Mission Impossible; Dead and Final Reckonings (2023/2025)

“It Is Written” Fatalism, Freedom, and Faith in Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning

The most haunting refrain in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is not shouted in the midst of a chase scene or whispered in a dramatic reveal. It’s calmly repeated, almost like scripture: “It is written.” This phrase, often uttered by those who serve or believe in the inevitability crafted by the Entity, frames a central question of the film. Are our actions preordained by some larger power, or do we have the freedom to shape our future?

The Entity, as a metaphor, is not just an AI gone rogue. It is omnipresent, predictive, inscrutable. It is treated by some as a god, one that sees all and cannot be beaten. The idea that “it is written” implies a kind of digital predestination, a fatalism where choice is merely an illusion. And yet, Ethan Hunt and his team seem to defy that inevitability at every turn. They do not believe in a passive fate. They act. They risk. They sacrifice. They believe in something that transcends the code, even when they do not fully understand it.

And this is where the film brushes against a Christian view of providence. Ethan operates, paradoxically, with the conviction that things must work out, not because they are written by a machine, but because he has chosen to take full responsibility for his actions and the mission. He behaves almost like someone who knows there is a deeper kind of order to the universe, one that rewards sacrifice, loyalty, and love; not because of deterministic programming, but because those things align with a kind of moral gravity.

This mirrors the Christian understanding of divine providence. Scripture tells us that God is sovereign, and His purposes will stand (Isaiah 46:10), but also that humans are not puppets. We are moral agents with real choices. God’s plans are not frustrated by our freedom; rather, He mysteriously works through our choices to accomplish His will (Philippians 2:12–13). This view does not crush human will under the weight of divine control. It elevates it. We are called not to apathy, but to active cooperation with God.

Ethan’s actions are not the result of perfect foreknowledge, but of faith. He believes the mission is worth it. He believes the impossible is still possible. And in doing so, he lives out something profoundly biblical: the life of faith is not a surrender to fatalism, but a surrender to trust. It is not passive, but courageous.

So, when we hear “it is written” in the film, we are invited to ask—by whom? And for what purpose? The Entity may write code, but it cannot write love, mercy, or redemption. Only God can do that. And the Christian, like Ethan Hunt in his own way, chooses not to bow to inevitability, but to act in faith, trusting that what is written by the hand of God is not a trap, but a promise.