The NBC series ‘The Good Place’ ended this week. While I won’t give any spoilers for the finale, the show through the years did engage with many different concepts, including the philosophy of doing the right thing, the idea of learning through repetitions, and the concepts surrounding eternity.
I enjoyed the show through its creative and surprising developments. It always made me think about my own motivations in life for doing “the right thing.” As a little kid, I was definitely in the ‘posed to’ camp – I “chose the right” because that’s what I was “sup’posed to’ do.” As I grew up, my choices were often based on the fact that I wanted to get into heaven – the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. To be even more revealing, as a puberty-afflicted adolescent, the idea of only being able to have sex in the highest level of the celestial kingdom certainly was a motivating factor. My sunday school teachers’ (yes, multiple teachers through the years) teaching of the resultant eternal pregnancy did not seem to thrill the girls in the class as much.
While thinking about it as an adult, my motivations are a complex combination of many different things. Self-interest has always been a portion of it, and the other factors weigh in differently based on the context of the situation. What is the greatest good? What is the best course of action for me? What am I (divinely) supposed to do? These questions are used to great comedic effect with the show’s most Hamlet-esque character.
Moroni 7:8 mentions that if an individual gives a gift grudgingly, it’s the same as if he didn’t give it at all. While I definitely feel that it’s an inherently better thing to do the right thing and give to others willingly, I have almost NEVER wanted to help someone else move, and I fully admit to grudgingly giving that service in the ward. (Although I usually am glad that I did afterwards.) I don’t know if I agree with the end of the scripture – that that person is counted evil before God. I’d rather have individuals do the right thing even just because they are supposed to, rather than not doing it at all because it wouldn’t count in the grand system of “heaven points.” If everybody waited to have the best of motivations and the best of attitudes to do things or give gifts of service for things they absolutely do not want to do, I think most of it wouldn’t ever really get done.
- Have you ever seriously thought about your motivations for “doing the right thing”?
- Have you ever thought about when you’ve fit into the many different motivational categories?
- How much of a difference is it if one “gives a gift grudgingly”? Does God tally up “points” or similar in this context?
- How does one learn to not give certain gifts grudgingly? (I don’t think I will ever rid my dislike of and general unwillingness to helping others move – but I do it because they need help.)
- Please note: Any discussions of The Good Place should be generally spoiler free.
Wheat & Tares 
I think there’s a difference between what would make the world better from a practical perspective and what Christian religions are assessing as our deeper, underlying spiritual deficiency.
There’s a lot to suggest that sin isn’t just about bad actions, but about bad motivations that taint even actions we might otherwise want to think are good. And so, routing out sin is about not just changing acts, but changing our minds about those actions.
I think that where the different denominations and traditions vary is in how they assess our minds change. How much effort is required or even possible from our part? How does that regeneration occur?
This gives you a wide spectrum from hard Calvinism (it only happens through God — you cannot change your own wretched sinful mindset without God, and if God wants you to change, you will irresistibly fall for him) to Mormonism, (heavy human involvement — through practice and perseverance, you will learn the better mentality slowly, fitfully, yet surely.)
If God sees your heart and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, then it really isn’t hard to understand how God would see someone begrudgingly helping someone else move as evil. I mean, we recognize this to a limited extent with our own children, friends, etc., We understand an insincere apology, and it doesn’t count. We are better at tricking each other because we cannot see each other 100% accurately, but even to our limited ability to read and interpret people’s psychological states, we can tell the difference between sincere actions and insincere ones.
What I liked about The Good Place was that it discussed several *different* types of systems. However, I think that the Good Place should be of limited comparability to any Christian because, at a fundamental level, it is a system that doesn’t require a savior.
In any Christian religion, there has to be a sense in which humans could not — not even theoretically — earn enough “points” to get to the good place. This necessitates the need for Christ.
That being said, I do think there are some things about The Good Place that might mesh well with LDS ideas.
I’ll put final season (and final episode) spoilers in rot13. You may reverse this by going to rot13.com and having this reconverted back to English:
We have on facebook a sister in the ward saying the area presidency wants us to do good things this month and then report them back. Appearently there is a list of suggestions.
What happened to helping hands? To be seen of men?
The idea we don’t seem to grasp is that we have the mindset that we want to serve our fellows.
