Scott Squires and James McBain
At the end of BioShock Infinite, Booker is faced with the challenge of not allowing the tragedy to befall Columbia. There has to be a way, he believes, to prevent the rise of Father Comstock, the imprisonment and abuse of Elizabeth, and the creation of a Columbia that persecutes people for both religious and racial reasons. Booker tells Elizabeth, who is at the height of her powers of seeing through time and space, that he will do anything to prevent Comstock from coming to power. Elizabeth takes him back to Father Comstock’s creation and it is revealed that Comstock’s coming to power took place when DeWitt accepted Christian baptism after his participation in the Wounded Knee massacre. Booker is Comstock! The shock of this revelation hits the player as the narrative plays out. Booker is given the opportunity to destroy Comstock, as Elizabeth, his own daughter, takes him back to that moment—drowning himself in the waters of baptism as all the Elizabeths from all the possible worlds watch. Booker dies. Elizabeth, Comstock, and Columbia disappear. Fin.
We are left with a lingering metaphysical question, though. Did Booker have to become Comstock? The question is more difficult than it seems. In all the possible worlds that are shown, the creation of Columbia and the birth and imprisonment of Anna/Elizabeth are consequences of this particular action. On Booker’s acceptance of drowning in the baptismal waters, Columbia and Elizabeth fade away, as do the consequences of them existing. Booker’s action is predicated on the necessity of Booker becoming Comstock.
The notion that Booker DeWitt had to become Father Comstock because of his baptism (and that only death could prevent this transformation) portrays a God that is overly deterministic, however. In reality, God may be omnipotent and omniscient, and yet humans may be free. Just because God knows what choices human beings will make with their free will does not necessarily mean that we are not free.1 In the end, Booker DeWitt never had to become Father Comstock, just as those who are devoted to God never have to become dangerous extremists.
While moving through the game, the player encounters tears, rips in the fabric of space–time. Both Booker and Elizabeth can see the tears, but only Elizabeth can interact and move through them. On the other side of the tears are alternative universes. A better way to put this is that the tears represent possible worlds, representations of possible situations. Generally, possible worlds are expressed as sets of consistent descriptions. Any world is possible as long as it is internally coherent and does not contain (or entail) any contradictions. There is a possible world for any possible description of some state of affairs. There is a possible world in which the authors did not write this chapter, but juggled chainsaws instead. There is a possible world in which you’re fiercely battling a Big Daddy instead of reading this chapter. There are as many possible worlds as there are consistent sets of descriptions. Indeed, there is an infinite number of possible worlds. So, we can think of each tear around Columbia as showing the way to one of those possible worlds. Are possible worlds real worlds? Do they exist? Although philosophers debate this issue, we can set it aside here. For in Columbia, possible worlds are real, concrete worlds.
That Booker has to become Comstock suggests that there are only two possibilities—Booker becomes Comstock or Booker dies. This disjunction has to be true; it is necessarily true. Necessity is often cashed out in terms of possible worlds. If there is no possible world in which some sentence or proposition doesn’t hold, then we can say that sentence or proposition is necessarily true. If there is no possible world in which the sentence or proposition holds, the sentence is necessarily false. If there are some possible worlds in which it’s true and some in which it’s false, then it is contingently true. In BioShock Infinite, there are no possible worlds in which either Booker becomes Comstock and dies, or Booker doesn’t become Comstock and doesn’t die.
If it is necessarily the case that either Booker becomes Comstock or he dies, then some people will say that he couldn’t do otherwise. It looks like the universe of BioShock Infinite is deterministic. The American philosopher William James (1842–1910) described determinism in this way: “those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be… [t]he future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb.”2
In BioShock Infinite there is no world where Columbia, Father Comstock, the Vox Populi, and Elizabeth do not exist. There is no Columbia that exists with any other kind of religious or social direction. By the end of the game, if Booker wants to prevent harm and suffering to others, he is left with one option: die in the waters of baptism. The baptism that Booker accepted was a distinctly Christian one. Traditionally, this would mean that Booker was to have an opportunity for a new life, a clean slate to write on. Instead, the only outcome we see is Booker becoming Comstock. Elizabeth fading away when Booker dies further enforces this idea. The game is indicating that Comstock is a necessary outcome of Booker accepting baptism; this is determined to be the case unless he dies at a critical point in his life or doesn’t exist at all. There is also no way for Elizabeth to exist in any of these worlds, as she (and her male counterparts in other worlds) will fade away when you die. Furthermore, there is the possible interpretation that in the BioShock world, public acts of religious devotion necessarily lead to religious extremism.
