When God Stepped Out into the Light

I've touched a bit on this before, but as it's perennially interesting (to me), here I go again.

One of Blatty's main theological themes in The Exorcist regards humankind's perceived lack of God's presence and activity in the world; and as a corollary, the predominance of randomness and evil (evil which sometimes even results from good intentions and actions) in human life.

In The Exorcist, Good and God (or at least God's Cause) just barely scrape by, just barely win the day, after an injurious, lethal struggle against a supernatural enemy of immense evil and savagery.

Damien Karras, the doubting priest, in a last-minute flash of insight, outrage, and awakening of faith, sacrifices himself, Christ-like, for the sanity and life of Regan MacNeil. There is, however, in this stunning victory, no overt sign of - or from - God. Although it could be cogently argued that Karras perhaps had an internal glimpse of Spirit in his final crisis, this possibility is by no means obvious from, or stated in, Blatty's text (or, indeed, in the Friedkin film).

God - as an active, intervening factor - is for all purposes out of touch, if not, functionally speaking, "dead" - to paraphrase Julian Huxley: "Operationally, at least, God has come to resemble the last fading smile of the Cheshire Cat". Operationally, in The Exorcist, God functions as a sort of longed-for Absence; as a lingering love, hope and memory in Karras' mind.

However, all of this undergoes an inversion in Blatty's own Exorcist III screenplay.

The big change occurs in the exorcism scene which was written by Blatty at the demand of Morgan Creek Studios. The situation is dire. Fr. Paul Morning and Detective William Kinderman, both present in James Vennamun's (the Gemini Killer's) hospital cell, have been incapacitated by the original story's vengeful demon. Morning has been telekinetically wounded, thrown up against and rolled across the ceiling, then dropped to the cell floor. A bit later, Kinderman enters the cell, finds Morning's demon-mutilated copy of the Roman Ritual, and then notices Morning slumped on the floor. This cues the demon's final move:
it telekinetically plasters Kinderman against the wall and then presents to the cop a visionary but truthful image of Damien Karras' current torment at the hands of Hell-beings. Then the demon moves to kill Kinderman.
And this in turn cues the big theological change.

A beam of divine light enters the cell, traveling along Morning's prone body, to his hand, which twitches, having been quickened by the grace-ful beam.
Regaining consciousness and strength, the priest grabs his crucifix - illumined in the divine radiance - and pleads to the Karras trapped in the Gemini's body: "Fight him, Damien! Fight!" The imprisoned Karras is able to muster enough strength and comfort from this "Deus Ex Lumina" to mentally join in Morning's efforts and throw off the demon's grasp, during which time Kinderman is freed from his mural crucifixion and commences to execute a brief but explicit last request from Damien Karras, with the result of (again, barely) winning the day for Good and for God.

Blatty put Karras, Morning and Kinderman in an unwinnable situation. The demon itself has finally emerged to the forefront (while the Gemini assumptively retreats into the background or disappears altogether), to again engage in the kind of direct battle in which it excelled in The Exorcist. The demon is fully present. But, as with the original story, God is not. Until, that is, Blatty decides to introduce that gleaming, direct intervention from God, enlisted to win the unwinnable situation for the three protagonists.

That single, holy beam of light is the closest hint and disclosure God's existence and active Presence that Blatty has ever permitted his audience to see. It is a small gesture, perhaps, but an effective and truly supernatural one. And, if we regard it as canonical - i.e., as a real expression of Blatty's true feelings about God's presence/absence in the world, rather than a cheap and lazy way of ending the story - it becomes a supplemental, and perhaps a balancing factor, in the author's view of the interaction of World and Spirit.

It seems to affirm, in the Transcendent particular, Blatty's credo, "If all the evil in the world makes you believe in the Devil, then how do you account for all the good?" Perhaps Blatty is hinting that when things are at their worst (and even perhaps at other times), the Transcendent, kindly bent to our plight, sends a kind of "raft from the Other Shore" to warm us in the chill of our spiritual Winter. In the film, the raft appears as a holy light. In life, it may appear as something else. In some lives, it may seldom, if ever, appear. But Blatty's reply seems to softly insist, "Well, but sometimes it does appear".

"And the Light shone in the darkness, but the darkness had no power over it..."

Merry Christmas, all.