At one point a seeker is told that this story “will make you believe in God". However the story is brilliant because it will reveal to someone what they already believe...
See HERE for full plot summary.
Basically the entire story is about a boy surviving in a lifeboat with a tiger.
After weeks at sea and a journey to a floating island, he is rescued. The
people recording his amazing story are unhappy with HOW fantastic his experience
was and ask for another story: "one that won't make them look like
fools" OR "A Story that only has things which they have already experienced"
So PI tells another story that allegorizes the first story, turning a
fantastical story of mystery into one of cannibalism, murder, and human
depravity, a believable story.
As PI recounts this entire experience
he is asked, "which story do you prefer" to which the man replies,
the TIGER story. PI then says "So it is with God".
This line has many
interpretations. The movie was brilliant because it reveals our philosophical assumptions
without us even knowing it. It juxtaposes rational naturalism with faith.
(I do not say Faith vs. Reason
because that was not what the story was about. BOTH stories were equally possible
and had the same AMOUNT of evidence. The difference was needing to believe what
we have experienced through the empirical world (naturalism which leads to hedonism)
or suspending our belief into include
things we have not seen or experienced (faith).
It was so interesting to read
reviews. Most reviews and discussion boards I read were full of people never
even considering that the TIGER story was true. People just KNEW it was a physiological
defense mechanism for the brutality reality of the second story. They never even
knew they were assuming, or that they had a philosophical bent, they never
stopped to consider that both stories were neutral in evidence. We have been raised in this naturalistic paradigm.
We cannot let go of the need to control and understand the world around us.
This is the world to which the Son of God appeared. He healed, he loved, he
fulfilled prophecies, but the response to Him was not faith, but a demand for
more miracles.
So it is with us.
Do you believe in the harsh
reality that this world is all there is? That the natural world is the end of experience,
and we may has well survive and seek pleasure till we die?
Or are we willing to suspend our
belief into a world we cannot see or touch, and that we have never experienced?
More likely we are the Pharisee, a nauseating hybrid, claiming religious
devotion, but continuing to demand the control
of our own life. Demanding worldly evidence or an emotional experience of love at
every turn or difficulty.
Jesus asked, "Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous
signs and wonders?" - John 4:48
Jesus said to him, “Because you have
seen Me, have you believed? Blessed
are they who did not see, and yet believed.” John
20:24-29.
A hidden kingdom is offered to those
who have not seen, but choose to believe.
