{"id":58,"date":"2025-11-23T09:36:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T09:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/?page_id=58"},"modified":"2025-12-10T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T10:34:08","slug":"yu-xuan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/yu-xuan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Infinite within the Finite: Reading Interstellar<\/em> (2014) through Martin H\u00e4gglund\u2019s This Life<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(screen capture from Christopher Nolan, 2014, Interstellar, Paramount Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

by Tan Yu Xuan<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Interstellar<\/em> (Nolan, 2014) has attracted scholarly interpretation for spiritual (Koh, 2016) and biblical (Chung, 2016) readings. But they overlook a crucial twist that seems to undercut spiritual readings. On the other hand, despite its scientific focus, Interstellar romanticizes faith. This paradox calls for an integrative framework that accounts for both the film\u2019s apparent spirituality and its secular revelation. I propose reading Interstellar through Martin H\u00e4gglund\u2019s This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom<\/em> (2019), offering a holistic interpretation of the film\u2019s seemingly conflicting elements. Its science-fiction setting heightens the sense of finitude, an essential part of H\u00e4gglund\u2019s philosophy. Through this reading, we understand that faith is not exclusively religious but also essential to secular life. This explains why, even as Interstellar challenges religious frameworks, it still affirms the value of faith. The film also demonstrates H\u00e4gglund\u2019s idea about the motivational force that arises from recognizing one\u2019s finitude\u2014a force expressed through commitment, sacrifice, and the desire to persist in memory beyond one\u2019s limited lifespan.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spirituality and Religiosity in Interstellar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Set against the backdrop of an impending ecological collapse, Interstellar follows Cooper, a former NASA pilot tasked with traveling into space to find a habitable planet to replace Earth. Spiritual metaphors are established from the outset, despite the film\u2019s scientific worldview. The story begins when his daughter, Murph, discovers strange dust patterns in her room that form coordinates, leading Cooper to a secret NASA facility headed by Professor Brand. Murph interprets this gravitational anomaly as the work of a \u201cghost,\u201d a metaphor that recurs throughout the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interstellar also employs biblical metaphor. At NASA, Professor Brand reveals that mysterious higher-dimensional \u201cBeings\u201d have placed a wormhole granting access to twelve potentially habitable planets. Of the twelve astronauts sent to explore them, three\u2014Miller, Mann, and Edmunds\u2014report promising data. The Beings, along with the symbolic number twelve, evoke divine guidance and recall the twelve apostles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Brand outlines two plans to save humanity: Plan A, which involves evacuating Earth\u2019s population, and Plan B, which relies on stored embryos to start a new colony on another planet. Persuading Cooper to pilot the spacecraft Endurance, Brand assures him that Plan A is the priority and that he will solve the gravity equation\u2014uniting gravity and quantum mechanics\u2014to allow humanity to manipulate gravity, build a space station, and escape a dying Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Murph\u2019s anger, Cooper departs, promising to return when she reaches his age. The crew first visits Miller\u2019s planet, only to find it uninhabitable. They then choose to visit Mann\u2019s planet over Edmund\u2019s, despite objections from Amelia, the crew physicist and Professor Brand\u2019s daughter, as Edmund had been her lover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Murph grows up to assist Professor Brand, who, before dying, reveals that Plan A was never feasible\u2014the necessary data could only be obtained from inside a black hole. On Mann\u2019s planet, the crew discovers that Mann falsified data to lure rescuers. After a fatal confrontation that damages the Endurance, Cooper sacrifices himself by plunging into the black hole so Amelia can reach Edmunds\u2019 planet. Inside, he enters a five-dimensional tesseract created by the Beings, where he perceives every moment in Murph’s room. He transmits the missing data of the black hole through Morse code via the watch he gave her during their farewell, trusting their bond will lead her back to it. This allows Murph to solve the equation and save humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one might see, Interstellar has spiritual and biblical themes beyond its scientific surface. Koh (2016) argues that the film’s metaphors of ghosts and Beings, along with Amelia’s faith in love when defending Edmund’s planet, demonstrate the film’s use of “magic,” defined as “a ritualized form of optimism that connects individuals to a higher power.” Chung (2016) sees Cooper as a Christ-like figure whose sacrifice echoes Christian teachings of love, guiding humanity toward salvation. Sun (n.d.), however, argues it is anthropocentric love\u2014the bond between humans\u2014that counters the