At the start of Thor: Love and Thunder, a god laughs - and then dies. It’s the start of a vendetta against the gods, mostly conducted off screen. I love the scene, and have rewatched it many times over the last few years. But it also hurt - and still does - because the discussion of an eternal reward felt so true to my former life.

The scene

Here’s the scene. It’s at the start of the movie, so no need to worry about spoilers:

Perhaps for most viewers, this scene had little impact - it was just setting the scene for the rest of the movie. For me, it cut as sharply as just about anything I’ve ever watched.

See, I grew up knowing there was an eternal reward waiting for me, and making sacrifices because of that eternal reward. Then in the end I concluded that none of that was true, and ended up walking away from it.

When I first watched this film, I’d been out of the religion more than half a decade, and doubting the eternal reward long before that. I’d written a three post series on how it felt losing eternal life and what might come next, based on writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien that had heavily influenced me. I should have been past worrying about it. Actually, forget that - I thought I was past worrying about it. And yet, there it was.

To me, it’s the laughter that makes this scene. It stings. It really does. And yet it’s also healing: A reminder that it was OK to fail, because I was playing in a game without a win condition.

In that particular world, it’s not just that there’s no eternal reward being prepared: It’s that the eternal reward was never on the cards, and the gods didn’t care. They were just in it for themselves, and their followers got played. The trust that humans put in that eternal reward was just a sign of how inferior those humans were. They were expendable, and when they died more would replace them while the gods could go on living their superior lives.

Who does this post apply to?

I was brought up Christadelphian, so it follows that the Christadelphian version of the eternal reward is the one I know best, the one I lost, and the one I’m best able to criticise. For that reason, I’ll be drawing illustrations from either the film clip or from what I believed as a Christadelphian. But I think some of them apply more generally to the idea of an eternal reward granted by a (presumed benevolent) deity.

What’s needed to find the eternal reward?

When we’re looking forward to an eternal reward - what are we actually relying on being true?

I think these four steps are a good starting point:

  1. One or more gods exist.
  2. The particular god you worship exists.
  3. The promise of an eternal reward is actually true.
  4. You’ll be judged worthy of that eternal reward.

Today, as a hardened unbeliever, I would doubt all four of these points - but it was a combination of steps 1 and 2 that led me to quit Christadelphia. In Gorr’s world steps 1 and 2 actually were true, but it still all went wrong on step 3. And even if it hadn’t, step 4 still could have been an issue.

So let’s look at what it might take for each of those four steps to fail:

  1. No gods exist (or, depending how you define “gods”, no gods that are interested in and able to interact with humans).
  2. One or more gods exist, but you picked one that didn’t (C.S. Lewis had the true god accepting good people who had sincerely worshiped other gods, but I don’t think we can rely on that).
  3. You picked a god that exists, but they have no intention of granting an eternal reward (whether or not they promised it).

  4. The eternal reward exists, but you were found unworthy of it. Perhaps you believed the wrong things, perhaps you followed the wrong steps, or perhaps you were generally on the right track but missed a few crucial steps.

    No matter. The promise wasn’t exactly false, but it didn’t work out as you hoped.

Christadelphians were largely just meant to assume the first three: The Christian God is the One True God, he exists, his message is revealed in the Bible, and the Bible contains reliable promises of eternal bliss with concrete steps for humans to receive those promises (note how important the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible is there - without it you couldn’t know how to attain the eternal reward, and you couldn’t be sure that promises in the Bible weren’t just people making promises on God’s behalf that God wasn’t able to deliver).

However, even with that foundation the fourth step was less clear.

The danger of sincere (but wrong) beliefs

Even the best Christadelphian wasn’t meant to know if they were saved. In fact, the Bible made it clear that seeming believers could easily be deceived. To take just one such quote:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Matthew 7:21 - 23 (NIV)

As a believer, I thought fellow believers were being too complacent about having “the Truth”, and actually once gave an exhortation exploring the many places in the Bible where people thought they were on the right track and actually weren’t (looking back, I think what that exhortation really showed was that I wasn’t yet ready to question why God would leave us in the dark about something so fundamental).

