Thr3e by Ted Dekker
"Thr3e" by Ted Dekker is a psychological thriller that explores the complex interplay between good and evil through the lens of its protagonist, Kevin Parson, a seminary student. The narrative begins with a mysterious phone call from a man named Richard Slater, who threatens Kevin with bombings unless he reveals a hidden sin. This sets off a series of escalating riddles and threats that compel Kevin to confront his dark past, including his traumatic upbringing under his overprotective aunt, Belinda. As Kevin seeks assistance from his childhood friend Samantha and FBI agent Jennifer Peters, he grapples with his feelings of guilt, fear, and the nature of evil within himself.
The novel delves into philosophical questions about free will and moral choice, suggesting that everyone possesses the capacity for both good and evil. This internal struggle is emphasized through Kevin's reflections and the conversations he has with others, including a mentor who discusses the intrinsic battle within every human being. At its core, "Thr3e" is not just a suspenseful narrative but also a deeper exploration of the human soul caught between opposing moral forces, illustrating a universal theme relevant to both believers and nonbelievers alike. The climax forces Kevin to make a life-altering decision that encapsulates his journey towards understanding and accepting his own nature.
Thr3e by Ted Dekker
First published: Nashville, Tenn.: W Publishing Group, 2003
Genre(s): Novel
Subgenre(s): Evangelical fiction; mystery and detective fiction; thriller/suspense
Core issue(s): Daily living; freedom and free will; good vs. evil; heart; innocence; psychology
Principal characters
Kevin Parson , the protagonistRichard Slater , a stranger who calls KevinSamantha , Kevin’s best friendJennifer Peters , an FBI agent assigned to Kevin’s caseBelinda Parson , Kevin’s adoptive mother and auntDr. John Francis , a professor and spiritual mentor to Kevin
Overview
Thr3e opens with a conversation between seminary student Kevin Parson and Dr. John Francis, his philosophy professor and mentor, on the relationship between human nature and evil, the subject of a paper Kevin is writing. They discuss the possibility that all people have an equivalent, inherent capacity to do evil as part of their human nature. Driving home after leaving the seminary, Kevin receives a cell phone call from a stranger identifying himself as Richard Slater, who claims to know what Kevin is hiding and says it is time to expose him. Slater gives him three minutes to confess his sin to the newspapers before Slater blows up the car. He also leaves Kevin with a riddle.
Unaware what sin Slater could mean, Kevin abandons the car just in time to escape the explosion. More bomb threats and riddles follow, always escalating in destructiveness, always with time limitations or clues involving the number three. Kevin contacts his closest friend and soul mate, Samantha, whom he has known since childhood, to visit and help him solve the mystery. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assigns agent Jennifer Peters to the case at her earnest request; the case resembles the pattern of a riddling bomber who killed her brother a year before, and she seeks to avenge his death. With the help of Samantha and Jennifer, Kevin seeks to discover Slater’s identity and motive while they seek to solve his riddles and thwart his explosions.
The second riddle and bomb lead Kevin to visit the home in which he was raised by his Aunt Belinda after his parents’ death—the home he left at his earliest opportunity eight years earlier. The involvement of Kevin’s home arouses memories and emotions associated with the highly abnormal, mentally tortuous first twenty-three years of his life. Though Kevin is too conflicted to discuss or dwell on his relationship with Belinda, Jennifer’s investigation eventually reveals that Belinda created an artificial experience of the world by not allowing Kevin interaction with or exposure to anything she disliked or of which she disapproved. She created a fantasy world by physically cutting out what in her view were undesirable sections of newspapers and books, and she sought to limit Kevin’s intellectual development so he would not shame her retarded son, Bob. Kevin was not allowed to interact with other children, and he made friends with Samantha at age eleven only by sneaking out his window at night. One result of this upbringing, Jennifer comes to realize, is that Kevin had no significant exposure to worldly evil until he left home. Another consequence that plagues Kevin increasingly as the emotional tension of Slater’s riddle-bombing games escalates is his hate-love for Belinda. He despises her small-mindedness and the memories of growing up in her house, but the very world she created for him as a child also made him emotionally dependent on pleasing her, and he discovers that his years away have not entirely freed him.
