Allusions to theology: I, Robot, universalism and the limits of the law

Abstract

In today’s world of hyper-regulation and legal paranoia about technological development, it should come as no, but also the greatest, surprise that the message proclaimed by Saint Paul is returning. Such a message calls us ‘beyond the law’, overcoming its limits and inviting us to step outside the differences its ‘letter’ institutes. For the Pauline ‘good news’ is one that announces a universalism, sublating both the law and difference, and, in so doing, enabling true freedom. This article argues that the film I, Robot, despite being a text as far from the Pauline Epistles in time and space as it is in content, gives rise to questions that have concerned both theology and legal theory for centuries: questions of the place and constitution of law in society, its role in regulating human behaviour and its ability to institute difference between (and within) people. It argues that, under the conditions of postmodernity, the concerns of high theory (theology, jurisprudence, psychoanalysis, Marxism) mesh with, intersect in, and are rendered explicable by the representations of popular culture (Asimov, science fiction, I Robot). Do not think