In Contact with Faith
Robert Zimeckis's Contact
Mark Driscoll
July 1, 1997
Contact, directed by Robert Zimeckis (Warner Bros., 1997), 150 mins.
"Faith alone is certainty. Everything but faith is subject to doubt. Jesus Christ alone is the certainty of faith." —Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The ancients were commended for this. Rationalism is being sure of scientific naturalism and certain of what we do see. The moderns were commended for this. In the movie Contact, the two philosophies actually contact. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by the now-metaphysically challenged Carl Sagan, and is a fascinating look at the tension that existed between the two streams of Enlightenment thought: inward spiritual romanticism and outward scientific empiricism.
Jodie Foster plays Dr. Ellie Arroway, a staunch empiricist who is critical of personal faith in God because he cannot be proven with complete certainty. Her counterpart, Matthew McConaughey, plays Palmer Joss, a New-Age guru who believes in religious faith and is critical of the benefits of modern science.
The film's central issue is the ridiculous notion that there are two separate worlds, one of objective facts and the other of subjective faith. This point is clearly illustrated throughout the film as Arroway decries faith even as she lives by it, intently listening to space for alien life while enduring criticism from her colleagues.
What we learn is that at the base of every worldview exists a set of assumptions that can neither be proven nor disproved, but must be accepted by faith. The implication is that complete certainty cannot come through the Cartesian effort to begin with the autonomous thinking individual who collects all data and objectively reasons his way ...
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