For a while now I have been thinking about the connections of video games to theology. Although there are games that purport to give players a "Biblical" experience, mowing down Philistines or exploring ancient cities, that's not nearly as interesting as a central fact of video games:

Just like the Christian notion of the universe, every game has a creator and that creator has a special plan in mind for you.

Sound weird? If you follow down this line of reasoning, you come up with some very interesting questions around the moral message of video games. Who cares about violence in video games? The structure of games themselves have, what seems to me, a fundamentally theological message.

The average video game has a few common features--namely, some sort of objective or goal, the tools necessary to reach that goal, and a system of rewards and consequences that push you along toward that goal.

At it's heart, this is a pretty good decription of how many religions look at their realtionship to God. There's a grand designer who has crafted the world in his image. We exist in this world with some amount of free will, but no more than provided by the creator. He has some goal in mind for us. Although he will not force us to do his will, he facilitates our progress toward the goal by giving us the tools and, at times, a little divine intervention--can anyone say "power up?"

The fact is, I think you can take a wide variety of theological models and find that they fit pretty well as a metaphor describing the relationship of the gamer to the creator (the video game creator!).

So, even if this comparision is valid, what's the point?

The issue really comes down to an answer to the question--What is the fundamental moral message of a video game? Usually, critics get it exactly wrong.

A lot of attention has been focused over the years on the issue of whether video games cause violence. Although there is a dearth of evidence linking games to real world violence, and common sense would lead you to the false conclusion that if games caused violence, then real world violence would be on a strong uptick following game sales, people seem to fundamentally want to connect games to morality.

While I don't see any reason to believe that games cause violence, conversely, I don't see any reason to argue that games don't teach us anything.

The average game player can sort out the difference between killing something in a game, and killing someone in real life. But do they think about the cosmological implications of pretending to be someone in an interactive world created by someone else?

When you look at the basic theological model of the benevolent creator who has a set purpose for those who live in his creation--the gamers--then I think you've drilled down to philosphical bedrock. The game may contain violence and people doing bad things. But at the end of the day, players are rewarded for doing the right thing. Sort of like in the Bible. And, of course, the right thing is whatever God, or the game designer, has decided it should be.

I think this leaves game players with the sense that the world is ordered, that there is a grand design and that there is a right and wrong established by someone outside of themselves.

Others have argued, rightly I'd say, that part of the fun of playing a video game is that there are rules. Nolan Bushnell quoted in Trigger Happy says, "There is a completely controllable and understandable universe that is predicatable . More controllable than real life." I'd add that the rules are usually a little easier to grasp in a game than in real life, and the consequences for misunderstanding then rules not quite so painful. Accientably throwing a gernade against a wall in Halo is still less damaging that saying the wrong thing at a party. But learning how the rules work, the exploration, is fun in real life and is fun in a game.

But who makes the rules? The creator. And that's the lynch pin in the notion that games have a fundamental model that I'd describe as theological. If you want to go looking for a deeper meaning in games, one that translates into social impacts, that changes the way people see the world, then I'd look at this theological nature.

Seems to me if there is a divine creator, then our video games may just be created in his image.