’s mouth before it is even uttered (Psa. 139:4). The late Thomas Oden defined omniscience as “the infinite consciousness of God in relation to all possible objects of knowledge.”[4] As such, God is intricately involved in all aspects of life. However, God’s knowledge does not necessitate God’s dictation of all events. As Tim Stratton has argued, God’s knowledge includes free choices, but “God does not cause a person’s choices.”[5] Oden further states, “God not only grasps and understands what actually will happen, but also what could happen under varied possible contingencies.”[6] Thus, an Anselmian God—the maximally great Being—is one who knows all choices without forcing choices on a creature.

3. God’s moral code means that he desires the best for all people, unlike the MCU timekeeper.

The MCU timekeeper was not concerned about the wellbeing of those under his watch care. Rather, he was merely interested in keeping the timeline together. While the timekeeper claimed to loath the position he held, his last words before dying seemed to suggest otherwise. The suspense builds! Enter the ominous music. In contrast, God is an omnibenevolent Being who desires the best for all people. One could not argue the same in deterministic models. The best data suggests that God loves us and has given all of us inherent dignity and worth.[7] Rather than bargaining with Loki and Sylvie to provide them their best life, God desires the best for all creatures. It is because of human rebellion and the impact of sin that people are unable to live to their maximal potential, something which in my opinion will be corrected in heaven.

Conclusion

The Loki series on Disney Plus is a philosophically rich program. In my honest opinion, I believe it is one of the best television programs of the MCU currently available on the streaming app. With that said, some may be tempted to compare He Who Remains (potentially an iteration of Kang the Conqueror) with the Anselmian God of Scripture. However, as has been shown, the two are worlds, if not dimensions, apart. Unlike the MCU timekeeper, God has given his creation moral freedom, purpose, and meaning. We truly serve a good God who desires the very best for us all.

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics, and a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain, an editor for the Eleutheria Journal, and an Associate Editor for MoralApologetics.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

[1] Short for Marvel Comics Universe.

[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.q83.a1, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1911),

[3] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, God & Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 104.

[4] Thomas C. Oden, The Living God: Systematic Theology, Vol. I (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 70.

[5] Timothy A. Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism: A Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Philosophical Analysis (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020), 189.

[6] Oden, Living God, 72.

[7] Baggett and Walls, God & Cosmos, 280.