The Good Place & Christianity

Michael: The Good Place is divided into distinct neighborhoods. Each one contains exactly 322 people who have been perfectly selected to blend together into a blissful harmonic balance. Eleanor: Do all the neighborhoods look like this? Michael: No, every neighborhood is unique. Some have warm weather, some cold. Some are cities, some farmland. But in each one, every blade of grass, every ladybug, every detail has been precisely designed and calibrated for its residents. Eleanor: There’s a lot of frozen yogurt places. Michael: Yeah. That’s the one thing we put in all the neighborhoods. People love frozen yogurt. I don’t know what to tell you. (Season 1, episode 1) People have all kinds of ideas about heaven. One idea is that heaven is perfectly tailored to each individual, and is a place where your every desire is fulfilled for eternity. In other words, the fantasy of a two year old: whatever you want, whenever you want it. Another image is that heaven...

Jason: There’s something messed up with this place. We keep fighting with each other. None of the TVs get the NFL RedZone channel. My soul mate doesn’t even know who Blake Bortles is. I know this sounds crazy, but I think we’re in the Bad Place. Michael: Jason figured it out? Jason? This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts. (Season 2, episode 2) Tahani: I’m gonna miss these little perks when I’m down in the Bad Place, being forced to wear a knock-off handbag and drink tap water. Chidi: That’s what you think hell is?? (Season 1, episode 12) According to The Good Place , hell is a place demons torture bad people for eternity – and quite enjoy doing it. Michael’s original motivation for creating a fake Good Place was just to spice things up: Michael: The time has come to innovate. The human afterlife can be more fun. For us, obviously, not for the people we’re torturing. Who cares about those dummies? I present ...

Michael: While time on Earth moves in a straight line — one thing happens, then the next, then the next — time in the afterlife moves in a Jeremy Bearimy. Eleanor: What? Michael: In the afterlife, time doubles back and loops around and ends up looking something like Jeremy Bearimy. This is the timeline in the afterlife. Happens to kind of look like the name Jeremy Bearimy in cursive English, so that’s what we call it. Eleanor: Sorry. My brain is melting. How can events happen before the ones that happened before? Michael: It’s just the way it works. It’s Jeremy Bearimy. I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the easiest way to describe it. Chidi: OK, but what the hell is this? The dot over the i — what the hell is that? Michael: OK, um, how do I explain this concisely? This is Tuesdays. And also July. Janet: And sometimes it’s never. Michael: That’s true. Occasionally that moment on the Bearimy timeline is the...

Jason: I am here to learn about ethnics. Chidi: Wow, that’s great, man. I mean, it's “ethics,” but that’s great. Jason: Pretty sure it’s “ethnics.” - - - Chidi: Let’s move on to this week’s main event, David Hume’s “A Treatise of Human Nature.” You read this, right? Eleanor: I did. Well, I tried to. Well, I tried to want to. (Season 1, episode 4) Continuing from part one , here are some factors Christians might take into account when deciding on an action to take. Loving God. The reason God created humans was to love and be loved by him. His people are called the bride of Christ, and he is deeply in love with us. Jesus said the most important command was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” That isn’t something we strive to produce; it is a response to knowing we are loved: “we love because he first loved us.” The motive isn...

Michael: Why don’t you just tell me the right answer? Chidi: Well that’s what’s so great about The Trolley Problem – is that there is no right answer. Eleanor: Aargh! Michael: This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors. (Season 2, episode 5) Ethics is a foundational theme of The Good Place , and many moral philosophers are mentioned in the show: Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Descartes, Thomas Aquinas, Scanlon, Sartre, Hume and others (see this reddit thread for more). There are also references to The Trolley Problem, Utilitarianism, Contractualism, Deontology, the ethics of lying and murder (of Janet (not a robot)) and various moral dilemmas. As a professor of moral philosophy, Chidi constantly questions himself about the right thing to do in each situation, and usually just ends up with a stomach ache. His 3600 page treatise with title beginning, “Who We Are and Who We Are Not: Practical Ethics and Their Appl...

Michael: You know how some people pull into the breakdown lane when there’s traffic, and they think to themselves, “Ah, who cares? No one’s watching.” We were watching. Surprise! (Season 1, episode 1) Eleanor: I just want to say once more, for the record, that this whole good/bad system is bullshirt. (Season 1, episode 8) Why should there be a judgement anyway? This hasn’t really been explained in The Good Place (as of season 3), but reading between the lines, the idea may be that there is justice and fairness in the universe, and what you do on earth matters. (Though as Michael has discovered, the system has some major problems). There are two kinds of final judgement according to the Bible: one for people who have accepted God’s forgiveness, and one for people who have not. These two judgements are about very different things. For the second group, the central idea is justice; it will be clear to everyone that God’s judgement is...

Michael: Let’s hear about the tee shirts, please. Eleanor: Eeh, OK. I’ll tell you – but it doesn’t make me look great, so don’t judge me. Michael: That’s literally the purpose of this entire exercise. (Season 1, episode 8) The idea of evaluating a person’s life comes up quite a bit on The Good Place . This is an important theme in Christianity too, but in a different way: not to determine if people are worthy of heaven (which is a free gift and not earned), but as a time of getting everything out in the open. Every person will stand before Jesus individually and answer for the things they did on earth, good and bad. For those who are already forgiven, this isn’t a shameful time of having their nose rubbed in their sins – a terrible lie some people believe – but an opportunity for Jesus to reward his people for even little things they did out of love, and publicly praise them (which will be overwhelming). Those who...