In BioShock Infinite, God is all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient). God would also be timeless or eternal according to the traditional Christian conception.3 In relation to this God, we are at an extreme disadvantage. We are in time, limited in our ability to know, and not as powerful as we think we are. So, if there is going to be any interaction between God and the people of Columbia (or the rest of us), then it will have to come from God’s abilities and not our own.
In order to interact with humans, God has to enter into the reality of the BioShock universe, or into our reality somehow. But God has already entered into our reality. For the universe to be in a traditionally Christian sense, God invested God’s own self into it at creation. In doing this, God, while distinct from the creation, became so close to it that it is as though the creation were suspended in God. God is omnipresent not just because God encompasses creation, but because God is all throughout it as well. While some people may think this is pantheism (which means that God is everything), it is actually panentheism (which means that God is in everything), because while God is everywhere throughout creation, God is still distinct from creation.
The thought that God could be everywhere throughout our world can then lead to some interesting possibilities when it comes to the outcome of the universe. It could be that because God is throughout every place and every time, there is nothing that is going to happen that God is not making happen. This would lead to the determinism that is presented with the life of Booker DeWitt. But it could also mean that God allows for us to help determine the outcome of things. God could still be omniscient, knowing the possible outcomes of all things, but not causing or determining them.
There are two reasons that this makes sense. The first is that in order for there to be justice, there must be free will. There must be the possibility that we could have chosen differently. Otherwise, there would be no justice in the punishment or reward for choices made. In the Christian sense, God would not be just in punishing people eternally or rewarding them eternally if the choices that we made in this life were not free. The second reason is the emphasis (especially in Christianity, but also seen throughout most forms of divine/human interaction in other religions) concerning prayer. If God has the universe pre-decided, then why should people ask about changing the outcome of anything? Christians are told to pray for many things, including protection and healing. An Old Testament story (2 Kings 20:1–11) sees a king told by God that he is going to die from the sickness he has and then, after he prays, God says that he does not have to die, but can live another 20 years. An intricate part of the God/man interaction hinges on prayer, thus showing that the universe is not fully determined.
God, as defined here, is still omniscient. God can still see all ends from all beginnings and still know what course the universe will take. But the universe can still be indeterminate, because God doesn’t violate the autonomy inherent in our choices by determining what they shall be. People could both reject or accept the saving grace of God (as DeWitt does in the game) and still take actions that are not predetermined, because God is letting humans have the choice.
With this understanding of God, we have a very different possible outcome for BioShock Infinite. Booker DeWitt could have accepted baptism and made different choices that would have allowed him to be a good father to Elizabeth while remaining devoted to God. Becoming a “new creature” by going into the waters of baptism did not take away any of the choices that DeWitt had in his future. At any point, Booker could have opted out of becoming Father Comstock. If Booker has real choice, then the “Infinite” in the title of the game is accurate. Perhaps there is a world where Booker is happily married and raising Elizabeth to follow the Christian faith to which he became devoted after Wounded Knee. Perhaps there is a Columbia where DeWitt is not using Elizabeth for his own ends, but rather letting her decide how to help keep this floating city in the sky, a sort of “father–daughter” partnership as opposed to the imprisonment model. Or maybe there is a Columbia that is ethnically diverse the way the Church is called to be by St. Paul in the letter to the Ephesians. As the game is now, the idea of infinite possible worlds may apply, but the idea of truly infinite possibilities is not present, because of the necessity and determinism that the Booker DeWitt/Father Comstock character displays. As currently constructed, the game leads to a shockingly limited outcome. Really, if openness is factored into God’s dealings with humanity, DeWitt could have lived a deeply devoted religious life without becoming the dangerous zealot Father Comstock, because God is allowing man the choice not to step over that line between deeply devoted and dangerous zealot.
