The co-pilot’s Insight
Pilot — We are ten minutes from our target. Descending to 12,000. You know, my friend, what we are about to do may be the greatest action anyone has ever taken in the history of war.
Co-pilot — That depends on how you define great. Perhaps it will be remembered as the most infamous action ever taken in a war. Horrific, yes. Tragic, yes. But great? No.
Pilot — Tragic? How can pushing a button and ending a war be tragic?
Co-pilot — Well, I do grant you that ending war is a great thing. But I ask you, was this bomb created to end wars? The effect of this bomb, once we drop it, will be immediate, unbiased destruction will it not? An order was given, we will follow it, our finger will push the button, the bomb will drop, and in a few minutes an entire city will be destroyed. Over 60,000 people will be killed instantly. So you see, if we judge a thing by the end for which it was created, the very being of this bomb is horrific indeed.
Pilot — Yes, the purpose for which this bomb was created is to destroy, that is obvious. But can’t our specific use of a device of destruction be for a peaceful end?
Co-pilot — Perhaps that depends on what we are destroying.
Pilot — I see what you are saying. Demolishing an old house to build a new school could be a good thing, but destroying a city and killing humans would be the worst use for an explosive device. But don’t you see, it is because human life is so precious that we are doing this! Is it not better to sacrifice 60,000 people if that action will save the lives of millions?
Co-pilot — Imagine for a moment, a simple game. There are two sides, each side has 60,000 stick figures standing tall: one thousand red figures, and one thousand yellow figures. Eventually, the winner will be the one with the most pieces standing at the end. Each side begins to knock over the other, one by one, sometimes a handful at a time. Stick figures start falling, and it is hard to see who is winning. Then the Red team does something unexpected. They create a button, that, when pushed, knocks down an entire side of the Yellow portion of the battlefield, hundreds of Yellow stick figures fall in a second. The Yellow side surrenders, for fear that the button will be pushed again, and all of their pieces will be lost. So the Red side wins.
Pilot — So, if the Red side never created the button, and never pushed it, they may not have won the war, right?
Co-pilot — True, they may not. And also, there may have been fewer pieces in the end than would have been standing if the button was not used. So it was an impressive way to win the game, right? But we both know that this stick figure analogy does not work for our circumstance.
Pilot — It doesn’t?
Co-pilot — Well in the red/yellow war game, the stick figures were just “food for powder”, pawns, game pieces in a game of strategy. They had no inherent importance other than their value of being necessary pieces to move about as we play out the game.
Pilot — Yes you are right. Perhaps I should restate my question to clarify. Here it is. Since you are hinting at the obvious fact that humans are not just pawns in this war, but Persons of countless value, doesn’t it make sense to sacrifice 60,000 of us if it will save millions of us? Regardless of who wins the war, we will have much more net value of persons in the end if we take this sacrificial action, will we not?
Co-pilot — Countless you say? That is an interesting word. Are you inferring that the worth of a Person is infinite? But by our “war math” we have just discussed, aren’t we saying that the worth of each person is finite?
Pilot — Yes, we did.
Co-Pilot — But if we understand the worth of a Person to be countless, infinite, then the math of our argument doesn’t work, and we need to turn this plane around immediately, right?
Pilot — Yes, but I am not sure that each person is of infinite worth.
Co-Pilot — Well if they don’t, then human persons must have a finite, countable worth, and if we pose that all of us have the same general worth, which many may disagree with, then you would be right in saying that we will have more net value of persons on the earth if we made a strategic decision to sacrifice a few to save many.
Pilot — So I will not deviate the plane from its course.
Co-Pilot — But consider, if each Person has Infinite worth, then sacrificing just one to save a million would at best not make any sense, and at worst would be a very evil act indeed. Destroying an Infinity would no doubt harm everyone left on earth in some way as well, would it not?
Pilot — It is reasonable to think that destroying Beings that somehow contain an Infinity would have great effects, yes. It seems an Infinite loss would affect everyone, and the effect of that loss itself may be said to be infinite, though I can not wrap my mind around it.
Co-pilot — So to be safe, shouldn’t we turn the plane around?
Pilot — We have our orders.
Co-pilot — You say you don’t understand the effects of destroying Infinity, if there are any? Is that because this Infinity is somehow contained in an incommunicable human Person that is separate, isolated, making this Infinity hard to see clearly or experience?
Pilot — Yes, exactly.
Co-pilot — Is that a picture of your daughter on the instrument panel in front of us?
