The Golden Globe’s winner for Best Motion Picture film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, revolves around the story of a mother renting out three billboards to display a message attacking the town’s police chief for not bringing justice to her daughter’s unsolved murder. On the surface, this movie may seem like an angry strike against the justice system, but the hidden messages can be seen as simple Christian ideas. While Three Billboards show many other theological themes, in one scene, our protagonist not only questions God’s existence, but also the reason for the existence of evil.
After seven months of anger and grieving, Mildred Hayes rents three billboards to display a message against the stagnant progress of the police investigation …show more content…
She begins asking the animal a rhetorical question: why has an arrest still not been made? She then follows up with, “Because there ain’t no God, the whole world’s empty, and it doesn’t matter what we do to each other? I hope not” (McDonagh). It is hinted earlier in the movie that Hayes is or was a Christian, but after her daughter’s gruesome murder, it seems like her faith in God has wavered. Through this quote, Hayes seems to ask whether or not God truly exists, and if so, then why is the world evil? I interpreted Hayes’ rhetorical question as her saying that evil exists because God does not exist. In this scene, our protagonist is battling with the concept of …show more content…
If God, an all-good being, did not exist, then it would make sense for evil to exist. However, Hayes ended her rhetorical question with “I hope not”, showing that her faith had not totally disappeared (McDonagh). Nevertheless, if God did exist, he is still omnibenevolent, so why does evil, such as Hayes’ daughter’s killer, exist within His creation? According to Thomas Aquinas, “... we trace what regards the activity of those with the power of free choice to God as the cause, while only free choice, not God, causes what regards the deordination or deformity of those with the power of free choice. And that is why we say that acts of sin come from God, but sin does not” (Aquinas 148). Aquinas says that God gives us free will, but He does not cause sin; instead, sin comes from free will. Since God is all-good, He Himself can not sin, but since God gave us free will, He indirectly gave us the potential to sin. In a different reasoning, “Jesus consistently refrained from any indication of a full theodicy for humans now. Instead, he suggests, as indicated, that typical humans are not in a position now to understand God’s full purpose in allowing unjust suffering and evil” (Moser 196). Moser gives a Christological reason on theodicy by explaining man’s limited knowledge on the divine. He tells us that there is no reason for God to explain evil in man, and because of our
After seven months of anger and grieving, Mildred Hayes rents three billboards to display a message against the stagnant progress of the police investigation …show more content…
She begins asking the animal a rhetorical question: why has an arrest still not been made? She then follows up with, “Because there ain’t no God, the whole world’s empty, and it doesn’t matter what we do to each other? I hope not” (McDonagh). It is hinted earlier in the movie that Hayes is or was a Christian, but after her daughter’s gruesome murder, it seems like her faith in God has wavered. Through this quote, Hayes seems to ask whether or not God truly exists, and if so, then why is the world evil? I interpreted Hayes’ rhetorical question as her saying that evil exists because God does not exist. In this scene, our protagonist is battling with the concept of …show more content…
If God, an all-good being, did not exist, then it would make sense for evil to exist. However, Hayes ended her rhetorical question with “I hope not”, showing that her faith had not totally disappeared (McDonagh). Nevertheless, if God did exist, he is still omnibenevolent, so why does evil, such as Hayes’ daughter’s killer, exist within His creation? According to Thomas Aquinas, “... we trace what regards the activity of those with the power of free choice to God as the cause, while only free choice, not God, causes what regards the deordination or deformity of those with the power of free choice. And that is why we say that acts of sin come from God, but sin does not” (Aquinas 148). Aquinas says that God gives us free will, but He does not cause sin; instead, sin comes from free will. Since God is all-good, He Himself can not sin, but since God gave us free will, He indirectly gave us the potential to sin. In a different reasoning, “Jesus consistently refrained from any indication of a full theodicy for humans now. Instead, he suggests, as indicated, that typical humans are not in a position now to understand God’s full purpose in allowing unjust suffering and evil” (Moser 196). Moser gives a Christological reason on theodicy by explaining man’s limited knowledge on the divine. He tells us that there is no reason for God to explain evil in man, and because of our