Pixar’s Troubled “Soul”

The purely physical description of man is unsatisfying—even in this scientific age. This new Pixar movie has some concept of what is “Beyond” and “Before,” above our time and limitations. But it reproduces the old gnostic/dualist heresy of the body being incidental to the person—a mere discardable form. But God made us body and soul. The Son of God taking on human flesh dispels the notion of the body being a prison from which to escape—as does the critically important teaching of the resurrection of all bodies at the Last Day.
It appears the “soul” or “eternal spark,” in this film, has do with with one’s personal passions and desires, since God is not personal in this particular movie. Our wants and impulses are corrupted by sin here on earth, though not in heaven. We cannot reason what eternity is like from our fallen state. The movie further seems to advance eastern religious errors like reincarnation (a human soul inhabiting a cat), soul transference, and soul-travel.
The author of the article below is dissatisfied with all the racially motivated concessions they movie made—which is par for the course with those who think race is the most significant factor in everything. He states: “ ‘Soul’ takes as its premise the idea that a soul, branded with a personality, might be swapped in and out of different kinds of bodies. Even if we ignore the problem that unborn souls seem already to have races and genders—it’s a kids’ movie, not Plato!—we have to swallow the still more fundamental premise that the soul is individual, is sole.”
First, the idea that the body is incidental to the real person is behind much of homosexual, transgender, and sexual immoral public acceptance. If the body doesn’t really matter—and doesn’t have a divine origin—it doesn’t matter what we do with that body here on earth. But, the idea that people are unique (in the soul) and not defined by small things like culture or race—is offensive. But skin color has nothing to do anything truly important—like Baptism and faith. Our guilt, likewise, is personal and individual, not categorical. Our identity is to be not in cultural things (like music, movies, food, and the like), but as God’s child—a follower of the incarnate Christ. The author here seems to imply that souls have race—which is silly, since external skin pigmentation has to do with the body, not the essence of a person Christ created.
Kids will imbibe deeply the underlying message from these less western-focused movies—that the body doesn’t matter much, if they are not taught the truth of God from Scripture. While animated movies have never been a source of hope or morals, the overt anti-Christian religious messages in them today are becoming more politicized (by race) and fundamental to their plot.
The true God, made known in Christ, does not let our body stay dust, but promises life to us, as He lives, risen from the dead: “For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption” (Acts 2:27). —ed.