apocalypse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Koh and Chung overlook a crucial revelation: at the film\u2019s end, Cooper realizes that the \u201cghost\u201d is himself, manipulating gravity in Murph\u2019s bedroom from the tesseract across time and space, and the Beings are future humans with advanced technology. This undercuts the idea of guidance from a higher power. Yet, Interstellar rewards faith\u2014despite its contrast with science\u2014as Edmund\u2019s planet proves habitable and the bond between Murph and Cooper ultimately saves humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin H\u00e4gglund\u2019s This Life<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The gap mentioned above calls for an integrative reading, and Martin H\u00e4gglund\u2019s This Life<\/em>, which examines faith and love across secular and religious contexts, provides an ideal lens. For H\u00e4gglund, faith is not exclusively religious; sustaining a secular life also requires it. This framework helps illuminate the interplay in Interstellar between its secular message and its romanticization of faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H\u00e4gglund (2019) observes that all forms of love, devotion, and commitment are inherently temporary, sustained only through constant dedication of future generations. Hence, one is finite in two primary ways: mortality and dependence on others (2019). He advocates \u201csecular faith\u201d\u2014a commitment grounded in accepting life\u2019s finitude while still affirming that lives are worth living. It is \u201cfaith\u201d because the conviction to love life despite suffering cannot be proven through logic (pp.45-46). It is precisely because we care that it makes finitude such a pain (pp.45-46).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H\u00e4gglund (2019) identifies three dynamics of secular faith. The first is the belief that life is worth living, which goes beyond self-preservation and motivates even altruistic acts. Self-sacrifice is not disbelief in one\u2019s own life, but faith that the cause or person one serves holds equal or greater value. The second dynamic is that secular faith is a necessary uncertainty. Commitment requires us to have faith in others and the future, despite the risk of disappointment, betrayal, or failure. The third is that finitude itself is the source of motivation. It is the realisation of our finitude that creates urgency to love and act. In this essay, this motivational force to commit beyond our mortal life will be termed as the \u201cinfinite\u201d\u2014born from the realization of finitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, religious faith devalues finitude, as it seeks salvation from eternity (H\u00e4gglund, 2019). He argues that the religious view of eternity removes urgency\u2014if nothing can be lost, then nothing can truly be valued or loved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finitude in Interstellar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The apocalyptic setting in Interstellar<\/em> and the presence of time dilation serve to heighten the sense of finitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time dilation\u2014the phenomenon where time passes at different rates depending on gravitational fields or velocity\u2014vividly dramatizes the finitude of love, intensifying its pain beyond ordinary experience. When Cooper and his team spend just a few hours on Miller’s planet, twenty-three years pass on Earth. Cooper is left facing recorded messages from Murph, a childhood he can never reclaim. These moments illustrate H\u00e4gglund’s concept of inevitable finitude. Cooper’s anguish demonstrates that, as H\u00e4gglund (2019) argues, it is precisely because he loves that the limits of time are felt so painfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cooper cries watching a recording of his daughter expressing disappointment that he did not return as he had promised.
(screen capture from Christopher Nolan, 2014, Interstellar<\/em>, Paramount Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The film\u2019s apocalyptic backdrop underscores life\u2019s ultimate finitude and reinforces its secular message\u2014that secular faith, not religious faith, drives humanity\u2019s will to survive. H\u00e4gglund (2019, p.11) notes that \u201cthe most fundamental example of finitude\u201d is that \u201cearth itself will be destroyed.\u201d Religious faith would not struggle to preserve humanity in such a crisis, since many see the world\u2019s end as salvation rather than tragedy (p.55). In contrast, secular faith insists on saving humanity, because the very first dynamic of secular faith is a belief that life is worth living despite its finitude (H\u00e4gglund 2019). It should be noted that H\u00e4gglund does not claim that all religion fails to care for humanity; rather, he invites religious believers who emphasize the here and now and the caring of secular life to examine what truly shapes their belief. As he argues, “if you care for our form of life as an end in itself, you are acting on the basis of secular faith, even if you claim to be religious” (H\u00e4gglund, 2019, p.13). H\u00e4gglund (2019) argues that awareness of finitude drives us to preserve what is precious. In Interstellar, when Professor Brand recites Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (1951) as the crew departs, this drive to preserve operates on a larger scale: the desire to save humanity itself. Written for a dying father, the