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What's up wisecrack? Michael here you may have heard me on our Rick and Morty podcast where much to my dismay
Jarrod has dubbed me. Dr. Nihilism
I've also written some videos you might recognize like our always sunny episode the gaze into the abyss
Episode the philosophy of get out and more recently our kayfabe episode today
We're continuing our discussion on the only defense attorney who breaks the law more often than Michael Cohen
Daredevil Matthew Murdock's Catholicism has always been a defining element of his character and has distinguished him from most other
non-religious superheroes
But it's in this most recent season that Catholicism comes front-and-center
To understand Matthew struggle and why we think season 3 is so awesome
We'll have to dive into one of the most important questions that theologians have been struggling with for millennia
So join us as we break down how the Man Without Fear
Becomes the man without faith in this wise crack quick take on daredevil season 3 and of course
Spoilers ahead first a quick recap some months after the events of defenders
But presumably before the children of Thanos double-parked their donut ship in Greenwich Village, Matt Murdock awakens from a coma and the church-run orphanage
She was raised in while the worst of his injuries have healed
his spirit remains broken daredevil is convinced that his crusade against injustice had ultimately failed as
Such he takes up residence in the chapel undercroft
Retreating from society and allowing his public persona to remain dead to the world this makeshift
Batcave serves as one of the primary set pieces for the season and that constant conversations between Murdock
Father-land son and sister Maggie drive much of the engagement with Matt's Catholic faith or rather the lack thereof
like Lex Luthor and Batman vs Superman
Daredevil is blinded by the problem of evil which Lex summarizes as God is all-powerful
He cannot be all good
And if he is all good
And he cannot be all-powerful in one scene Murdoch compares his seemingly senseless suffering to that of Joe story of God's perfect servant job
Hmm prayed everyday thawne with his knees on the ground his face in the dirt
Slaughtered ten goats one for each of his children burn them at the altar and God's honor fall God soldier's Joe
He was the most loyal I know the story Matthew. No, then you know what happens next?
God murdered all ten of his children in cold blood
To scorched every inch of jobs land lashed at his body to his skin was covered in bloody welts
God arranged misery on the life of his most perfect servant and still
Joven not cursing
You know I realized
Joe was a pussy Matt wonders why God would not similarly speak to him
Whether God had really called him to the vocation of vigilante and whether God had brought about good through the devil of Hell's Kitchen
Unlike the steadfastly faithful job Murdock comes to the conclusion that God is not good
You might hate God right now, but the feeling is not mutual. No, I don't hate him
I'm just seeing his true face is all and from the way things are going
It seems like he's not wrong throughout the season more and more evidence mounts for God's indifference
Society seems irredeemably corrupt
entirely under the control of Wilson Fisk Fisk bribes and blackmails cops feds lawyers judges and
jurists turning good citizens into criminals law enforcers into lawbreakers and the very
Institutions devoted to justice into instruments of injustice given Daredevils Catholicism. It's apt to recall the words of Jesus
Do not fear those who can kill the body
But cannot kill the soul rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul, you know Fisk in a nutshell
Oh and we can't not mention the fact that this overweight and ostentatious New York real estate developer who's basically above the law
Suddenly takes up residence in a presidential hotel
Not-so-subtle Marvel Daredevils newfound new Saudi ISM that is his anger and frustration at God
Amplifies his disgust with humanity. Thank God for you
He didn't help you. I
Did he abuses his friends and is generally less interested in saving society than punching it in the face
Murdoch's broken relationships with both God and
The people around him can be cast in Catholic terms as a failure to do what Jesus called the two greatest
Commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself
But this itself isn't unique to any specific religion these two relationships
Represent the two basic axes which believers of most religions have to concern themselves with when deciding how to navigate life
Especially when sacred and secular duties seem to make different demands
It's here that Matthew directly confronts an issue Christianity has with for centuries
How does one reconcile an obligation to God and an obligation to others?
