Infinity is God’s enterprise, not ours. Which is why Chris Hemsworth is the proper topic for the Nationwide Geographic sequence Limitless. Our minds instantly affiliate Hemsworth with Thor, god of thunder and ruler of Asgard, who is comparatively immortal and invincible in comparison with us common, transitory people. To observe Limitless, then, is to look at the thunder god grow to be human and wrestle in opposition to the restrictions of his humanity, bodily, psychological, and emotional. All through the six-episode sequence, Hemsworth is on a quest to transcend his humanity by finishing challenges, that are crafted and shot to look extra Marvel than mundane, that push his physique and thoughts past his (and our) perceived limitations.
To start with, Limitless is equal components well being class documentary, coaching montage, and excuse to movie Chris Hemsworth shirtless. However because the sequence progresses, one thing deeper emerges that I used to be not anticipating: meditations on ageing and loss of life. Hemsworth’s said purpose is to dwell an extended, wholesome life, to have the ability to play along with his grandchildren for so long as attainable. However the darkish aspect of a quest for longevity is the fact that an extended life nonetheless ends.
In one of many sequence’ extra emotional scenes, Hemsworth finds out about his genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s and we watch him course of the potential of his future decline and loss of life. We don’t typically contemplate it, however even the oldest trendy people nonetheless die lengthy earlier than many turtles, bushes, homes, and cans of Coca-Cola. Demise is the ultimate restrict that can not be breached, the occasion horizon past which we can’t go after which return. It looms for every of us far within the distance, however by no means far sufficient.
That is the paradox of Limitless and of life: we need to have a good time ageing and, sure, even loss of life, however we additionally worry each and attempt to stave them off as a lot as attainable.
I’ve thought lots about my Nana since she died after a downturn by way of two years of COVID isolation. My children by no means knew my Nana the way in which I knew her, because the forty-year volleyball coach who swam seventy laps within the faculty pool on her seventieth birthday. They solely noticed her after we visited her within the nursing dwelling, the place at first she walked slowly and sat whereas we did puzzles within the frequent room, after which she wanted the assistance of a walker, after which we may solely see her by way of the window of her room or a make-shift wall of plexiglass with floppy armholes for sanitized hugging.
A number of months earlier than she died, we visited Nana after the house lastly reopened, and she or he didn’t acknowledge us in any respect. As a substitute, she charged across the room whereas we tried to persuade her to take a seat and speak with us. Not lengthy after, my mother flew in to say goodbye and she or he and my aunt sat for hours with Nana, who breathed quietly till she didn’t breathe anymore. It was stunning, and it was horrible. Whereas I’m joyful that my oldest children will bear in mind their great-grandmother, I want they might bear in mind her the way in which I do, instructing me tips on how to serve a volleyball, strolling with me on the golf course, and taking me to Dairy Queen.
That is the paradox of Limitless and of life: we need to have a good time ageing and, sure, even loss of life, however we additionally worry each and attempt to stave them off as a lot as attainable. And so myths in regards to the fountain of youth persist, solely now, they’ve mutated right into a growth of well being documentaries, fringe-science weight-reduction plan books, and, for the appropriate value, unusual experiments like blood transfusions along with your son. Any science fiction author can see the folly in making an attempt to keep away from loss of life in any respect prices, in making an attempt to avoid the pure order of issues.
Demise is a reality of life. The earlier accepted, the simpler it’s to benefit from our restricted time. Because the Psalmist writes, “Train us to quantity our days that we could get a coronary heart of knowledge” (Psalm 90:12). Even so, we should acknowledge that it’s not loss of life or the decay of our our bodies that deserves celebration, however reasonably, our response to them. As with a sonnet or haiku, the restrictions spotlight the sweetness. A lot creativity can slot in so small a poem… and so small a life. Growing old turns into stunning as a result of every year, every new scar or line is proof of life, and life is gorgeous.
Within the Limitless finale, Hemsworth lives for 3 days in an elaborately staged nursing dwelling and practices his personal loss of life. His information for the episode, a palliative care physician and speaker named BJ Miller, says, “We are likely to deal with life as this proper that we’ve got. And that by advantage of being born, we’ve got a proper to life, we’ve got a proper to a tomorrow. No. Life is a present. One other day is a present. A full life is one that features loss of life, consists of ache.” Miller reframes loss of life as a part of the present of life.
Life is definitely a present within the Christian story, however loss of life is a curse. Athanasius’ well-known treatise On the Incarnation offers with the complexity of this matter. He writes that people are logically mortal, and since they had been created from nothing, they naturally may have a tendency again towards nothingness. All created issues, other than God’s sustaining energy, are finite. Nevertheless it was by no means the intention of God for humanity to go away, for we had been created within the picture of God, and being in relationship with the everlasting One, we obtain the overflow of his immortality. However sin has now marred that picture, damaged the stream of eternity, and returned us to corruptibility. We should endure a quick eighty-year slide into non-being and, on the finish, Demise all the time guidelines like a dictator. Mud to mud.
In fact, Athanasius argues, God couldn’t permit this to occur to his creation. Subsequently, he despatched Jesus, the incorruptible Phrase, to placed on a corruptible human physique, severely restricted and topic to ageing and loss of life, to be able to rewrite the story. Athanasius goes on to elucidate it this fashion:
For being above all, the Phrase of God consequently, by providing his personal temple and his bodily instrument as an alternative to all, fulfilled in loss of life that which was required; and, being with all by way of the like physique, the incorruptible Son of God consequently clothed all with incorruptibility within the promise in regards to the resurrection. And now the very corruption of loss of life not holds floor in opposition to human beings due to the indwelling Phrase, in them by way of the one physique.
The incarnation and crucifixion of God are essentially the most surprising doctrines in Christianity. A God with limits; a God who dies. To try an in depth clarification of such issues is to tiptoe the traces of heresy. But, in addition they comprise the sweetness and wondrous thriller of the Christian story. God in Jesus entered into even essentially the most disgraceful, terrible components of our humanity and granted the divine dignity to humanness, even to our bodies that break down and hearts that cease beating and lungs that cease respiratory, to not stay in loss of life, however reasonably, to defeat it, upend it, and transcend it by way of resurrection.
My teenage son and I watched Limitless collectively. He was engaged by the humor, fascinated by the science, and thrilled by the spectacle. He was much less keen on accepting his inevitable loss of life. After we are younger, all of us imagine life is everlasting. The tower of years earlier than us is so tall that it appears to succeed in heaven itself. But it’s solely by way of acknowledging and appreciating our finitude that Christ’s incarnation turns into significant.
An early Christian poem, recorded by Paul, tells us that Jesus emptied himself to grow to be human. Students debate the that means of this time period, to empty, nevertheless it should be a way by which Jesus allowed himself to grow to be restricted, to grow to be like a human and die like a human, and never even a noble loss of life on the finish of an extended life, however as a substitute, an early, ignominious loss of life. The crucifixion is a reminder that every one loss of life is early and ignominious, for God created humanity in view of the tree of life and “put eternity into man’s coronary heart.”
It was solely God in Jesus, like us in finite type, who may set us free from the bounds of our corruptible our bodies. We are able to now dwell within the paradox of the incarnation: accepting and receiving the variety of our days as a present and, when the time comes, placing our hope in a resurrected God who tells us that there are extra items to come back past the bounds of what we are able to think about.