As with Hana and her cat, Noguchi, sometimes the perspective that one person holds to literally cannot work for another without damaging them. Paul recognizes this danger in 1 Corinthians 8, when he addresses the freedom we have in Christ. In this chapter, Paul is agreeing with the perspective that eating the food of idols is perfectly admissible. In the same way that Hana does not force her perspective onto her cat because it would be unhealthy for him, Paul is warning Christians that an activity that might be fine for strong Christians can be just the opposite for young or weak Christians.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, if Christians limit their conversation to just the perspectives that they already agree with entirely, they miss out on the chance to benefit from the many common grace insights that non-Christians have to offer. As noted previously, in Asterios Polyp Ursula Major has a number of key beliefs, such as reincarnation, that conflict with Asterios’s perspective. Asterios never accepts those beliefs—again, being open to many different perspectives does not mean one cannot still be discerning about it—but because he is willing to listen to her despite their differences he is able to gain several significant insights that he would not have had otherwise. Everyone’s perspective has blind spots, but that does not mean one should discount the entire person because of it.


Finally, believing in one correct Christian perspective limits the opportunity to embrace the diversity of Christ’s church. Even though Hana and Asterios had different views of the world and, more specifically, of art, both of them discovered that the other’s perspective had something of value to offer. In the same way, the many cultures that make up the true Church often approach the faith from different perspectives, and listening to the exegesis of the majority world as well as the western world can dramatically enrich one’s reading of the Scriptures. For example, by listening to the perspective of a shame-based culture Western readers can receive greater insight into the Old Testament in particular, as that more closely emulates what the culture of that time would have been like. To neglect these perspectives is to abandon the opportunity to know a more full image of God and God’s plan.

David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp is a poignant tale of the kind of pain one can create when individual perspectives are held up as standards of truth. No perspective can ever be fully holistic; even this essay is based on a specific point of view that has its own bias, which doubtless has resulted in many relevant and important details being left out. Although perspectives may never be all encompassing, they are nonetheless inevitable and in many ways, a thing to be embraced—as long as their fragmented nature is embraced alongside them.
