Episode 7.9: Covenant
Dukat’s calculated madness and obsession with Bajorans have reached their peak with this episode. Dukat believes that he did no wrong during the Occupation and that the Prophets are to be blamed. I also think that he is a fully committed Pah-wraith follower, and honestly believes that they would provide the best future for himself and Bajor. That future is certainly one with Dukat as the Prefect. For Dukat’s arc, this episode shows how committed he has become to the Pah-wraith cause. This episode also touches on a variety of different faith dilemmas. None of them get a lot of depth, but they are all calculated to challenge the viewer on the validity of Kira’s faith. They seem to be small seeds to imply Kira’s reliance on the Prophets is foolish. Watching this episode was like Lightning Round: Faith Edition (in a good way), and I want to have a brief comment on each one I saw.
The sermon at the beginning of the episode was on forgiving those who wrong us and foreshadows the return of Dukat to Kira’s life. The challenge is that Kira would be hypocritical if she did not forgive Dukat the wrongs he has done to her. But forgiveness is not about letting someone continue to perpetrate wrongs (like allowing Dukat absolute power over Bajorans…). Forgiveness, I think, is about releasing the hold someone else has over us because of the wrongs of the past. Kira has come a long way, and Dukat no longer has emotional power over her. This frees Kira to fight for justice unhindered by her past and frees her to show Dukat to be the fraud he is.
At one point, Kira reminds Dukat that her view and his view on the Pah-wraiths and Prophets cannot both be right. I’m one who thinks there’s a lot more common ground between faith traditions than might seem apparent. Most faith traditions seek to answer the same questions (ontology, problems of pain, morality, etc), and there is a lot to come together on between faiths. But most faith traditions rest on very different fundamental principles. While we all may have some things right about the nature of reality and human expedience, we all cannot be all right. This creates some points of friction, but more importantly, this creates excellent opportunities to have healthy disagreement and growth. At the risk of sounding too optimistic, knowing we all can’t be right gives me opportunities to learn.
Dukat accuses the Prophets of not caring about Bajor. He claims the Pah-wraiths would be actively involved in Bajor if they were free. I’ve heard a similar criticism levelled at the Christian God. Shouldn’t a god who cares about us be more visible and active? Don’t all faithful people want that? I think this would cause consequences that haven’t really been thought through yet. It’s an uneasy thought, but perhaps God intentionally left himself hidden to allow us to take an active role in the world we are creating. I don’t think that God simply wants us to “believe he exists” the same way we believe a table exists. I feel God has much grander ideas and expectations for us. Given that, if he was actively moving us around like pawns, I think that would diminish our autonomy and the joy of creating our society. Wouldn’t we be proud to have built a society that is good and righteous in the eyes of God? I wonder whether we’d actually suffer more consequences from an active God who moves us around like pawns than from a God who allows us to imperfectly co-create our world with him. Unfortunately, this perspective exacerbates the classic problem of evil.
If the Prophets (or God) are all powerful, isn’t everything, even evil, their responsibility? Dukat also touches on this classic problem of evil. We might be co-creating our society, but we are definitely doing it badly. Injustice abounds in our society, to say nothing of natural disasters. Isn’t everything that happens because an omnipotent god allowed it? If God can do anything, he can stop anything, or so the thinking goes. I think this is a juvenile way of thinking about omnipotence. Even though God might have the power to create any world he so desires, I think any system he creates must function coherently. God cannot contradict himself, nor any physical system he creates. Creating a gravitational law that defines attraction between two bodies doesn’t mean God can simply destroy his own laws without other objects in the system suffering the consequences. So it is with humanity, free will, and forced righteousness. Humanity’s free will is contradictory to him imposing perfection and for God to cause the latter would eliminate the former. I think any accounting for God’s omnipotence (which allows for the creation of anything he sees fit) must also demand God’s actions be non-contradictory (because God himself is non-contradictory). Or put another way, can God create a boulder even he cannot lift? No, because God cannot contradict himself.
The cultists, especially Fala, rationalized anything as a miracle. Mika’s baby being a Cardassian clearly must be a miracle. This thinking is extremely dangerous because the cultists don’t allow for new ways of thinking to permeate their faith. Faith, in my experience and opinion, is the most reasonable when a multitude of different types of thinking influence it. So I must allow rational thought to influence my faith. And church tradition. Conversations with my friends. Books from learned scholars. Scripture. Integrating all of these into my belief system makes my faith more reasonable and less prone to absurd thinking (like thinking that a child displaying the characteristics of two species was somehow mystically transformed in the womb). If my faith is true, then it can handle integrating different ways of thinking. Healthy challenges to my faith can be integrated into, ideally, a more true vision of reality and humanity. When only one way of thinking is allowed (for example, only listening to a cult leader), then falsehoods abound and lead to ignorant and destructive consequences.
Faith is a journey. I cannot stress enough how important this concept is to me and the deep truth it conveys. Wherever you are (whether in a healthy or unhealthy place), know that you will journey beyond that point. Lack of change is stagnation. The beauty and joy of faith is looking forward to where my walk will take me. For me, faith isn’t constructing the perfect theological edifice. It’s engaging all the hard topics with strangers and friends to become more connected to the world and to the God who created it all.
Random Thoughts: 1) Bashir comments that forgiveness is a complicated subject. So intensely true. 2) Odo can get annoying sometimes in how he dotes on Kira. 3) Kira’s three keys to enlightenment: charity, humility, and faith. That’s a very elegant summary of a healthy religious life, in my opinion. 4) Empok Nor is always shown at an oblique angle to differentiate it from DS9. 5) I can’t blame Fala for turning to the Pah-wraith cult to deal with suffering. Suffering (personal or corporate) is an intensely difficult problem for anyone to emotionally deal with. 6) Kira foreshadows Dukat’s eventual outing as a fraud to his cult. 7) Kira’s experience in Wrongs Darker than Death or Night (Ep. 6.17) is referenced. 8) Randomly, the midwife in this episode is Miriam Flynn. She plays Cousin Cathrine in National Lampoons Vacation movies. 9) Dukat did not plan on killing Kira, and even calls DS9 for them to rescue her. He’s deranged and sees her as his inevitable bride. This is the end of that storyline though. After this, Dukat moves onto manipulating Kai Winn and the events in What You Leave Behind (Ep. 7.25).
Wisdom From DS9 