In writing to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul noted that people who know God, yet suppress the knowledge of their Creator, are driven to worship creatures. Such people become debased in their thinking and are given over to all manner of sin. In time, people regress from a belief in God to a belief that they are God, and once that belief becomes entrenched in significant elite cultural power bases the results are devastating – they are willing to do anything.

Michael Bay's new film, "The Island," represents his first real foray into thoughtful action films. He gives us a glimpse into that Romans 1 world.

"The Island" begins as a kind of post-apocalyptic/utopian story of a facility where survivors of a world-wide contamination are cared for until they can be moved to the one remaining uncontaminated, idyllic island – a pristine paradise for lucky lottery winners to repopulate. But the illusion is shattered when an inquisitive citizen, Lincoln Six Echo, discovers the truth – he and the other residents are actually human clones, "insurance policies" for their wealthy sponsors looking for a ready supply of biologically-compatible spare parts. The truth, in this case, does not set Lincoln, or his friend, Jordan, free. It makes them targets for elimination. Bay has admitted in interviews that the film's premise touches on the current embryonic stem-cell debate, but the actual implications go far beyond any particular current event directly to the heart of what happens when a culture abandons God.

C.S. Lewis, in two of his most engaging works – "The Abolition of Man" and "The Weight of Glory"  – provides important critical tools for understanding the philosophical and theological underpinnings of "The Island." Grasping Lewis' ideas can create unique opportunities to discuss pressing temporal and eternal issues, particularly the need of humans for law, for a hope of heaven, and what happens when the powerful elite harness that need and hope for their own personal ends.

Law

In "The Abolition of Man," Lewis argues that there exists in the universe a law to which all people are beholden whether they acknowledge it or not. For the sake of brevity Lewis refers to it as the Tao. It is expressed in the Doctrine of Objective Values, which Lewis defines as "the belief that certain attitudes are really true and others really false" about the way the universe works and the way we are to behave in it. In all previous ages cultures believed that they received this law, and that both those who taught it and the young who were instructed in it were equally obligated to obey it. In modern times, Lewis argues, such people have been replaced by Conditioners – influential elites who see moral law not as something universally binding, but as a tool to shape others to their will. "The Island" takes us into a near future in which the rule of the Conditioner is nearly absolute.