My youngest daughter is a volunteer fire fighter, she has been doing it for 20 years. She has in the last couple of years become a “remote area fire fighter” which means, as part of a 5 person team she is choppered into a fire front to fight the fire on foot, where trucks can’t go. She is at present on her way to a fire 1200k away from home. None of the others in her team are LDS, or even christian (that is not a considderation). We don’t have the concept here that christians=service. Anybody can. She has made her will, and explained her funeral arrangements.
Is there a contrast between an LDS area presidency organised one off good deed, and 20 years of risking your life for the greater community? Doing something to be seen, v becoming someone who serves?
God sees our heart, but He also allows and knows that our heart can change thru service. The Savior also taught us to ” let our light shine before men that others may see our good works and praise God” so our motive praise of God or praise of man becomes paramount.
I believe many Mormons are all about grace AND points. “We are saved by grace, after all we can do.” Grace gives us resurrection, points gives us the Celestial Kingdom. Baptism, serve a mission, married in the temple, be a good home teacher (sorry, minister), etc, etc, etc. These all complete the checklist and increase the point total. I have a hard time accepting this.
I should do good works because that is the gospel of Christ, not to get points. Love God and our neighbor! That is what Jesus taught.
I love the Good Place! The season during which they learn there might be problems with the point system made me think about how I’m living.
I’ve spent many many hours in church service but I wonder if it’s the best I can be doing with my time. I spend a lot of time serving my family, but most of my day is spent working, sleeping, and at least an hour exercising. I wonder pretty often if at the judgement seat (If there is a judgement seat, I’m not sure there is) He will say, yeah you served a mission did a great job at church, kept the commandments blah blah blah, and were environmentally friendly, but when I was thirsty did you give me drink? Right now I have to say the answer is probably no.
Interestingly the Good Place also explores the idea of a “happiness pump” which is a guy who does nothing for himself and lives only to help others. That made me believe that self interest is needed too. The scriptural concept of enduring to the end to me implies some level of serving grudgingly.
I believe we all start as mercenaries and go progressing until we become good pastors who love the Lord and our neighbors. Up until my mission I did everything right because I was supposed to. I never wanted to serve, but I never thought of not going on a mission. Somehow I started thinking of people saying in the scriptures they wanted to be kneeling to the Lord and wanting to hug him and it made me think I never had that desire. I made me wonder what made them have that desire and what was broken inside me that kept me from feeling it. I am far from where I want to be, but those questions made me feel closer to my Savior and act less as robot and more as a loving child. As we do with our earthly parents, sometimes we obey out of love and not fear.l
Toad – “many hours in church service … serving my family, …. working (serving my family), … sleeping, and …. exercising (so you can serve others).
I’ve had very few direct answers to prayers in my life. One of the most memorable was the answer to a guilt-ridden prayer about how to satisfy my covenant (and BOM and D&C admonitions to consecrate “all.” The answer I got mirrored your list.
Also love The Good Place.
The Good Place is an amazing show. I am still just buzzing from that finale. *sigh*
Anyway, I think we all have mixed motives for the things we do. Sometimes we serve others because we feel social pressure to do so, but that’s just how humans work. Better then to associate with those who will apply social pressures that lead to good outcomes (like helping others) and ignoring the social pressures to be prideful about our achievements or the praise we receive from others. We always have a fraught relationship to social groups whether they are families, countries, schools, political parties, or churches. Religions can be particularly insidious and problematic, which is something Jesus taught constantly (even though the Church itself minus Uchtdorf doesn’t seem to comprehend this). Churches breed hypocrisy, self-aggrandizement, checklist mentality, assuming you can “earn” your way to a reward, etc. They breed judging others more harshly than you judge yourself. They breed counting your steps on a Sunday to be sure you’re not breaking some rule while completely missing the forest for the trees. They breed not helping the person who’s lying in a ditch because he belongs to a different religious team. They breed treating women and people of color like second class because they aren’t part of the human hierarchical structures making decisions. Religions are bad for you if you take the religion too seriously, but they are good for you if you see them as a temporary human structure with flaws, just a gathering place to work with other people and to challenge your assumptions. They are bad for you the more you care about belonging to them and fitting in, but good for you the more you care about understanding others who see things differently.
@ Andrew S Feb 1:
Thank you for your comment. I tend to agree with you – there’s a distinct difference between practical improvement of the world and a Judeo Christian spiritual assessment.