The ending of BioShock Infinite is potentially problematic for another reason. The narrative can be read as reinforcing the idea that if one is devoted to God, then one will be led to dangerous religious extremism. Comstock is presented as a visionary, a motivating and charismatic public speaker on a divine mission. He obviously has the ability to organize and delegate to see his vision realized, as we can see in the creation of glorious Columbia. Comstock has many admirable qualities that we would prize in the actual world, but, unchecked, these qualities lead to horrible outcomes. Comstock is a racist, willing to go to any lengths to see his vision become a reality, even if that means imprisoning his daughter or taking someone’s life because of his or her ethnic heritage.
Comstock is portrayed in a manner that suggests, if he is to exist at all, then he necessarily must have these awful traits. The problem with this portrayal, though, is that it reinforces the idea that if people are going to be devoted to God, then they will be dangerous and extreme. This is a distorted view of what it means to be religious, regardless of the religion.
Adult Christian baptism is a very public ritual and, if done with understanding, is an event that will forever mark a Christian’s life. The one who is getting baptized is making a public commitment to leave behind an old way of life for a new one. The BioShock game designers did a very good job getting that part right. There is definitely a sense when a player first enters Columbia through baptism and later at the scene of Booker’s baptism that one has to leave the old life behind. This is the essence of Christian baptism, living a different life. But one can live a different life without being racist or elitist like Comstock (and really most of the other denizens of Columbia). Accepting Christian baptism means that one is going to try to model the Christian God’s character on a daily basis. And it is hard to see the character of such a God looking like Comstock.
This distortion of what it means to be publicly devoted to the Christian God might be fueled by fears that have their roots in the actions of those who claim to be doing God’s will by hurting or killing others in the name of God. The 9/11 attacks on the USA are an example of this kind of “Comstock devotion.” The hijackers thought that they were doing Allah’s will by taking away the autonomy of those on the planes and killing thousands of people, thereby showing the depth of their devotion. Bombing and killing others is not the way that most Muslims live, however, and to say that all of them must act in this way or they are not true Muslims would be an insult to all peace-loving Muslims. Christian extremists who bomb abortion clinics and protest at the funerals of dead American soldiers likewise exhibit a “Comstock devotion.” With the media attention that is a constant part of our culture, these are the people who make the news and they are the ones who end up defining in the minds of many what it means to be “devoted to God.” These examples of religious extremism may be part of why Comstock is portrayed this way.
Deep devotion to God is radical in nature and can lead to extreme results, but that does not mean that these results have to be dangerous. Through the centuries many people have lost their lives due to their public commitment to God. For example, Anabaptists were killed by both the Catholics and the Protestants of the 1500s for their commitment to the idea that baptism had to be something that one chose to do with understanding. Many of the Jewish faith have been killed because of their commitment and refusal to bow before anything else than the one God. This kind of devotion obviously does not mean that one has to take someone else’s life or violate their autonomy in order to be devoted. The BioShock Infinite ending says that Booker had to become a person who would do these very things and that this was determined to be the case in every world in which he existed. However, it didn’t have to be that way if Booker DeWitt had a real choice.
In the end, one really can live a life of deep religious devotion to God without becoming a dangerous religious extremist who must hurt people to prove that devotion. The picture we get of one who is deeply religiously devoted to the point that he would accept baptism as a sign of that devotion is one that leaves a bad taste in our mouths when it comes to religion. This picture reinforces the idea that religion will lead to awful events like the Crusades of the Middle Ages or the jihads of recent years. It reinforces the idea that religion is for the unreasonable, and that any kind of devotion to God will lead to dangerous outcomes that no reasonable person would endorse.
The final scenes of Booker DeWitt having to drown himself to prevent this monster Comstock from rising are sad, not because he has to kill himself and his daughter to be a hero and prevent all kinds of bad things from happening, but because he didn’t have to. Choice is a real thing and Comstock didn’t have to come into being. Even if God really can see the end from the beginning and has the power to do all things, this does not compromise human freedom.