Data-Lore and Becoming Holy
A beauty within Wesleyan-Holiness Theology is an understanding of prevenient grace, which is the grace that goes before an ability to recognize God’s work in the world. This allows the Wesleyan-Holiness theologian to see God at work in diverse and pluralistic frameworks. Those who know me will recognize that I draw on popular culture from my lifetime often. This has become such a part of my sermons and teaching that one Sunday when filling in at the last minute I had no reference to a movie, song, or other idea and a friend mentioned how disappointed they were at that.
Before we get into the meat of this, I will give a quick warning that I have included spoilers from the TV show Star Trek: Picard. If you have not seen season three episode eight yet, you have been warned.
Star Trek: Picard as a series has balanced nostalgia and new storytelling well over its short run. Season three is especially full of nostalgic music, characters, and nods to the Next Generation universe in a way that draws this lifelong fan in. There have been many scenes this season that speak to the heart and to deeper truth. But nothing prepared me for Season 3 Episode 8: *Surrender*.
This episode resolves years of wonder and brings an understanding of reconciliation, redemption, sanctification, and even incarnation. We are shown this story through a battle between the Artificial Intelligence of Data, an android who was part of the *Enterprise* crew, his emotional and power hungry “brother” Lore, the prototype for Data, B4, and conciousness form Dr. Soong a human creator of the android brothers. This is masterful storytelling as this conflict is all within the virtual space of the positronic brain housing the elements of these consciousnesses. To set the scene, so to speak, Data is highly rational and lacking human empathy and emotion. Lore is power hungry and highly emotionally charged. The two brothers could not be more different but to save the ship, the humans around Data must remove a partition in the positronic interface that separates the consciousnesses, hoping for Data to be the victor.
The internal ongoing battle of wits is observed by the humans as dots on a brain map. Lore is represented by red and Data by white dots. As Lore and Data battle, the lights slowly change from white to red and the humans become worried. Data summons objects which represent memories of his life and history and hand them to Lore. This elicits taunting from Lore, asking why Data holds on to memories. Back on the outside, the comment is made that the display looks like surrender. Data finally comes to his cat, Spot, and tells Lore how Spot taught him to feel and care for another creature. Lore looks triumphant as Data hands over the Spot avatar and fades away.
But then Lore glitches and acts as if he feels strange. He sees a bright white light and Data reappears. Lore asks what is happening to which Data answers that he had figured out that Lore truly valued Data’s memories and would treat them as trophies. “You took the things that were me and, in doing so, you have become me.” The brothers embrace and say a mutual “goodbye, brother” as Lore fades away. The display changes from red to white and the humans look in astonishment as Data responds to them and begins working out his newly integrated self.
Data could absorb the anger and power of Lore by surrendering those things which made Data who he is. This is both an incarnational metaphor and a sacrificial metaphor. Data released that which made him who he is so that he could draw Lore into him, reconciling Lore into the more peaceful Data. There are parallels to the idea that Christ drew our violence into himself to transform it into resurrection, as well as the idea that God becomes human so that humanity might become like God through sanctification or theosis in the Eastern traditions.
Are you giving over things to God that will allow you to become more like Jesus? My prayer is that we all are doing this.