If you found the title of this post a little jarring, that is both accidental and by design in two different respects. Just as the subject matter is unexpectedly found in this location, so too must the title be somewhat unexpected, yet accidentally, a Simpsons pun that incorporates elements of the soul are really hard to come up with.
Moving past this and looking closely at The Simpsons episode, “Bart Sells His Soul” (season 7, episode 4), one does find some powerful, true and surprising metaphors about the nature of the soul that resonate strongly with Christian philosophy, theology and spirituality (as if you needed an excuse to revisit those “Golden Age” Simpsons episodes).
If you needed more convincing, note also that this episode was written by Greg Daniels, who went on to co-create the more-thoughtful-than-you-realize series King of the Hill, the American adaptation of The Office, Parks and Recreation, and significantly the recent Amazon Prime series Upload, which covers a lot of these body/soul questions in unique and numerous ways as well (along with some poignant social commentary).
Our story begins in the local Springfield church and Bart pulling a characteristic prank, but because of the guilt laid on by the pastor, is sold out by his friend, Milhouse. Fitting the ironic nature of the Simpsons and the Milhouse character, the pastor also punishes him (“You too, snitchy!”) along with Bart.
As they complete their punishment, their conversation turns to Milhouse’s worry about his soul, leading to a dismissal by Bart (“There is no such thing as a soul!”), which then leads to an offer to sell his own soul to Milhouse for $5 (about the price of a bowl of lentil stew I would guess). And so, our tale begins.
Our first indicator that something is off is fittingly recognized by the first living, ensouled, being Bart encounters in his family’s cat, who is particularly hostile to him. Of course the way an animal treats a person is not the indicator of his or her soul, but that’s not what is being shown here.
While taken for granted in the Christian tradition, the union of body and soul in the person as that which individuates that person from anyone else is and will always be a foundational principle in Christian theology as illustrated by St. Thomas Aquinas (ST I. Q 76. for those keeping score).
Though it seems the bigger argument now is whether our bodies are an essential part of us, the old argument was that our souls were not. When Snowball hisses at “Bart” it is because he has lost that which makes him Bart. He has divided the essential unity to his person, so his pet does not recognize him.
Another comic scene that follows is Bart’s regular trip to the local convenience store, but strangely the automatic doors do not open for him. The mat that signals one’s presence sends no signal because Bart, despite nothing changing to his physical body, does not have the “weight” for it to sense him. I am certainly not trying to argue this was a conscious choice on the part of the writers, but I couldn’t help but remember that powerful line in St. Augustine’s Confessions, when speaking of his own soul, saying, “my weight is my love” (bk XIII, ch 9).
Was it not the very means by which Bart could love that gave him this weight? Were these apparently spiritually sensitive doors able to detect its absence?
In that same store (the Flanders boys walk in and Bart is able to trail behind them), another boy breathes on the glass and writes an obnoxious message. Bart seeks to follow suit, but nothing appears. This example has the clearest biblical connection when we remember that the word for “breath” is often interchangeable with “spirit” at numerous points in Scripture including Genesis 2:7, Matthew 27:50 and John 20:22. Bart’s breath is gone.
I know, I know, how can one episode of The Simpsons fit anymore theology in? And yet, these were not even my favorite examples, but is actually this apotheosis of a dream sequence, definitely the most important scene and Bart’s turning point.
In Bart’s dream, he imagines himself in a playground, seeing his friends playing along with each of their souls as an embodied spirit next to them. They are all called to board their own boats (one body, one soul each) in order to row to this heavenly Emerald City-looking place off in the distance.
Bart enters his boat but can only row in a circle while everyone else progresses toward the city.
Comically, Milhouse can relax in his boat with two souls to do the work for him. While one might object to the arbitrary division between the “you” and your soul this dream illustrates, because they are both necessary to “row the boat,” it actually creates a powerful dramatization of the necessary unity between body and soul essential to the Christian philosophical, theological and spiritual tradition.
In this one-minute dream sequence The Simpsons refute Descartes and the errors of psychological Modernism faster, more convincingly and more entertainingly than the countless encyclicals and treatises that have been written since his ghost escaped his machine (also I know Descartes didn’t use that metaphor, but he inspired it).
This new resolve in Bart leads him on a purifying, humbling quest through a dark night in Springfield. He awakes and, at the point of despair, finally and sincerely prays. The boy who was first convinced he had no soul, now convinced he lost it, is uttering the cry of a soul forsaken by his own hand.
It is in this moment he receives help “from above” as that piece of paper he signed over to Milhouse 20 minutes ago (from our POV) miraculously floats down in front of him. His sister Lisa, often the compass of the Simpsons family, then shares with us the moral of the story, “some philosophers believe nobody is born with a soul, that you have to earn one through suffering and thought and prayer…” all the while Bart, in a subverted act of communion, ingests that paper and is reunited with his soul again.
Mike Schramm teaches theology and philosophy at the high school and college level in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He earned his MA in theology from St. Joseph's College in Maine and an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College. He co-hosts the Voyage Podcast with Jacob Klatte.