Especially if those others exist in a tainted immoral world or in Christian parlance to be in the world
But not of the world
theologian H Richard nibor in his book Christ and culture
identifies several basic answers that Christians have offered over the centuries for how to do so and while he's
Specifically concerned with Christianity his paradigm would mostly work within any religious tradition briefly
they can be called one separation to
accommodation free synthesis for paradox and five transformation
Daredevils arc in season three sees him transition between two of these models for figuring out our relationship to God and man
separation and synthesis the former
Which nibor also calls Christ against culture prescribes a radical renunciation of and near total
Separation from the surrounding society. This is the path ascribed to you by monks and Mennonites
It's also exactly what daredevil does in the early episodes when like the rest of us Millennials
He moves back home as a grown-ass adult to mooch off his parents living in their basement and having his mom clean his laundry
Yes, really and like a medieval monk. He's literally cloistered himself in a church
he treats his identity of Matthew Murdock as dead to the world and
Spurns his friendships with foggy and Karen when they find out he's alive
He pushes them away lies to them steals from them and treats them as mere instruments of his agenda as daredevil has map in
befriend lately without a doubt
But deep down. I think it's hurting him as much as it's hurting us
His only engagement with the world is when he's punching it with his fists
which is one way to construe being against culture niebuhr while affirming that each of his five models was
Partially correct and at times the appropriate answer
Nevertheless was particularly critical of the separation model as overly simplistic and ultimately futile
No one can completely close themselves off to the outside world as daredevil discovers the hard way when bullseye attacks st
Patrick's, it's the turning point the season and
Particularly poignant in its Catholic imagery all of which make clear to Murdock that the separation model doesn't
Succeed in either serving his neighbors or the man upstairs first bull's-eyes attack is a violation of the long-established
norm of sanctuary Karen page had sought safety there from the retribution of Wilson Fisk and by conspiring to murder her their
kingpin and bullseye commit a particularly egregious sin in the eyes of Catholics who see violence on consecrated grounds as
Profaning something sacred then
There's the murder itself father lanthum sacrifices his own life upon the altar saving Karen's his death is an unmistakable
Allusion to Christ's claim. I am The Good Shepherd
I lay down my life for the sheep pasture deriving from the Latin for Shepard bull's-eyes
diabolical attack his violation of sanctuary and his martyrdom of father lanthum are all proof positive to Murdock that his
Flirtation with an eboard separation model is a failure
It's at this point that here Ian places the uniquely Catholic way of understanding how to deal with both God and the world
Which Navarre calls this synthesis model?
The synthesis model of firms that bolt the sacred institution of the church and the secular institutions of society
Our both means through which God brings about good that includes the government as a means of bringing about justice
Daredevils embrace of the separation model in the first half of the season
coincided with his disillusionment with the legal system
He become convinced that the courts couldn't successfully serve as God's means for enacting justice against criminals such as Fisk
So when he later reconnects with his friends and with them uses the legal system to put kingpin back behind bars
We can see how it's a step towards affirming the synthesis model
of course Murdock's returned to the fold doesn't happen all at once and
Daredevil is tempted up until the climactic fight to kill the kingpin
But whereas in the first season his temptation to finish off Fisk was simply a struggle with the deadly sin of Wrath here
it indicates Murdock is still questioning whether God is using social institutions to bring about good or
Whether daredevil has to take matters into his own hands at this point
Murdock has rejected separation is approached but it's not until the redemption of Reina deem that he once again fully
Affirms the Catholic approach of synthesis since the show's start Murdock's core conviction has been that no one was past the point of redemption
Batman has his personal code against killing that's informed by the murder of his parents
But despite sharing a similar organ the show is clear that read Batman scruples came from his Catholic faith
for Murdock
It'd be immoral to execute his enemies because he held hope that even someone so sinful as Wilson
Fisk might have a change of heart and
Repent but it's not until this season that a character that had broke bad is shown to go good
once again
FBI Special Agent Reina deem is one of the many government officials blackmailed by Fitz in addition to other crimes
Nadeem is the accomplice to bull's-eyes murder of father lanthanum and yet he's not beyond redemption
Nadeem agrees to testify against Fisk knowing full
well
The danger of crossing his crime boss and when Fisk gets to the grand jury making the turncoats testimony futile Nadeem
instead of running
Voluntarily lays down his life
so that his dying deposition would send the kingpin back to prison and
This is what finally restores Matt Murdock's faith seeing God appear to work redemption in human hearts and justice through social
Institutions not separately but in synthesis with one another to bring about good in the world
This is the ultimate example of niebuhr synthesis the vertical relationship to God and the horizontal
relationship with man working together the vertical relationship aka the team's conscience getting to him is the thing which allows the
horizontal relationship AKA
society including
institutions such as the legal system to be the means by which God brings about justice the two are working together in
Synthesis, and without the vertical the horizontal would have failed the season ends with Murdock having come through his crisis of faith
He's no longer sequestered away from society in the church basement, but preaching from the pulpit to his whole community
He's no longer estranged from his friends
but getting the gang back together in the form of Nelson Murdock and Paige Attorneys at Law and he
No longer blind to his God's goodness, but trying to see as much of it as possible
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Wisecrack. Thanks again. Dr. Nihilism out