Philosophy

"The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- not the god of the philosophers!"

-- Blaise Pascal

During my philosophy tutorial, we were asked why we decided to take the module. I truthfully blurted that it was my excuse to read actual words -- as opposed to mathematical equations -- being an engineering major.

But the readings are leaving me a little bit frustrated. I picked up Ted Chiang's "Hell is an Absence of God"; it was recommended by our lecturer.

By the time I was done with the (short) story, my thought was simply that he could not have been talking about the Christian God. For someone who was supposed to be smart (well, smart enough to write a book that won him awards), he didn't just put together his own theology, pass it off as Christianity, and then ridicule it, did he?

He did.

To write a story insinuating the ludicrousness of Christianity, without any mention of Jesus (the very cornerstone of the Christian faith) or any such equivalent is very careless indeed.

In his notes, Chiang also writes of the Book of Job:

"Why does God restore Job's fortunes at all? Why the happy ending? One of the basic messages of the book is that virtue isn't always rewarded; bad things happen to good people. Job ultimately accepts this, demonstrating virtue, and is subsequently rewarded. Doesn't this undercut the message?"

My question is: "Why not a happy ending?" There may be other lessons to learn than those pointed out by Chiang.

The fact that the ending of the Book of Job matters such a great deal to Chiang has, in fact, "undercut" his own argument. Just because bad things can happen to good people does not mean that good things cannot happen to good people.

Of course, Chiang is fully entitled to his own views. I'm just saying -- just because someone writes with apparent wit does not mean that he writes with absolute truth, if at all.