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Conrad’s famous Heart o f Darkness, simply commit an act of moral
abdication and give in to the practices of a cannibalistic tribe living deep
in the Congo? Why not cast aside a profession as a high school chemistry
teacher, where Walt’s talents are clearly wasted, and become a maker of
the finest crystal meth in the region and, along the way, become a
powerful and feared underworld figure? Why not eliminate everyone, or
almost everyone, who stands in the way? In the long run, what could it
possibly matter — just so long as you don’t get caught? Why not adopt a
thoroughly nihilistic position, acknowledge that there’s no meaning to
anything, and take as much as you can get away with and say to hell with
everyone else?
But if the soul exists, even in a universe that bears a resemblance
to the Manichaean, one must acknowledge the possibility that, in the end,
one may be judged for one’s actions. Traditionally, in both the Christian
and Manichean world views, the soul is regarded as that part of the
human being that lives on after death. (The fact that our scientific
community may have found no empirical basis for the existence of the
soul is far less important in this discussion, than the fact that mention is
made of the soul and that, in our culture, and according to a study
conducted by UC-Riverside Professor, Rebekah A. Richert and Harvard
University Professor, Paul L. Harris, most people do believe in the
existence of a soul, which is distinct from mind and body). Indeed, the
very use of the term “soul,” in a series that rose to popular heights in
countries once considered part of Western Civilization, may for many of
us recall the entire Christian/Judaic world view upon which that
civilization was built and which many in academia long ago rejected. It
is a world view which maintains that following death one must face
Judgment and be held accountable for one’s actions (see Matthew 25:
31-46). An explanation of the connection between one’s actions, or
works, and Judgment, as presented in Matthew 25, can be found in
Sigurd Grindheim’s excellent article, “Ignorance Is Bliss: Attitudinal
Aspects of the Judgment According to Works in Matthew 25:31-46”.^^
Suffice it to say that the Christian view of the Final Judgment, largely
predicated upon Matthew 25, persisted in Western Civilization well into
the nineteenth century.
And if there is a judgment — and by season five Walt White has
apparently come to grips with the fact that he will be judged for his
crimes and sent to hell (“Blood Money” 5.09) —^then Walt risks
suffering the tortures of the eternally damned because, in his rise in the
drug underworld, he has hidden his actions behind a series of fabrications
and killed virtually everyone who has stood in his way. Or, from a purely