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Seeing Is Believing: The Revelation of God Through Film
How might film reveal God? In its most basic form, film is a series of images displayed over time. Of course, film has developed greatly since the Lumière brothers by adding components such as sound, special effects, digital recording, and more to create an increasingly complex artistic medium. Historically, film studies has often focused on the narrative aspect of film as it seeks to tell a story. More recent studies, however, have turned attention to other elements of film, such as the musical score. Yet, film remains, in a sense, a series of images. In this Studies in Theology and the Arts (STA) volume, theologian Richard Goodwin considers how the images that constitute film might be a conduit of God's revelation. By considering works by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Bresson, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, and more, Goodwin argues that by inviting emotional responses, film images can be a medium of divine revelation. Blessed are those who have seen God... through film. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.
- GenresFilm
288 pages, Paperback
Published July 19, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 18, 2023
I'm shocked that this was an actual Ph.D dissertation. It was one of the most poorly argued theses I've ever interacted with.
He has no understanding of revelation, either biblically (he tilted quite hard at Romans 1 trying to dismiss what it says on the subject...and don't even get me started on his Bethel paradigm nonsense) or theologically. And since he couldn't develop a consistent definition of revelation the rest of the book has you wondering if anything could be revelation since the definition kept morphing to accommodate any sublime, awesome, emotional, dreadful, spiritual, or gastrointestinal feeling.
If you swapped "film" in his thesis with "psychadelic drugs" you would get a better feel for what he was arguing. Film can essentially be a "thin place" where a spiritual something or other may choose to interact with you. I say "spiritual something or other" because his definition of "God" was about as consistent as the one he used for "revelation". That's why the theological rotgut of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey could be put forth as "revelation" when it is very intentionally trying to put forth a theology of the cosmos that makes no room for the God of the Scriptures and what he has actually revealed. There's a reason the Bible warns us against witchcraft and divination.
The conclusion section of his book made me laugh out loud. He literally says "who can know" regarding his thesis. It's an unfalsifiable claim supported by anecdotes from the review sections of online film review sites.
All that said, I actually think there is some merit to his thesis, but not in the way he's saying it. Film, due to many factors in its composition, storytelling, and visual reception, is definitely a powerful medium for affecting the viewers, in fact training their affections towards certain objects. The problem is that he thinks he's discovered a possibility that this might be so, all the while the film industry has already known this to be the case for the past 100 years and is steadily churning out its cultural rot and idolatry upon the third and fourth generations of those who are being trained to hate God. Christians need to get in the game and use the God-ordained means of beauty (in art, film, and storytelling) to train the imaginations and emotions of the culture as part of the Cultural Mandate.
P.S. - I wanted to throw the book across the room every time I came across the term "Godself". Don't want to offend the feminist gods by using the biblical pronouns. IVP should be ashamed of themselves.
He has no understanding of revelation, either biblically (he tilted quite hard at Romans 1 trying to dismiss what it says on the subject...and don't even get me started on his Bethel paradigm nonsense) or theologically. And since he couldn't develop a consistent definition of revelation the rest of the book has you wondering if anything could be revelation since the definition kept morphing to accommodate any sublime, awesome, emotional, dreadful, spiritual, or gastrointestinal feeling.
If you swapped "film" in his thesis with "psychadelic drugs" you would get a better feel for what he was arguing. Film can essentially be a "thin place" where a spiritual something or other may choose to interact with you. I say "spiritual something or other" because his definition of "God" was about as consistent as the one he used for "revelation". That's why the theological rotgut of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey could be put forth as "revelation" when it is very intentionally trying to put forth a theology of the cosmos that makes no room for the God of the Scriptures and what he has actually revealed. There's a reason the Bible warns us against witchcraft and divination.
The conclusion section of his book made me laugh out loud. He literally says "who can know" regarding his thesis. It's an unfalsifiable claim supported by anecdotes from the review sections of online film review sites.
All that said, I actually think there is some merit to his thesis, but not in the way he's saying it. Film, due to many factors in its composition, storytelling, and visual reception, is definitely a powerful medium for affecting the viewers, in fact training their affections towards certain objects. The problem is that he thinks he's discovered a possibility that this might be so, all the while the film industry has already known this to be the case for the past 100 years and is steadily churning out its cultural rot and idolatry upon the third and fourth generations of those who are being trained to hate God. Christians need to get in the game and use the God-ordained means of beauty (in art, film, and storytelling) to train the imaginations and emotions of the culture as part of the Cultural Mandate.
P.S. - I wanted to throw the book across the room every time I came across the term "Godself". Don't want to offend the feminist gods by using the biblical pronouns. IVP should be ashamed of themselves.
September 30, 2022
I’ve always loved movies.
As a kid growing up in Alaska the winters were long and cold. As much as I loved sledding, skiing and building snow forts there was really only so much time that could spent in the often 25° (or colder) temperatures. So, I watched a lot of movies. I still watch a lot of movies. So when I came across this book by Richard Vance Goodwin I was very interested.
In Seeing is Believing, Richard Vance Goodwin makes the case for the revelation of God through film. We aren’t talking here about the christian film industry and the often extremely preachy and cheesy movies that they produce. Instead Goodwin uses examples of celebrated, artistic and award winning films—some even classics. Goodwin argues against the idea or belief that God can only be revealed through Biblical scripture and in essence makes the case for the possibility of the revelation of God through nature and artistic expression.
I found this book to be incredibly inspiring. Not only did I learn about several celebrated films that I had never heard of (and now intend to watch) but the way Goodwin described his own and others experiences of certain films and scenes within films gave me a deeper appreciation for the art of film. Not only a deeper appreciation for film itself and how God can speak through it—but also for what is possible for for the art of film to convey about who God is.
Wonderful read.
As a kid growing up in Alaska the winters were long and cold. As much as I loved sledding, skiing and building snow forts there was really only so much time that could spent in the often 25° (or colder) temperatures. So, I watched a lot of movies. I still watch a lot of movies. So when I came across this book by Richard Vance Goodwin I was very interested.
In Seeing is Believing, Richard Vance Goodwin makes the case for the revelation of God through film. We aren’t talking here about the christian film industry and the often extremely preachy and cheesy movies that they produce. Instead Goodwin uses examples of celebrated, artistic and award winning films—some even classics. Goodwin argues against the idea or belief that God can only be revealed through Biblical scripture and in essence makes the case for the possibility of the revelation of God through nature and artistic expression.
I found this book to be incredibly inspiring. Not only did I learn about several celebrated films that I had never heard of (and now intend to watch) but the way Goodwin described his own and others experiences of certain films and scenes within films gave me a deeper appreciation for the art of film. Not only a deeper appreciation for film itself and how God can speak through it—but also for what is possible for for the art of film to convey about who God is.
Wonderful read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews