In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, St. Thomas makes the observation that when Aristotle reckons that “art imitates nature,” he means that man, because he is an intellectual creature, can make things that help him fulfill his nature. For example, a beaver builds a dam by instinct, while man uses his reason to fashion a house. But it doesn’t just pertain to servile arts like building a house, but fine arts like making a movie or writing a book. But because man is also fallen, he can also use those same arts to distort and do harm to his nature. In this way we might say that, in addition to imitating nature, “art forms nature.”
Examples abound on how this uniquely human capacity is abused, but there is one way that has a profound effect in our age. The aforementioned storytelling arts use the inherent power of storytelling to activate wonder and convey important truths about what it means to be human. One way in which this art abuses our nature has been covered previously regarding “Drag Queen Story Hour.” While this is still somewhat rare, thee is a more common abuse of story that may not even be on our radar at first—it wasn’t on mine until a friend of mine pointed it out.
Tolerating Plot Holes
We have all seen movies in which there are both subtle and gigantic plot holes. Sometimes they are too much and we turn off the movie, but most of the time we simply tolerate them for the sake of moving the plot along. We might think that the producers of the movies are simply lazy in not tying up loose ends, but in truth we should expect them when the story presents a falsehood about human life. The problem is that if we watch enough movies, then we eventually learn to overlook them. We become, in a very real sense, conditioned to overlook them—not just in the movies but in the rest of life as well. Point of evidence is the current Covid crisis which is riddled with plot holes that the majority of people of good will simply accept.
More on this particular example in a moment, but there is something further here that needs to be pointed out. We accept the plot holes for the sake of the plot and to move the story along. But if we look at it from the perspective of the producer, he has a plot in mind and includes the plot holes in order to make his story fit together. In a certain sense then we can say that the plot holes actually reveal the plot and the intention of the producer.
This principle is important because it is applies to the incongruous in real life as well. We will usually have one of two tendencies; to overlook the plot hole completely or to point out that it makes no sense and then, like the fist tendency, simply move on. The point though is that it makes perfect sense because it moves the story along. In other words, if we pay close attention to the incongruities rather than dismissing or mocking them, the plot that the artist is advancing will come into relief.
Focusing on the plot holes themselves then will enable us to see through the agenda of those who insert them into reality. These holes may look different in the various arenas of public life, but the principle is always the same. If we consider three examples from the fields of morality, science and politics then we can learn how to see the plot holes for what they really are.
Plot Holes in the Moral Realm
Any number of examples could have been chosen to demonstrate moral plot holes, but a recent one from Pope Francis is particularly helpful here. In a documentary that aired in October, the Holy Father was quoted as saying that “we have to create a civil union law.” While not a tacit acceptance of gay marriage (few things, unfortunately, are tacit with Pope Francis), the comment caused an uproar because he was suggesting that the civil realm should create space for gay couples.
Let us assume that the Holy Father’s “plot” is promotion of the Gospel and true human thriving in this world so as to be residents of the next. From within that context we would say marriage is a fundamental human good that helps to fulfill human nature. But not any “union” between two people will do, but only one that is in accord with nature. In short, as Catholics, we know that only monogamous marriage between a man and a woman leads to authentic happiness. Any other domestic arrangement leads away from this. The laws and the practices of the Church herself are reflective of this awareness. The Church teaches what she does about marriage because she knows that it is a good thing for those involved to act according to nature.
To suggest that this is just a “Church law” or only binding on Catholics with no effect in the civil realm creates a giant plot hole. No law should be made to protect or promote something that we know will ultimately lead to unhappiness. By suggesting that there should be some civil law, the Holy Father is really expressing that he doesn’t believe that marriage is a true human good.
Pope Francis in choosing the name Francis has seen his role as one who would reform the Church. He has been open about this from the beginning of his pontificate. Applying our principle of looking along the plot hole (at this and many of his other ones), we can discern what that reform consists in. The Holy Father is attempting to reform the Church, not according the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of the age. The plot holes reveal the plot.
Plot Holes in the Scientific Realm
Plot holes in the scientific realm are usually more difficult to discern for the layman, but usually become apparent once you check assumptions. When a scientific theory is full of unsubstantiated claims that are labeled as “assumptions” the plot of the Scientists are unmistakable.
A good example of this is what we is commonly referred to as the Big Bang Theory. This theory claims that the universe began as a dense ball of primordial matter that exploded and over billions of years organized into the universe that we observe today. This cosmology is accepted as scientific fact, but once we pull back the curtain we find that it rests on many untested and untestable assumptions. There is a growing gap between observation and theory and in order to advance the plot, several plot holes needed to be introduced. According to Big Bang Cosmologists, ~95% of the universe is composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The problem is that these hypothetical entities have never been observed and they can’t be measured. Instead they are theoretical constructs that hold the Big Bang Universe and its accompanying theory together. You can read more about these two things elsewhere, but the point is that in order to use the theory to explain what we observe in the universe, physicists had to make up an unobservable “force”. As one physicist observed,
Big bang theory relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities – things that we have never observed. Inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent. Without them, there would be fatal contradictions between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory…the big bang theory can’t survive without these fudge factors.
Eric Lerner, “Bucking the Big Bang”, New Scientist
The point is that we hold as scientific fact a theory that only explains 5% of what we observe in the universe.
Viewed as plot holes, these assumptions reveal that Big Bang Cosmology is not about the science but about scientism and the ability to explain natural phenomena using only natural causes. It is an attempt to discredit the Genesis account of creation and theology and create an atheology that is completely devoid of God. It is essentially the theory of Evolution on a cosmic scale. The plot holes reveal the plot.
Plot Holes in the Political Realm
As is becoming increasingly obvious, the political realm is not devoid of plot holes either. In fact one could say that the plot holes in this arena of life will be the way in which 2020 is best remembered. Covid-19 itself is not a plot hole, but the way in which it has been managed has revealed the plot holes in reality. If we examine them carefully then we can come to see the plot more clearly.
We will discuss the vaccine some time in the near future, but the manner in which masks, social distancing and closures have been implemented have represented serious plot holes because of their lack of consistency and scientific justification. I already discussed this with relation to masks, but it also applies to social distancing. This has never been tried before and it is based on a simulation. Yes, you read that right, not an experiment, but a simulation. Drs. Jay Richards and William Briggs cover this in their book Price of Panic in detail, but in short the CDC went with recommendations from this paper in which found that social distancing would “yield local defenses against a highly virulent strain” in the absence of effective treatment. The “science” behind it was simple; you create a model to simulate an environment in which closing schools and implementing social distance measures lower the rate of infection and then you test to see if the rate is in fact lower. Besides proving that you are a good programmer, this also, surprisingly proved that social distancing worked. The fact that it is a simulated environment and not a real one should have no bearing on our decisions, right? This is, after all, Science. No matter anyway because we now have effective treatment and thus no more need for social distancing, right?
Once we view these inconsistencies as plot holes related to the plot, we can see that there are powers that be that have chosen not to waste a good crisis and to implement their grand plot—The Great Reset—which we will discuss in the coming weeks. The plot holes reveal the plot.
In conclusion, we might be willing to tolerate plot holes in our movies, but we should never overlook them in real life. If we do, we may find that we are caught up in someone else’s story for how the world should be. The plot holes reveal the plot.