One thing I do appreciate is the idea of practice and perseverance to learn the better mentality. My general concern is that I often feel like I’m not learning what I’m “supposed to” learn by doing service. I don’t become more willing to help others move…the more I help others move. At best, I’m still in the place where my intentions are “because they need help” or “it’s the right thing to do” in those situations.
JD,
I would say I personally generally agree with you. I would say this question of mentality seems to me to be one of the most striking differentiators between traditional Christianity (especially Protestant and Calvinist varieties) and Mormonism — Calvinism takes the question of mentality to the extreme, and diagnoses that humans will never be able to “brute force” their way to the right motivations, saying instead that it requires divine intervention.
As a nonbeliever, when I look at people around me, I can tell that most people are trying to be good people, trying to become better people. But I can still sense that for many people, they are just brute forcing it or going along with a natural happy medium of generally good-to-neutral, sometimes petty motivations. This, to me, is one of the strongest arguments against Christianity, in my view — it doesn’t seem to transform people as I would expect.
But I have certainly found some people (across a variety of religious backgrounds, not just Christian) who do seem transformed at a more fundamental, motivational level. So, that’s what’s most interesting to me. When I read the scriptures, I think the most interesting narratives are those involving that sort of transformation, like Saul -> Paul, Alma the Younger, etc.,
From an interview with NT Wright:
https://www.fromthedesk.org/10-questions-nt-wright/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
“Why might reading the New Testament be frustrating if it is perceived as a “how to” guide for getting to heaven?
“Mainly because that isn’t what the New Testament itself says it’s about!”
And
“He taught us to pray that God’s kingdom would come ‘on earth as in heaven,’ and went about showing, close up and personal, what that might look like”
I find that seeking an eternal reward isn’t that motivating for me. I find it better to seek to do something just because it’s the better thing to do. To help someone in need, to fight oppression, to work towards a fair and just society, to look at issues with intellectual honesty, to make a decision that’s better for a sustainable environment, etc etc etc. That all seems more in line with what I see the Jesus in the New Testament encouraging.
I find it to be empowering to be motivated by seeking to do good just because it’s the right thing to do rather than so that I can avoid an eternal punishment and living with fear-based motivation as I once did.
Interesting discussion. Might I add with all sincerity of heart that perhaps the real answer lies in taking it sleazy?
Particularly enjoyed Pieter Veldman’s and Angela C’ s comments; totally spot-on. It is funny (no, not funny, ironic), as Angela points out, that religion can BECOME the problem, if people view it as a checklist, and as a way to reinforce man’s basic need to feel more righteous than others.
This issue is personal with me. Call me petty, but I see it manifested in the simple act of walking in and out the Church building Sunday morning. Because of a disastrous fall five years ago, my wife has limited mobility. She can handle walking short distances, but is wobbly; ongoing physical therapy helps with this long-term issue.
Anyway, we had to switch to a wheelchair to protect her from others, in negotiating entry and exit at Church. 80 percent of ward members are wonderful, wait for us as she negotiates the narrow hallways, open doors for us, etc. The remaining 20 percent have nearly knocked my wife down several times, children and adults, as they rush past my wife to whatever important thing they have to deal with. When I say, please wait, or, more sharply, don’t knock my wife down, I get surprised looks, or you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do looks from the kids. Adults look at me, ignore us, as they rush on to their important Church service.
Someday, the S L Tribune will run an article about a Mormon man who was arrested because he disemboweled, without anesthetic, several children and adults at a Mormon Ward in the SLC area, because they knocked down his wife. Or the lunatic who took over the Sacrament Table to conduct a live human sacrifice, for the same reason.
These people are not bad people; they are simply self-absorbed as they rush about doing whatever they do in the Lord’s Church.
Here is where I am being completely serious: To me, qualifying for the Good Place is becoming aware of others, and genuinely caring about them, to the point that you interrupt what you were going to do, to focus on them and try to help them. Disabled people are quite often invisible. As I said, most people are great.
BTW, I have found that the 80-20 rule seems to generally apply throughout life. I waited tables working my way through college: 80 percent of guests, men and women, were a great pleasure. The remaining 20 percent followed gender stereotypes: the men were overbearing testosteroned jerks, and the women were fussy and crabby that we could not provide a bernaise sauce for the asparagus.