Traditional Christadelphian belief was that the majority of Christians had got God’s message wrong, and so wouldn’t receive the eternal reward. Sad for them, perhaps, but Christadelphians didn’t need to worry about it because they’d carefully studied the Bible and found The Truth. However, it’s also true that many of those other Christians would believe it was the Christadelphians who had got it wrong, and so wouldn’t receive the eternal reward. Many of those other Christians would in their turn believe that Christadelphians had got it wrong and would miss out on the eternal reward. No matter how much they argued about what Bible really meant, I don’t think either side could be sure they’d got it correct, and there were no do-overs if you got it wrong.

It wasn’t just that they couldn’t agree about what the eternal reward was - they also couldn’t agree what criteria God might use to judge people worthy. For example, was it:

  1. Upholding and preaching true doctrine (whatever that might be)?
  2. Being nice to others and showing the love of God?

I’ve heard both of these argued, with many verses presented to match. Or perhaps it’s a bit of both. Some Christadelphians made a big deal of being a small denomination - haven’t you heard Jesus’ words about the narrow gate? - but there are a lot of other small denominations. Perhaps it was a different small denomination that had correctly figured out the obscure route to the promised eternal reward.

This is the thing, though - I now look at my first three steps above as a series of breath-taking logical leaps, but even when I sincerely believed them they weren’t enough to be confident. In my experience, to be a thoughtful Christadelphian was to recognise you could be wrong - as suggested by the very scripture you relied on to find truth - but to have to ignore that possibility or else your whole life journey would be meaningless. For bonus points, you also had to affirm that God was completely justified doing it this way, and any problems you had reaching the eternal reward would be on you (just keep trying harder to find the will of God!)

If you’re wrong - when will you find out?

I’ll put my cards on the table: I believe that when I die, that will be the end. It seems to me that my consciousness is an emergent property of my brain, and when that brain stops working the consciousness will also vanish. I don’t necessarily say that there can’t be some form of afterlife - just that I’ve never found any reason to believe in one. And what that means is that if I’m correct - I’ll never know I was correct.

I think exactly the same is true for believers. They can talk about how wonderful their hope is and how sad it is that I don’t have any, or threaten me with hellfire for non-compliance - and I think some have done both those things. But right now those words are just holy water off a pagan duck’s back. Not only don’t they know, but I don’t think they can know.

That also means that if I’m right, they’ll never know I’m right. And even if I’m wrong, perhaps they’ll also be wrong. Perhaps they’ll find themselves facing some kind of hell, or perhaps they’ll remain in oblivion while Rapu and his fellow gods feast.

In Christadelphian dogma, you can’t even find a way of getting confirmation from now-deceased believers, since they haven’t received the reward either. It’s literally word of God that no-one has yet received the promised eternal reward - and that this is a good thing:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Hebrews 11:39 - 40 (NIV)

That was written nearly 2,000 years ago, and about characters who had already waited hundreds to thousands of years for their reward, and as far as I know those “better plans” haven’t come to pass yet.

I’m sure our early Christadelphian forebears read this as “only together with us 19th century believers would they be made perfect” (aren’t we fortunate to be chosen by God?). And I’m sure Christadelphians today read it as “only together with us 21st century believers would they be made perfect” (aren’t we fortunate to be chosen by God?). Some day, perhaps, there will be believers saying “Without us in the 22nd century they won’t be made perfect - and see what a terrible state the world is in. He must be near now!”.

The same chapter talks this uncertainty up as a good thing, as something the author’s god actually likes and requires:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
…
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:1 - 2, 6 (NIV)

Which is great if you’re right, perhaps - but seems pretty tragic if you’re wrong. So much wasted potential. So much unnecessary sacrifice. And in all likelihood not even knowing how misplaced it all was.

Could Gorr have discovered Rapu’s betrayal in advance?

