“Are you going to heaven?”, a little girl asks.

“No. You gotta be a good person to go to heaven.”, the main character responds matter-of-factly.

“So, we’re the same. We can’t go to heaven. Cause you’re not good, and I’m not a person.”

We are treated to this exchange in the trailer for The Creator, a sci-fi movie which has already been released in cinemas & streaming services.

The story follows an AI which has taken the form of a child, and is threatening the human race through its seemingly supernatural powers.

The movie’s treatment of Artificial Intelligence is a good illustration of the spiritual relationship researchers seem to have with AI in real life.

On the one hand, it is a toddler-minded thing, which needs to be spoon-fed information carefully, such as the fact that the average human hand only has 5 fingers, or the difference between a tree and a traffic light. On the other hand, AI is being heralded as the next step in “human evolution”. Its developers are promising a revolutionized society, a utopia in which new scientific discoveries will solve most of our problems. AI is being touted as a future saviour, but for now we need to hold its hand until it learns to walk. Have we heard that anywhere before? Why would that strike a chord with us? Why should such a story be worth investing hundreds of millions into development and marketing?

It is exactly this Messianic child paradigm that we see in this trailer, and in the conversation above. It is this lens that we need to look through in order to understand the spiritual message of the film. Not to be too harsh on the little robot girl, but she is ticking both “anti” boxes of anti-Christ: the character (and the real-life idol of AI) is both instead of, and against, Christ.

So, are you going to heaven? Unfortunately, there are too many souls who watched the trailer, and have gone to see the movie, who were able to answer the question before the main character opened his mouth: “No. You gotta be a good person to go to heaven.”

In one sense, he’s not wrong. You do have to be good to go to heaven. Perfectly so. But the implication here, what is being said with what’s left unsaid, is that this is the way to heaven at all. The camaraderie we see at the end of the conversation makes perfect sense, coming from the mouth of a false Messiah: “oh well, none of us are perfect, we might as well try to make heaven here”.

This reaction would be reasonable, if God was a cruel God, a God who simply let us know we are sinners, and gave us 70-odd years to fret about it until judgement. But he isn’t. He is full of mercy and compassion, so much more than that, He tells us in His Word that He is love.

So why should we not just shrug our shoulders when faced with our sin? The Bible tells us:

“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,

that you may be feared.”

Psalm 130:3,4

If the Lord held our sin against us, none of us could stand. But with Him, there is forgiveness, that He may be feared.

Not being afraid of Him and turning away, but turning to Him, knowing and believing that He wants us with Him. There is repentance, because there is a redeemer. So, if you know someone who likes sci-fi, maybe even someone who has already seen this movie, you can let them know the main character is right. None of us are going to heaven because of our goodness. We are going to heaven because of His goodness.