The spirituality of Avatar
Douglas Todd
Published Jan 16, 2010 • Last updated Jun 04, 2017 • 5 minute read
The two key theological concepts that Avatar presents are: God is feminine, and nature is infused with her divine spirit.
Avatar is a very “big” movie, both cinematically and thematically. On its way to becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar takes a firm moral stand on three burning social issues.
Surrey Mayor, absolutely thinks “there is misogyny going on.”
Writer-director James Cameron declares in Avatar:
* The natural world is in dire need of protection.
* Economic imperialism is disastrously exploitive.
* Pre-emptive wars do not bring peace.
However, this politically “liberal” movie also has a tremendous amount to say about the “big” subjects of spirituality and religion.
It is, in effect, a visually overwhelming 3-D action-adventure sermon.
The two key theological concepts that pastor Cameron, who was raised in Ontario, teaches from his global pulpit in Avatar are:
Avatar is a very “big” movie, both cinematically and thematically. On its way to becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar takes a firm moral stand on three burning social issues.
Surrey Mayor, absolutely thinks “there is misogyny going on.”
Writer-director James Cameron declares in Avatar:
* The natural world is in dire need of protection.
* Economic imperialism is disastrously exploitive.
* Pre-emptive wars do not bring peace.
However, this politically “liberal” movie also has a tremendous amount to say about the “big” subjects of spirituality and religion.
It is, in effect, a visually overwhelming 3-D action-adventure sermon.
The two key theological concepts that pastor Cameron, who was raised in Ontario, teaches from his global pulpit in Avatar are:
- God is feminine, and
- nature is infused with her divine spirit.
Given the “culture wars” in the U.S., it will come as no surprise that social and religious conservatives are going ballistic over the critically acclaimed movie.
They recognize Avatar may end up having more propagandistic clout than even that other grand pop culture spiritual tale, The Da Vinci Code.
On the subject of religion, many critics are dismissing Avatar’s theology as “pantheistic.”
By that they mean the movie promotes the worship of nature, which they say is a false God.
Cameron’s religious critics suggest the Bible offers a much deeper portrayal of the true monotheistic God.
Do these conservative voices have a point?
In some ways.
There is little doubt that, despite its incredible 3-D special effects, Avatar has cartoonish elements.
It’s often-cheesy and violent depictions of the battle between good people and evil are reminiscent of Star Wars -another science fiction series that relied on an ancient religious concept, which it called “The Force.”
Before looking further at the spiritual ideas developed in Avatar, a few words on the plot.
It revolves around a wheel-chair-bound marine rocketing off in the year, 2154, to an intergalactic moon called Pandora, where the jaundiced recruit is given a high-paid job in a mercenary-dominated mining colony.
Jake Sully is commanded to infiltrate a community of nature-revering indigenous people called the Na’vi, whom the profit-hungry company insists must be displaced so it can mine a precious ore.
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To help him accomplish his task, scientists transform Sully into an Avatar, a humanoid creature who takes on the Na’vis’ formidable height and strength, not to mention their blue skin and tail — so he can live among them, basically as a spy.
Sully is slowly introduced to the spiritual belief system of the Na’vi tribe, largely through (as befits an adventure romance) a beautiful woman, a warrior who happens to be daughter of the chief and his wife, the tribe’s shaman.
In the wondrous rainforest, bewildered Sully discovers the Na’vis multidimensional spiritual worldview.
The Na’vis’ rich lives revolve around a feminine manifestation of divinity (a spiritual theme similar to The Da Vinci Code).
The Na’vi worship a sacred transcendent entity, called Eywa, who seems to be both Creator of the universe and Mother Goddess.
I’m sure it’s not coincidental that Eywa sounds very similar to “Yahweh,” one of the names for God in the Bible.
By naming his deity Eywa, Cameron appears to be implying spiritual continuity between Jewish and Christian scriptures and the forest dwellers of this futuristic indigenous community.
In addition to extolling Eywa, the Na’vi revere a magnificent, spiritually active evergreen called the Tree of Souls, which sends out healing woodsprites that look like airborne jellyfish.
Sully learns that the Na’vi practice forms of telepathy and sacred bonding, with both fellow Na’vi and phantasmagoric animals. A Na’vi tells the increasingly wide-eyed ex-marine that there is a “flow of energy” that inhabits everything.
Within this spiritually interconnected eco-system, they reveal the goal of the Mother Goddess is not to “take sides” in any war, but to “protect only the balance of life.”
This does not do full justice to the many spiritual themes developed in Avatar, including the Christ-like role eventually taken on by Sully and the Na’vi belief that all people must be “born twice.”
But I hope it provides enough background for a debate on whether Cameron is, indeed, promoting pantheism.
Pantheism is taken from the Greek work, pan, which means “all,” and theos, which means “God.”
It is a doctrine that declares nature and God are identical. Pantheism is sometimes equated with animism, which is often described as the belief that not only humans, but trees and animals, have souls.
I can see why people argue that Avatar preaches pantheism, since the Tree of Souls does serve a god-like purpose and the Na’vi’s forest is suffused with spirit.
But it is also quite possible Cameron is trying to develop a more sophisticated metaphysical worldview.
It’s one which many Jewish and Christian theologians, and even some scientists, call “panentheism.”
Panentheism is a challenging concept. It includes aspects of pantheism, but goes beyond it.
The respected Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology defines panentheism as:
“The doctrine that all is in God. It is distinguished from pantheism, which identifies God with the totality or as the unity of the totality — for panentheism holds that God’s inclusion of the world does not exhaust the reality of God. Panentheism understands itself as a form of theism, but criticizes traditional theism for depicting the world as external to God.”
In other words, panentheism rejects a classic church belief that God is a distant, unchangeable Supreme Being, like a monarch. Instead, it teaches that God is in all things, but also transcends all things.
A decent case can be made that “panentheism” is the kind of spirituality that James Cameron puts on display in Avatar.Panentheists believe the early Christians were panentheists, in part because they thought Jesus illustrated how God is “incarnated” in the world (which is the definition of the Hindu word, “avatar”).
Many philosophers and theologians have endorsed this spiritual view, including, to name a notable few, Georg Hegel, Charles Hartshorne, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Sri Aurobindo, John Cobb Jr., Ken Wilber and the Vancouver School of Theology’s Sallie McFague.
I think a decent case can be made that panentheism is the kind of spirituality that Cameron puts on display in Avatar.
Unlike a pantheist, he is not necessarily preaching: “Nature is God.”
Instead, the spirit of the divine in Avatar is described as both emanating from the transcendent monotheistic God, Eywa, but also as being embodied in everything that is — ranging from the Tree of Souls to all living entities.
Even though Avatar over-romanticizes and idealizes the indigenous Na’vi, in its exaggerated way it advances a worldview that many theologians, secular philosophers and even scientists are today endorsing — that the universe is, in a sense, “enchanted.”
I don’t want to push this too far. Cameron may or may not have realized Avatar could reflect a serious panentheistic worldview.
But at the least the movie is becoming a global spiritual discussion starter.
Jewish and Christian organizations have already picked up on its themes, in a mostly positive way.
That’s in part because, like most religions and science fiction itself, Avatar is, at its essence, radical. It turns our normal views of reality on their heads.
While attacking the profane values of power, force and wealth – Avatar proclaims that a dramatically different world is possible. One suffused with an intimate sense of the sacred.
UPDATE: I’m glad to report that another writer, a spiritually literate Santa Barbara lawyer (of all things), has also discovered panentheistic themes in Avatar. You can find his well-written piece here.