Christians will often turn to apologetics to prove they’re on the right track. I think the world of Gorr and Rapu gives us the perfect thought experiment to check how those apologetics might build confidence in a future eternal reward.

As far as we can tell, Gorr followed the spirit of the above quotes from Hebrews. He had never seen the god Rapu - a god who to all appearances had actively abandoned his people - and yet he still had confidence not just that Rapu existed, but that he had an eternal reward for those who sought him. And as a result of that faith he made sacrifices in the name of that god.

So when he found himself face to face with and talking directly with that god, it should have been like hitting the jackpot. Instead, he found the god choking him to death while talking about sacrifice giving his life purpose. All Gorr’s past sacrifices, all his hopes, all the promises - they counted for nothing with Rapu. And so Gorr could - and did - then renounce Rapu for not keeping his end of the bargain. But even possessing the Necrosword and using it for revenge didn’t bring him any closer to the eternal reward.

So what could Rapu have done earlier to prove to Gorr that the eternal reward really and truly existed? In the final analysis, I can’t think of anything.

We don’t get a lot of back-story on Rapu or his religion. Perhaps he had the power to give an eternal reward, or perhaps he didn’t. And if he did have the power to give it, perhaps it could be for everyone, or perhaps he only had enough power to reward a chosen few. We don’t even know if he actually made any promises - perhaps it was just over-enthusiastic followers promising the eternal reward on his behalf? Perhaps it was a story that grew over time? Who knows?

Still, if he genuinely wanted to persuade followers, what could he have done?

  1. Given his followers a book that was authenticated in some way as coming from Rapu’s hand?
  2. Sent a prophet with special miracles that proved that prophet came from the powerful Rapu?
  3. Sent visions of an eternal reward to some of his believers, and perhaps even to Gorr himself?
  4. Appeared in person to Gorr’s people, preferably with Gorr present. Then give a stirring message: “This is your god - fear me and worship me and I’ll give your life meaning!”
  5. Sworn some kind of binding oath, perhaps on Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.

The first couple of these are the kind of evidences Christadelphians present for the existence of their god and the truth of the Bible - though the events involved are safely tucked away in the distant past rather than daring to have God acting too visibily today. But even if all of them were true - the best case would be that they demonstrate Rapu exists, has a certain amount of power, and has made some (not-yet-fulfilled) promises to his followers. They cannot show that he actually will fulfil those promises. And I think the same is true of the Christadelphian god.

So who can we trust?

It would be easy at this point to say “It sounds like you’re saying ‘You can’t trust anyone’”, and that’s not what I intend. I think we have a lot of reasons to trust our fellow humans - and none of those reasons apply to the promise by a distant god of an eternal reward.

At a very simplified level, an important part of what I believe is that we evolved as a cooperative species - and, what’s more, as a cooperative species that needed to trust and work with people we don’t personally know. Not only do we have a shared biology, but we also have shared expectations, and shared experiences, and shared moral codes. These may differ somewhat from society to society, but they’re still there.

What’s more, there are consequences for not being trustworthy. Social consequences, definitely, but there can also be legal consequences, enforced by a legal system that we as humans have built and that binds us all.

It’s not even limited to people we know, either. We can actually have more confidence that a massive multi-national will give us what we order and pay for than that a god will give us eternal life. Seriously, last year I had McDonald’s in seven different countries with different menus over four different languages (a story for another day…), and every time I got the food I ordered.

Sure, none of this is perfect and I’m sure any of us could pick holes in it left, right and centre. But at least it applies in many social situations dealing with other humans, while literally none of it applies to the god I grew up with. That god you couldn’t directly interact with, you couldn’t have any good way of understanding that god’s motivations (other than accepting his words at face value), and if he went back on the deal it would be far too late for meaningful consequences.

To give some concrete examples:

  1. You might trust your neighbour to remember you if you cross paths, to occasionally share food with you (without ever poisoning it!) and to not steal the tools out of your shed.
  2. You might trust a co-worker to stay back and help you when things go bad, or to do their best to make their part of the project work out.