poem pleads for resistance against death and preservation of life\u2014however brief\u2014contrasting sharply with religious faith, which often treats death as a release into eternity rather than a loss to be resisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film also explores another facet of finitude: the dependence on others. The Endurance mission rests on faith that the twelve astronauts would report truthfully on their planets\u2019 habitability\u2014a trust shattered by Dr. Mann\u2019s deceit. Similarly, the crew\u2019s sacrifices hinge on belief in Dr. Brand\u2019s promise to solve the gravity equation, which later proves false. Yet despite these betrayals, Interstellar<\/em> affirms the second dynamic of secular faith: that commitment\u2014to a cause or a person\u2014inevitably requires trust in others. The film romanticizes this aspect of secular faith, even at the expense of scientific logic. Cooper\u2019s transmission of data through the black hole relies on his belief that Murph\u2019s love will lead her to the watch he gave her during their farewell\u2014a faith that ultimately proves true. Similarly, Amelia\u2019s unwavering belief in Edmunds\u2019 planet is proven to be correct in the end as it is the only habitable planet. Her speech:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This shows an embodiment of secular faith: Love and faith are inseparable, that we commit to it despite our ability to logically deduce it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Infinite within the Finite <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The infiniteness of love arises from the motivational force of its intrinsic finitude. H\u00e4gglund (2019, p.16) wrote that the awareness of death (finitude) creates the very  motivation to dedicate our lives meaningfully (infiniteness); without finitude, there would be no commitment. This idea is exemplified by Dr. Mann\u2019s remark:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

You know why we couldn’t just send machines on these missions, don’t you? A machine doesn’t improvise well because we can’t program a fear of death. Our survival is our single greatest source of inspiration.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Humans are irreplaceable because, unlike unconscious machines, their vulnerability to death drives them to act. H\u00e4gglund (2019) argues that the risk of loss creates urgency, which demands action. Interstellar<\/em> is permeated by this urgency: Brand and Murph race against time to solve the gravity equation before Earth becomes uninhabitable, Cooper desperately longs to return to Murph. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first dynamic of secular faith shows that one can value life not just for oneself but for others, even to the point of extreme altruism (H\u00e4gglund, 2019). From this perspective, the numerous sacrifices in Interstellar is to show the infiniteness of finite love. This explains the twelve astronauts\u2019 one-way missions, undertaken with the knowledge that an uninhabitable planet would mean certain death, as well as Cooper\u2019s own self-sacrifice when he enters the black hole. H\u00e4gglund (2019, p. 55) argues that the motivational force of finitude includes the desire to continue to \u201cexist\u201d through leaving legacies in meaningful causes or the rearing of children. The astronauts\u2019 sacrifice reflects a desire for the greater cause of humanities\u2019 survival to endure beyond their finite lives. Cooper’s motivation is similarly rooted in love for his child and the desire for her to live beyond his own life. Initially reluctant to leave her, he is persuaded when Brand emphasizes the urgency of her finitude: \u201c\u2026your daughter’s generation will be the last to survive on Earth.\u201d Recognizing that failure of Plan A would doom all\u2014including Murph\u2014Cooper ultimately sacrifices himself, valuing the survival of others above his own life. While Chung (2016) reads Cooper\u2019s sacrifice as a Christian allegory reflecting Christ\u2019s love, I argue that the film instead portrays the infiniteness of love. The religious trope is to show that love that arose through secular faith can drive even the most altruistic actions, comparable to Christ\u2019s sacrifice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secular message is further emphasized through the film\u2019s critique of the \u201cBeings.\u201d How Interstellar<\/em> portrays the Beings resembles the infiniteness of love due to our intrinsic finitude of experiencing time. At first, these beings\u2014capable of transcending time and space\u2014seem akin to divine saviors. Koh (2016) notes that the Beings who place the wormhole for humans are \u201canalogous to a benevolent and loving God.\u201d However, the tesseract sequence later showcases a critique of such a higher being. Responding to Taylor\u2019s description of God\u2014\u201call times are present to him, and he holds them in his extended simultaneity. His now contains all time\u201d\u2014H\u00e4gglund argues if time is experienced simultaneously in an instance, happiness of a precious moment that is built on shared memory can never be experienced, as it “deprives us of a past and a future.\u201d (H\u00e4gglund, 2019, pp.52-53) The Beings in Interstellar<\/em> mirrors Taylor\u2019s God, experiencing time simultaneously. Cooper realizes this in the tesseract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

