Christianity and love versus r
Christianity and love versus rChristianity and Love versus the Reality
Many of us have an ideal picture of what our future looks like. It is a picture that is filled with hopes, dreams, happiness and loves. We do what we do now to complete our picture of the future as fully and as fast as possible. Many of us believe in God. We convince ourselves that God will guide us through problems, and when our time here on earth is completed, we will be called and enter another place where problems no longer exist. But, what would happen if we all die tomorrow! There will be no future! And what would happen if there was no afterlife! Then "death is final!" said Camus. Albert Camus conceives of the world in terms of incongruity and contrasts: man lives, yet he is condemned to die, death is the only definite destiny one can be sure to reach; most people live believing the existence of an afterlife, yet there has never been any proof of its actuality. Camus critiques in The Plague the ability of "Absolute Truth"- God's definition of our being here, to effectively guide the lives of the people of Oran, he thus challenges man to do the work that has hitherto assigned to God/Absolute Truth. Using the characters like Rambert and Paneloux, Camus questions the potency of romantic love and Christianity to guide mankind through the crisis the plague brings forth. Camus argues through the forming of the sanitary squads and the consistent battles Rieux puts up against the plauge, that in the life-threatening emergency, only the solidarity of each and every affected man can save one another.
Camus criticizes that God offers neither absolution nor justification for the presence of the harm, and believes Christianity and its entirety can indeed be dangerous. Father Paneloux tried to justify the presence of the plague by equaling sins with punishments at his first sermon. "If today the plague is in your midst, that is because the hour has struck for taking thought. The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble." (95) Camus metaphorically contrastes the wetted churchgoers with the soggy wet rat who was dying in front of Rieux. The rat escaped from the sewers to die in the streets. Now, in a reversal, the wet Oranians are leaveing the streets and going inside the church to escape the plauge. Camus also criticizes that the sermon only created confusion and guilt among Oranians when practical precaustions and courage are needed. To further criticize the legitimacy of Christianity, Camus created confusion and doubt for Paneloux (representing all Christians) of his beliefs by vividly describing the death of the innocent child: no God will allow innocent children to die. "..until my dying day I (Rieux) shall refuse to love the scheme of things in which children are put to torture." (218) Paneloux nevertheless refuses to decline to lose his faith, he thus believes...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.