Another inner struggle for Kevin is aroused by Slater’s insistence that he confess to having committed an unspecified sin. This demand and the mystery of Slater’s motive and identity force Kevin to relive a memory of the only person he can imagine who might have a cause for hatred or revenge. A cruel boy threatened him and Sam when they were eleven, and—unbeknownst to Sam—Kevin locked him in an abandoned warehouse one night, leaving him, as far as Kevin knows, to die. After more riddles and bomb threats, Kevin concludes that Slater must be this boy and confesses this sin to the media, grieving internally over his own capacity to commit evil. The confession and report of it on the evening news do nothing to stop the riddles and bombs, however.
Kevin’s internal struggle with his past, his conscience, and his unresolved hate-love for Aunt Belinda become crucial to the resolution of mystery of Slater’s threats and riddles. The plot culminates with Slater’s kidnapping Belinda in order to lure Kevin to her rescue and force him to choose between killing her and killing Samantha. This moment of decision and the inward journey Kevin has undergone through the events leading up to it create an inner crisis in which Kevin must come to a clearer understanding of his evil and good natures and of their relationship to his actions. If he fails to comprehend and master his own evil, he will destroy others and himself.
Christian Themes
In the novel’s opening dialogue, Dr. Francis tells Kevin, “Evil is beyond the reach of no man,” to which Kevin counters, “But can a man remove himself beyond the reach of evil?” The ensuing dialogue establishes the novel’s central argument: The spiritual nature of human beings hosts a constant battle between good and evil. In this conversation, Kevin tells him that for his paper about human nature—which we later learn is entitled “On the Three Natures of Man”—he has, following the example of Christ, chosen to use fiction as a vehicle for his main point. This comment is extraneous to the plot itself (for the reader never actually glimpses the text of Kevin’s paper), but it indicates that Ted Dekker’s use of narrative in the novel will serve the same purpose. A phrase from Dr. Francis that Kevin has appropriated sums up this trinity: “the good, the bad, and the beautiful,” the latter referring to the human soul caught in the middle of the struggle between the two moral extremes. The relationship to this battle of human free will and consciousness is the primary philosophical question of the novel and the foundation for the tension that fuels the action.
Throughout the novel, inner faith in Christ and the practical outward life of the Christian are mentioned only briefly in a few conversations. However, Dekker’s development of this theme is rooted, he makes explicit, in Romans 7:15-25. Dr. Francis alludes to the passage in a conversation with Jennifer about Kevin’s case and his theory of human nature, and Dekker excerpts the passage for the reader on the last page of text after the novel’s conclusion as a kind of postscript. In this passage the apostle Paul describes his own struggle between “the good I want to do” and “the sin living in me . . . the evil I do not want to do.” This passage is often interpreted to describe and account for the struggle with sin experienced by the Apostle Paul and, by extension, any regenerated Christian’s new nature in Christ trapped within an old, sinful nature. However, the interpretation of the passage offered by Kevin and Dr. Francis through Dekker’s tale is that Paul’s struggle applies to all humans, believers in Christ and nonbelievers. Dr. Francis tells Jennifer he believes the good-me-evil triad exists in everyone, including her, and Dekker portrays her distinctly as a non-Christian. In Kevin and Francis’s view, which seems to be Dekker’s as well, all people—regenerated in Christ or not—have free will to choose good or evil, and this freedom is continuously poised in the midst of the battle between the two.
Sources for Further Study
Byle, Ann. “Christian Author Thrills, Chills Fans: Ted Dekker Has Not Been a Published Author for Long, but His Novels Are Consistent Best-Sellers.” The Grand Rapids Press, May 3, 2003, p. B7. Provides some background on Dekker and his popularity, with key quotations from the novelist.
Dekker, Ted. http://www.teddekker.com. The author’s Web site offers a brief biography, a list of his other fiction, his Web log, a chat forum about Dekker’s fiction, and features promotional trailers for some of his books and the film adaptation of Thr3e.
Dekker, Ted. The Slumber of Christianity: Awakening a Passion for Heaven on Earth. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2005. Dekker criticizes the Church for its reluctance to pursue pleasure in God and calls the Church—believers in Christ—to awaken to God-centered pleasures in the midst of the darkness and dryness that can dull the spiritual senses to God’s goodness and hinder the Christian from walking in freedom, hope, and joy.
Zaleski, Jeff. Review of Thr3e. Publishers Weekly 250, no. 15 (April 14, 2003): 50. Recommends the novel, noting that Dekker’s “spiritual message is subtle and devoid of the theologically and politically conservative agenda present in other novels.”