All of this is one little girl’s bedroom. Every moment, it’s infinitely complex. They have access to infinite time and space, but they’re not bound by anything!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cooper succeeds where the Beings fail because his finitude allows him to experience love through a linear network of past and future, enabling him to locate the watch and recognize its emotional significance.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cooper in the five dimensional tesseract
(screen capture from Christopher Nolan, 2014, Interstellar<\/em>, Paramount Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The secular message is further reinforced when Cooper reveals the Beings\u2019 true identity:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

They\u2019re not \u2018Beings\u2019, they\u2019re us\u2026No, no, not yet, but one day, not you and me, but people, a civilization that\u2019s evolved past the four dimensions we know.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The twist\u2014that the Beings are actually future humans\u2014rejects religious faith: salvation does not come from an external divine power, but from humanity itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another crucial motif for understanding the infiniteness of love is the spiritual metaphor of the \u201cghost.\u201d H\u00e4gglund (2019, p.158)  observes that in face of death, we prolong the existence of our loved ones in our memory, while also realising that our own existence relies on being remembered by future generations. This yearning to remember and be remembered is the infiniteness of love expressed through the ghost motif. Cooper introduces the ghost metaphorically in his farewell to Murph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Your mom once said something I never quite understood. She said, \u2018Now we\u2019re just here to be memories for our kids.\u2019 \u2026 Once you\u2019re a parent, you\u2019re the ghost of your children\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here, the haunting in Murph\u2019s room\u2014falling books and dust patterns\u2014visualizes a parent\u2019s desire to continue living within their children\u2019s memories, as it is revealed that the \u201cghost\u201d is Cooper himself, trying to reach Murph across time and space from within the tesseract. The ghost also signifies the living\u2019s urge to preserve the imprints of those who have left, refusing to forget. This is reflected in Cooper\u2019s son, Tom\u2019s stubborn refusal to leave the family farm even when the dust storm has worsened his family\u2019 health, because he promises Cooper to look after it. The infiniteness of love lies in Cooper\u2019s enduring influence: though his time with his children is brief, his presence persists as a \u201cghost\u201d watching over them, even amid the trauma reflected in Murph\u2019s anguished shout to Tom, \u201cDad just abandoned us!\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I propose reading Interstellar through Martin H\u00e4gglund\u2019s This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom<\/em> (2019), which reconceives faith and love in purely secular terms. Through this lens, Interstellar emerges not as a religious parable but as a meditation on secular faith\u2014a faith to commit to mortal life despite its finitude. Interstellar’s apocalyptic backdrop amplifies the sense of finitude, which motivates love and action\u2014a persistent idea in H\u00e4gglund’s philosophy that finitude is the foundation of care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chung, C.-Y. (2016). Love as the element that transcends space and time in Interstellar. International Journal of Research, 3<\/em>(9), 637\u2013639. https:\/\/journals.pen2print.org\/index.php\/ijr\/article\/view\/4494\/4323<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

H\u00e4gglund, M. (2019). This life: Secular faith and spiritual freedom<\/em>. Pantheon Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koh, J. (2016). A fantasy in sci-fi\u2019s clothing: Interstellar<\/em> and the liberation of magic from genre. Re:Search: The Undergraduate Literary Criticism Journal<\/em>, 3<\/em>(1), 39\u201355. https:\/\/ugresearchjournals.illinois.edu\/index.php\/ujlc\/article\/view\/174\/144<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nolan, C. (Director). (2014). Interstellar<\/em> [Film]. Paramount Pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sun, R. (n.d.). Love, gender and anthropocentrism in <\/em>The Wandering Earth, <\/em>Interstellarand <\/em>Avarya. Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, City University of Hong Kong. https:\/\/www2.crs.cuhk.edu.hk\/f\/page\/312\/4063\/Good_Paper_SUN_Ruigang.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Volume 7 Issue 2<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n

Digital Patmos<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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by Tan Yu Xuan Introduction Interstellar (Nolan, 2014) has attracted scholarly interpretation for spiritual (Koh, 2016) and biblical (Chung, 2016) readings. But they overlook a crucial twist that seems to undercut spiritual readings. On the other hand, despite its scientific focus, Interstellar romanticizes faith. This paradox calls for an integrative framework that accounts for both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-58","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/issues.digitalpatmos.com\/vol7issue2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}