Pilot — Yes
Co-pilot — Imagine that she was down below us now, and she will be killed in this explosion. What would happen to you up here? Would you feel the effect?
Pilot — My entire world would change.
Co-pilot — So you may not understand the loss of Infinity, but you would feel it.
Pilot — Yes. I imagine the feeling of loss would be beyond my ability to understand it, or describe it.
Co-pilot — Would it be fair to say that this Infinity that is your daughter could be described by saying that she is herself her own Whole? She is not just a mere part of the great ocean of the masses that we are flying over now, but a Whole unto herself? Infinitely unique having an irreplaceable Self?
Pilot — Yes. As I look at the picture of her, seeing that she is a complete Whole in and of herself is plainly visible to me. I felt it when she first came into the world. It seemed that my whole reality expanded when she was born.
Co-pilot — Expanded? Expanded Infinitely?
Pilot — Yes. I would have to say my love for her has no end.
Co-pilot — Would you be able to love without end, if you were not given an infinite capacity for love when you were created?
Pilot — Of course not. How could I do something that I am not capable of?
Co-pilot — So we may say that you can come to know your own Infinity through the Infinite Love that you have for your daughter.
Pilot — Yes, that makes sense. So then I must have an Infinity to my being, a Whole self just like my daughter. But are there not people who don’t love anyone else? How do I know that their unique Person, their Being, is Infinite as well? If the capacity of our Infinity is understood by our capacity to Love another without end, perhaps some of us are Infinite, and some are not? Who’s to say that most of the people that are living below us now are not Infinite?
Co-pilot — Now you are just arguing for argument's sake. For even if that were true, surely now you see that out of the 60,000 people we are about to ‘sacrifice’, you have to agree that at least one is a father or mother that has a never-ending love for their own daughter, just as you do. So they themselves would be an Infinite, unique person, truly incommunicable, and this would be known by seeing their never-ending love for their own daughter. And therefore this bomb would destroy that Infinity on earth.
Pilot — But what of the guilty, and those committing evil acts, and the enemy below?
Co-pilot — Well, we would sleep better at night if we knew the people we were about to sacrifice did not have this Infinity in their being, as we do, right? But let’s say we knew them to all be guilty of unspeakable evils, do they still not have the same capacity for this Infinity as you do? Even the worst of the worst? The most lost of the lost?
Pilot — My faith tells me that all of us are created in God’s image.
Co-pilot — Could this Image of God, your faith speaks of, be this Infinity in our Person that we have just agreed we have?
Pilot — It could.
Co-pilot — So, to recap, if the worth of a thing can be determined by what it is created for, and if this Infinite Love is the purpose for which human Persons were created, then our worth must be Infinite indeed, regardless of our actions.
Pilot — Yes, I see that now.
Co-pilot — So then it follows that dropping this bomb would be an unspeakable evil, a grave sin, a great perversion now that we are aware of the Infinite worth of each person.
Pilot — But a question remains. Once people have this insight, their actions will change. On an individual basis, being respectful of the infinite Person, the Image of God, may be easy. But it seems that countries, governments, and large groups don’t make decisions based on this Truth we are speaking of. And if they did, the world would drastically change.
Co-pilot — Things would change.
Pilot — Decisions would become much more complicated.
Co-pilot — Actually, wouldn’t they become much simpler?
Pilot — At the beginning of this trip, everything seemed clear. Our mission seemed heroic in my mind. I feel confused now. Confusion should be avoided, should it not? A confused mind is bad for individuals and dangerous for a stable society.
Co-pilot — You are not confused. You are just beginning to understand. If you lived in a dark cave, and one day you were led out, into the bright light of day, initially it would be confusing indeed. But wouldn’t you adjust to your new surroundings soon? You would be seeing things clearly for the first time, exactly how they really are. And then your actions would change accordingly.
Pilot — Yes, they would.
Co-pilot — So, in this Light of day, shouldn’t we turn this plane around?
Pilot — Yes. We should. But, we won’t.
Co-pilot — Why not?
Pilot — I have always felt uneasy about this mission, however, I felt I could justify our position. But with this new insight of the Person as an Infinite Whole, my previous position, it seems, is unjustifiable.
Co-pilot — I agree.
Pilot — However the wheels are set in motion, and who am I to stop them? I am just one person in this war, and I have my orders. What could I do about it? I am just one man.
Co-pilot — You are wrong my friend……You are Infinite.
(1/25/2001 by C.R. Stacy)