Some of that’s just our baseline societal expectations, while some of it is trust that’s been built over time with people we know personally. And of course it has limits: You wouldn’t necessarily trust patent get-rich-quick schemes from either of them. And if they were ever to betray you, or you heard from someone else you trusted that one of them was a back-stabber or a petty thief, you would probably trust them less in future.

Moving into the world of employment I think we can find analogies closer to the eternal reward. You are (hopefully) able to trust your employer to pay you (and all your co-workers) on pay-day, and not to short change you in the process. Not only have they done it before, not only do they have (hopefully) have good processes in place, but both you and they know there might be serious consequences if they don’t.

However, imagine if that same employer came to you and said “You’re a good employee and we don’t want to lose you, but we can’t pay you right now. Keep working for another five years and we promise we’ll be able to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams”. With the trust you’ve built up over time, perhaps you’d take that chance, or perhaps you wouldn’t. Personally, I think I’d want to know a lot more about their plans before agreeing. But either way, I doubt you’d be as confident that the five year gamble will pay off as you can be that you’ll be paid next week or next month.

The situation is much worse than that when it comes to the eternal reward. My employer has earned my trust. My former god never did (I suspect because he didn’t exist, but hey, some people will take any excuse…). And yet he asked us to take far more on trust than the employer did.

I think fulfilled prayer was meant to be the answer here, but I personally found that very subjective. What ended up happening was that I had to constantly explain why god worked in the particular mysterious way that was (whatever actually happened). And I continue to hear those kind of explanations from relatives. Even if they were true, they don’t show much more than that God exists and he might at some future point reward those who seek him.

But religion makes life better!

Sometimes, when asked one too many questions about how much they can trust an unseen future reward, believers retreat to “But religion makes my life better right now!” And you know what? If it’s true, that actually seems like a decent reason to me. I don’t think that religion universally makes things better, but nor do I think religion poisons everything. It doesn’t work for me personally, but so long as it actually does work for others it’s a hell of a lot better than living a miserable life while hoping for an eternal reward that may not eventuate.

I have elderly relatives who have been in the religion all their life. Within the religion they have life-long friends, many social connections, and a support network. It also gives them meaning and purpose, and fills their life. Finally, as they increasingly face mortality - both their own and the mortality of friends and partners - the hope of the eternal reward probably does give them something. Even if it turns out to be misplaced hope, as I suspect.

Unlike the eternal reward, this is something that’s verifiable. I can hear those relatives talking about the people they know through the religion, the things they’ve done and continue to do together, and the ways in which they support each other. It’s the human cooperative spirit in action, and doesn’t actually need their god to exist.

I can’t tell you what their lives might have been like if they’d quit in their twenties like I did. Maybe better, maybe worse, maybe just different. Maybe building different community would have served them better, or maybe worse. I think it’s very likely that they’ve made sacrifices that were unnecessary as a direct result of their religion. But I also know they got (and continue to get) benefits from it. I don’t think it’s for me to judge for their lives where the balance should lie between sacrifice and benefit.

And I’ve experienced it too: When I was growing up, the religion genuinely provided me with community and purpose and things to keep me busy. It still did when I reached my twenties, though then it came with a side dose of suicidal ideation and despair that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Looking back I regret some of the sacrifices I made, and can see many benefits from the different choices I made post-religion. But I suspect if I’d found a way to stay without the downsides, I’d have tried even harder than I did to keep it going, and probably had a decent life. If there was no eternal reward, some of that life might have been misguided, but it wouldn’t have made it meaningless - any more than I believe my current life is meaningless because it will one day come to an end.

Conclusion

Many people, including quite a few of my relatives, believe that there is a future reward. I once believed the same. But they can’t be sure till death even that it exists, let alone that their god will grant it to them. I don’t think we’d accept these flimsy, unverifiable promises of future payment from a human - so why should we from a god?

And so my post may have started off with a god laughing, but it ends with a serious message: If you’re ever asked to make significant sacrifices in exchange for a future payment, consider how much you really know about that future payment, and how confident you are that it will be delivered.