What we can learn from Finn’s moral dilemma in ‘The Force Awakens’

In the original Star Wars trilogy, the stormtroopers are portrayed with no individuality, and represent the banality of evil: the stifling sameness of blind obedience to an evil system. In the prequel trilogy, the clone troopers have slightly more personality. We see their origin and we see them having friendly interactions with their Jedi commanders. Nonetheless, when Order 66 comes through, the troopers are willing participants in the dismantling of the Jedi Order and the Old Republic. They then serve the Emperor through A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi.

In The Force Awakens, for the first time, we see a stormtrooper who resists. In the first five minutes, First Order stormtroopers assault a settlement on Jakku. Kylo Ren arrives, questions the person at whom the operation was directed, and kills him. He then orders the stormtroopers to kill the remaining survivors. One stormtrooper, FN-2187, lifts his blaster but does not fire. That decision, to defy an unjust order, sets him on new path. He decides to help resistance pilot Poe Dameron escape, giving him a pilot so he can flee the First Order. Poe gives him the name Finn in place of his stormtrooper designation. When they later meet Rey, Finn explains his desertion from the First Order “I made a choice. I wasn’t gonna kill for them.” But why does Finn make that choice? He was taken from his family too young to remember them and was trained his whole life. His stormtrooper superiors discuss that he has never shown any noncompliance before. Yet something makes him conclude that shooting innocents is wrong and rescuing Poe is right.

That something, of course, is conscience. Despite being trained to unquestioningly obey, Finn retains a moral sense. In Romans, Saint Paul argues that everyone who is willing can see that “what the law requires is written on their hearts.” Basic moral principles, such as the value of life and the resulting gravity of killing someone, are written into human nature. As a result, no one has an excuse to not know those things. Finn’s decision reflects that idea: even someone never taught it, can begin to recognize good from evil if he seeks the truth.

The recently canonized Saint John Henry Newman maintained that true conscience is not a personal, subjective judgment of what is right, but rather is the attributes of justice, truth, benevolence, and mercy that the Creator implanted “in the intelligence of all His rational creatures.” We can properly form our consciences by pursuing truth as best we can, or can deform and distort it by failing to do so.

A good human society has customs and civic observances that help people form their consciences, and has enough freedom to allow people to live by their consciences. Even in a tyrannical society, though, it is possible to live by conscience. Two recently beautified men made similar choices to Finn when faced with the Nazi regime. Blessed Franz Jägerstätter was a young Austrian who worked on a farm, rode a motorcycle, and was married. A few years after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, he was called up for military service. He reported for duty, but like Finn, said he would not fight for an unjust system. He explicitly cited the “obligations of conscience.” Although he offered to perform non-combative services, he was refused and was executed by guillotine. Blessed Joseph Mayr-Nusser was an Italian who was drafted into the SS after the Nazi takeover of his area. When he left for military training, he told his wife ““Pray for me that in the hour of testing I may act without fear and hesitation according to the dictates of God and of my conscience.” Several weeks later, when the trainees were asked to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler, he publically refused, saying “my faith and conscience do not allow it.” He was sentenced to be executed, and died of disease on a train to a concentration camp. Thousands of others similarly gave spiritual, moral, or physical resistance to the Nazi regime, often at great risk. Whether writing or speaking against the evils around them, hiding potential Holocaust victims, or taking up arms and fighting, those men and women are heroes of conscience.

As we enjoy the upcoming conclusion of Finn’s story in The Rise of Skywalker, we should remember that it started with a simple decision to follow his conscience. Our stakes may not be as high as his, or as Blessed Franz Jägerstätter’s or Joseph Mayr-Nusser’s, but we can all strive to do the same.