Toronto Star has an interview with Elie Wiesel in which Elie offers some interesting, and perhaps entertaining, remarks on preserving his religious faith despite his suffering.
Q What is it like having strangers ask you if or why you believe in God?Of course his answers leave you wanting to ask more questions. For example, I'm not sure what it means to have reasons but not to use them, but it sounds borderline irrational if one doesn't have better reasons.A You know who asks me the most? It's children. Children ask, ``How can you still believe in God?'' In All the Rivers Run to the Sea, I speak about it. There are all the reasons in the world for me to give up on God. I have the same reasons to give up on man, and on culture and on education. And yet ... I don't give up on humanity, I don't give up on culture, I don't give up on journalism ... I don't give up on it. I have the reasons. I don't use them.
Q Why do you think people ask you these questions?
A It is for their sake. They want to understand. Look, a very religious person would not ask me this question; only if that religious person has some anxiety or some doubt, then that person wants to know how I deal with that anxiety and that doubt. And I say, `Look, I have faith. It's a wounded faith.'
Technorati Tags: ask, god, elie wiesel, religious person, religious faith, anxiety, journalism, sake, entertaining, rivers, asks, suffering, children children
Technorati Tags: ask, god, elie wiesel, religious person, religious faith, anxiety, journalism, sake, entertaining, rivers, asks, suffering, children children
Interesting. Plus, I am inclined to think that the third sentence of his second answer is false. But Im probably just being a pedant here.
I thought the same thing, Kevin. It doesn't sound true to me, either. So I wonder what he could have meant. Maybe he has in mind someone who managed to remain very religious person through similar trials. Maybe that person wouldn't ask. I don't know. But it seems other quite religious people would. Somewhere Plantinga writes that he sometimes wakes up at night wondering whether it's all a big fairy tale or words to that effect. On the other hand, I remember being surprised to read that.
The Holocaust could be a "reason" for him not to believe in God -- journalism scandals undermining the integrity of the profession could be a "reason" for him not to believe in its integrity anymore -- I know that everyday I drive I have "reason" to believe that everyone else is a moron who should never be allowed behind a steering wheel, and who will one day kill me by rear-ending me into an intersection and into the path of a speeding 18-wheeler ... but I keep driving anyway.