OVERWHELMING COMPLEXITY
“Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”― Morpheus
When Neo is asked by Morpheus to choose between the red pill and the blue he is really being asked whether he wants to find out more about the Matrix. Taking the blue pill will end the opportunity; taking the red commits him for the full ride.
It may seem unfair at first for Neo to have to make this all-or nothing decision at this point in the game. Why can’t he simply be told some more details and have more of his questions answered before he has to make the final choice?
The reason becomes apparent when Neo decides to take the red pill, and is immediately subjected to a mind-blowing, nerve-wracking, knuckle-biting process of sensory deprogramming which literally severs him from his cybernetic umbilical cord and smashes him head-first into reality. And “reality” (in the true sense of the term, a real world as compared to a simulation) is a world of stark terror, isolation, and loneliness. Neo is left alienated from his former world, and is now a bewildered resident of a strange, Spartan world, and worse, he is now an enemy of the Matrix.
Now he recalls what Morpheus had said at the beginning: “Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” Fact is, Morpheus had told him that the Matrix “…is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth”, but before his experience he had been unable to fully understand. Now he understands.
Many people will not believe something until they fully understand it. But as is well illustrated by The Matrix there are some things in life that cannot be understood until they are experienced. Neo could not really understand the Matrix until he was willing to take a chance and follow Morpheus’ instructions. These instruction led him through a process that disconnected him from the Matrix long enough to realize that he had been connected to the Matrix.
YOU HAVE TO BE DISCONNECTED BEFORE YOU CAN REALIZE YOU WERE CONNECTED.
That’s exactly the same that has to happen before you can understand the true Christian message. Christian sayings such as “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7) are incomprehensible until you are born again.
COMPLEXITY
Why? Why can’t they be explained? Because of complexity. Some concepts are complicated by the fact that there are many things you need to understand first before you can adequately understand them. This is self-evident in such cases as in computer terminology, for instance. Say you wanted to create a MACRO, but wanted to fully understand all that was involved before you started. What a lot of teaching you would need! But yet you could be shown a MACRO by someone else that already understood how to make one, and you could actually begin to make them yourself, before you actually understood them It’s the same thing with some Christian concepts.
OPPOSITION
But more than complexity there is the problem of opposition. It’s quite obvious in The Matrix that the controlling computer made it impossible for any one of it’s “subjects” to think about the Matrix. Before he was freed from it’s influence Neo was programmed to think that he was a free man living in a real world. He was not allowed to think that he was actually a prisoner being manipulated by a machine. This is actually the situation you are in before you become a Christian. The Bible says that the truth about the reality of the situation of the non-Christian “is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not…”1. This means that there is an active agent who opposes you and keeps you from realizing the truth. The Bible calls this agent “the god of this world”. In other passages we are given more bits of information: “wherein in time past (before you became a Christian) ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience…”2
There is an active agent opposing your coming to a realization of the truth. It is exactly the same situation as Morpheus described: “(the Matrix)…is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth”.
Occasionally we are given quick glimpses or premonitions that this agent is working in the background, but whenever we think of these things we are immediately given a “counter-thought” and as a result we are kept in the dark, with only the nagging remembrance of a “splinter in your mind” to haunt us.
For instance, remember the lyrics to the Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil?
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste,
I’ve been around for a long, long time
And I’ve laid many a soul to waste,
I was around when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate washed
His hands and sealed His fate
Pleased to meet you,
Hope you guess my name….
But what’s puzzling you is
The nature of my game!
How did the song-writer know that you have a splinter in your mind? And when you realized that you really didn’t know what the Devil’s game is, wasn’t your next thought, “Oh well, it’s only a song”?
Beginning to feel manipulated? Well? Are you interested yet in breaking free?
(1)Yes! I want to learn more! Go on to Matrix Part 3
(2)Wait a minute! I’m not convinced! Why can’t I just be TOLD what the MATRIX is? Why can’t I just be TOLD what being BORN-AGAIN is?
12 Corinthians 4:3,4
2 Ephesians 2:2