A Question Of Belief

These two great texts have brought me to a very important question which is the question of if god really exists. Thought the harsh and trying times in our lives we sometimes doubt god’s existence, fairness and power. Job and Elie are both angry at god because the world has not changed and is exactly the same even though there are horrors going on “Yes, man is very strong, greater than God. When You were deceived by Adam and Eve, You drove them out of Paradise. When Noah’s generation displeased You, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom no longer found favor in Your eyes, You made the sky rain down fire and sulfur. But these men here, whom You had betrayed, whom You have allowed to be tortured, butchered, gassed, burned, what do they do? They pray before You, they praise Your name.” (Pg. 64) These two characters constantly doubt god’s existence and fairness. They believe something should be different because of all that is going on in the world and that brings them to the question: Does god really exist?

Elie is sad with what god has done and Job is doubting god’s power. There is a point where they are compared “How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (Pg. 42) When I compared these texts I myself started asking the same questions. When people in Colombia are taken and held against their will for years most of them start doubting god’s existence. Some people doubt gods existence more than others but that depends on the person. The truth is that they are totally changed the people who the Fark have taken, Elie, and Job all suffered from a life changing experience that make them see the world differently. Some of them see the world and god in a bad way “God is dead, the God of love, of gentleness, of comfort, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, has vanished forevermore, beneath the gaze of this child, in the smoke of a human holocaust exacted by Race, the most voracious of all idols.” (ix) Other people see everything in a better way but that all depends on the person’s belief.

It is certain that a person will never be the same after an event like the ones they have suffered, but it is also true that not everyone will have been changed in the bad way. Some people see the world as something different, they understand things that nobody else can and all of this is due to their experiences. After all experiences is what forms the way we live our lives and the only thing that determines if we believe in god is our belief.