Michael: This is a quick litmus test – handful of questions designed to tell if you were fundamentally good or bad. Question number one: Did you ever commit a serious crime, such as murder, sexual harassment, arson, or otherwise? Eleanor: No. Michael: Did you ever have a vanity license plate, like MAMASBMW, LEXUS4LIZ or BOOBGUY? Eleanor: No. Michael: Did you ever reheat fish in an office microwave? Eleanor: Ew, no. Michael: Have you ever paid money to hear music performed by California funk rock band The Red Hot Chili Peppers? Eleanor: No. Michael: Did you ever take off your shoes and socks on a commercial airline? Eleanor: And socks? Ew, who would do that? Michael: People who go to the Bad Place, Eleanor, that’s the point. And unless I can figure out a compelling reason to keep you here, you will spend eternity with murderers and arsonists and people who take off their shoes and socks on commercial airlines. (Season 1, episode 8) The last post ...

Michael: So, Chidi, just want to double check. How do ethical philosophers feel about murder? Chidi: It’s frowned upon. Michael: OK. What if the reason you want to murder someone is to make your life easier? That’s OK, right? (Series 2, episode 7) The characters in The Good Place struggle to identify what makes a particular action “good.” They are initially told that this can be precisely determined (to two decimal places): Michael: During your time on Earth, every one of your actions had a positive or a negative value, depending on how much good or bad that action put into the universe. Every sandwich you ate, every time you bought a magazine, every single thing you did had an effect that rippled out over time and ultimately created some amount of good or bad. (Series 1, episode 1) Which is quite similar to Utilitarianism, where the sum total of positive and negative effects is what matters: Chidi: Utilitarianism posits that the correct ch...

Gwendolyn: Is everything OK in there? Eleanor: Yep. Gwendolyn: OK! No follow up questions. (Season 3, episode 10) There are various stereotypes of good people. Sometimes they are pretty smug about their goodness. Occasionally they are other worldly, living on mountain tops in bare feet or sandals, subsisting on lentils and radishes. They can also be overly trusting and totally naive about life – or to put it another way, they are idiots. When Michael was explaining how he managed to acquire a Good Janet from the Janet warehouse, he said: Michael: Doors were unlocked, no security. I mean, it makes sense, right? They’re good, so they’re stupid and trusting. (Series 2, episode 6) This is reminiscent of a British science fiction comedy called Red Dwarf . In one episode, Demons and Angels , there is an accident with a machine that extracts the best and worst aspects of something, which causes two duplicates of the crew to appear – one “divi...

Authentic change is a bit of a theme in The Good Place . In the first episode Chidi rapidly becomes disillusioned with Eleanor and concludes, “You’re a selfish person, and it is pointless to help you.” But in the end he agrees to teach her ethics after all, saying, “I think you’re capable of change.” (Just a reminder: this blog contains spoilers ! You have been warned). Michael’s strategy of bringing a group of faulty humans together to torment each other has an interesting side effect: they are confronted with their own weaknesses and failings in a way they can’t avoid. At first this is just the intended torture, but eventually the pressure builds to the point where they finally face the truth about themselves – which isn’t always easy to see: Eleanor: But wait, why is Chidi here? Chidi: There’s something you don't know about me. I read an article saying that growing almonds was bad for the environment, and ye...

Did you know: Remembering your sister’s birthday gets you 15.02 points towards entry into the Good Place? Ruining an opera could make you lose 90.9 points? Genocide costs 433163.57 points, but ending slavery gains you 814292.09 points? Selling a camel without disclosing its illness costs 22.22 points? (Episode 1, Season 1). The premise of The Good Place is that people’s place in heaven is earned: their good and bad deeds over a lifetime are painstakingly weighed up (by immortal accountants), and a high enough total gains them a pass mark. This idea has a few different consequences: ☛ People who are aware of (or suspect the existence of) the point system can get stressed about missing out by a few points; if they do something wrong, particularly just before they die, it might be enough to tip the balance and forbid them entry to the Good Place. Having your eternal fate depend on how good you are at “being good” is very anxiety inducing. (Th...

Welcome! Everything is fine. Just relax ... you're in The Good Place (& Christianity). The Good Place is a TV show about what happens after death. It's also very funny and quite reflective at times, as well as a quirky introduction to philosophy. Here’s a brief introduction (minor spoilers for Season 1, Episode 1): Ted Danson – as in Cheers and Becker – is Michael, architect of a small neighbourhood in the Good Place (heaven). When things start falling apart a woman named Eleanor Shellstrop suspects it is all because of her, since she has apparently been mistaken for someone else and doesn’t really belong in the Good Place. Eleanor shares her secret with her “soul mate” Chidi, an indecisive ethics professor, and asks him to teach her ethics so she can avoid being found out and can earn her place in the Good Place. The rest of this blog contains major spoilers for seasons 1-4. You have been warned! The Good Place brings up a lot of in...