In a previous post, Seeing More in the Watchmen, I touched on some of the spiritual references in the book, and tied them together under theme of “who watches the watchmen”. That’s kind of the “theme question” for the story, in that it come up over and over. The question itself goes back to Plato, and it was originally argued that society’s watchmen must police themselves. The fallacy of that argument is illustrated nicely by the Watchmen novel.

After looking at the question, and proposing that an answer is found in the story itself, the next step was to look at what this implies about the nature of the One who watches the Watchmen. This is where things get interesting.

Ultimately, it seems necessary for any to be given ultimate oversight, that they also be flawless themselves. Otherwise we run into the “demigod in tights” issue. It gets even more interesting when we associate this perfect one with the Creator of the universe, because then we’re talking about ultimate power along with a perfect nature.

This then leads to the quandary: How could the Creator be perfect in character, and yet allow anything imperfect to exist in His presence? And how could anything exist in His presence if He didn’t want it to? This is the ultimate dilemma posed in the Christian faith. The final answer is that God cannot allow anything contrary to His perfect will, aka “sin”, so any deviations must be dealt with. Essentially, there is a price to be paid. This is not the same rationale that Veidt used, but interestingly, he came to a similar conclusion: A sacrifice was needed to save the human race.

Now, the right and fair thing would be for those who sin to pay the price. But if the price of sin is separation from God, who is the source of life, light, hope, and love, then such separation means death or worse. And since no one is perfect, no one would survive, which is why the human race needs saving.

Enter Jesus. As just mentioned, God is the source of love. So while enforcing a perfect standard, because that is the unavoidable nature of his being, he also loves the world and does not want to see the destruction that it deserves. So, in an unfathomable act of mercy, he balanced the scales of the world’s sins with a sacrifice of his own: that of his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was God incarnate, the only way that a human could live without sin. When he died, it was the unnecessary death that balanced out the cost of the world’s sins. His resurrection proved the acceptance of that death in place of our own spiritual deaths.

It’s worth noting that we’re talking about eternal matters here, not temporal. We will all experience physical death, but it’s the spiritual ramifications of that death that’s the issue.

The bottom line here is that God provided a way for each person to avoid the price of separation from him, but in doing so he did not change one very important fact of our own nature: our own free will. Although he provided the solution, we still have the free choice to accept it or not. He consistently gives people the path they choose: association with him through the work that Jesus did, or separation from him.

If we accept the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, and ackowledge that God is God (and we are not), then our sins are removed and we look forward to eternity with him. Acknowledging him as God includes recognizing that he is the ultimate authority, seeking to please him instead of ourselves, and seeking to grow closer to him while still in this world. Jesus is the ultimate image of God as man, and our ideal towards which we must strive to grow.

That striving is not done alone, for one of the first manifestations of God’s acceptance occurs here, not after we die. His presence dwells with us personally, and is the force that helps us grow spiritually. It’s a taste of Heaven while still on earth.

Watchman ends with a similar picture of a type of Utopia on earth. But it’s eerily similar to 1950′s portrayals of the future. Nice, yet somehow unreal. The fact of personally relating to God is very real, and very now. But it’s a reality that must be chosen.