Silence

Silence, by Shūsaku Endō. Translated by William Johnston.

New York: Picador Modern Classics. 2016.

God is silent not only toward the atheist, but also toward the faithful. What separates the faithful from the atheist is a conviction that despite this silence, God must exist, since otherwise life would be meaningless.

This is the thought that stayed with me after finishing Shūsaku Endō’s Silence, a novel telling the story of Father Sebastian Rodrigues, a 17th Century Portuguese Christian missionary who travels to Japan in order to spread the Gospel. Christianity was outlawed in the Japan of this time, and those suspected of harboring the faith were forced either to renounce it (apostatize) while trampling on the fumie – an image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary – or they were subject to torture and execution. In this novel we follow the journey of the main character as he sails to Japan where he is eventually captured by authorities and pressed into apostasy. The real journey, however, is not Rodrigues’ outer, physical voyage, but his inner, spiritual struggle. The novel is an extended and painful meditation on a religious devotion tested both by philosophical reflection and by human cruelty. This is a book that offers no clear or comforting resolution to the main character’s inner, spiritual dilemma, but it does present a harrowing account of existential suffering and struggle that would make Kierkegaard shiver.

The book begins in the form of letters from Father Rodrigues detailing his efforts, along with fellow missionary Father Garrpe, to secure passage from China to Japan in order to make contact with Japanese Christians. They do so with the help of Kichijirō, a Japanese living in Macao who is eager to help them, but who denies being a Christian and who immediately arouses Rodrigues’ suspicions. Kichijirō is weak, cowardly, and cunning, and as the story unfolds, it is he who plays the role of Judas to Father Rodrigues, eventually betraying him to the Japanese authorities, just as Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans. But the relationship between these two characters is much more complicated than just that between betrayer and betrayed. A spiritual bond develops between them such that through their shared suffering, they mutually test their devotion to God. It is this concrete, worldly battle that makes room for a deeper spiritual drama to play out. Just as Judas was necessary to Jesus, so too is Kichijirō necessary to Father Rodrigues.

In traveling to Japan, Rodrigues anticipates his own martyrdom, but his conception of martyrdom is based on a superficial model of what really is involved in sacrificing one’s self for an ideal. He imagines, like the Japanese peasants he sees tortured and executed, that he too will be tested by a confrontation with bodily suffering and death, and that Kichijirō is simply one of the instruments enabling him to reach this spiritual climax. But this is a sign of Rodriques’ egotism and immaturity. Rodrigues’ vision of martyrdom neglects the reality that Kichijirō is himself a real, flesh-and-blood human being who also is in the midst of his own spiritual struggle. He is not simply a tool, but rather a fellow-traveler; a human being who is, in his own way, trying to understand his relationship to the creator. Rodrigues’ thought that Kichijirō is merely instrumental in his own martyrdom is indicative of Rodrigues’ vanity, which places himself at the center of things while relegating Kichijirō to the periphery of a metaphysical drama. This egotism is precisely what the Father must overcome in order truly to embody Christian love. And this is why Kichijirō keeps reappearing throughout the novel, first helping Rodrigues, then betraying him, and then asking for his forgiveness and absolution. Can Rodrigues love Kichijirō simply because he is another human being who lives and suffers and is tested by God?

Preceding Rodrigues to Japan years earlier was Father Ferreira, a respected priest who is rumored to have apostatized. Rodrigues can’t conceive how a man like Ferreira could have done this, speculating that if he did so he must have been subjected to incredible physical torture. But even then it would be unbelievable that a man of his standing and conviction would be moved to turn against God. How could such a man fail the test? It is easy to imagine that a cunning coward like Kichijirō would do so, but Ferreira? The problem with these reflections is that they are abstract and unable to come to terms with the concrete reality of the suffering actually endured by Father Ferreira or by Kichijirō. This is something that Rodrigues does not understand until he himself is betrayed by Kichijirō, captured by the Japanese authorities, and subjected to persecution. At first, he imagines that he will be tortured and killed, just like the three peasants he sees tied to crosses and left to drown in the rising tides on the seashore. He says to his interrogator, “Then you’ll kill me, I suppose.” The response he receives is unexpected:

“No, no…We won’t do that. If we did that the peasants would become even more stubborn. …Now if you really are a father at heart, you ought to feel pity for the Christians. Isn’t that so? …It is because of you that they must suffer” (pp. 90 – 91).

So it is that Father Rodriguez’s own Christian faith will be tested not by subjecting his body to physical torture, but by subjecting his soul to a kind of brutalization in which others will be made to suffer as a result of his own egotistical desire for purity and personal martyrdom. “Punish me alone,” (p. 91) he insists. But he will not be punished alone. His punishment will be connected to the physical punishment and suffering of the very people he came to Japan to help and that he claims to love.

Detained by the authorities, Rodrigues is visited by an interpreter, speaking in Portuguese, who says he himself has been baptised into the Church, but who also says that he has no wish to be a Christian. “…nothing but learning could make me great in the world,” (p. 93) the interpreter says to Rodrigues. This initiates a philosophical debate between them concerning Buddhism, Christianity, and the existence of God. The interpreter angrily tells the Father how full of contempt and disrespect previous missionaries were toward Japanese culture, forcing upon the peasants a religion that they neither wanted nor that was suited to them. He berates Rodriguez for misunderstanding Buddhism. To this, Rodriguez responds with an argument (drawn from Thomas Aquinas) to show that the Christian God must exist. The interpreter responds by citing the argument from evil to disprove the existence of the Christian God. Rodrigues in turn invokes the existence of human free will as the source of worldly evil as a rebuke to the interpreter’s argument. This philosophical back-and-forth ends abruptly when the interpreter angrily tells Rodrigues that all such argumentation is nonsense, and that if the Father doesn’t apostatize, then Christian peasants will be tortured for several days by being suspended upside down in a pit of excrement. He also informs Rodrigues that Father Ferreira, who has renounced his Christian faith, is alive and living in Nagasaki. The interpreter leaves the room, muttering the words, “A selfish rascal if ever there was one” (p. 97).

Rodriques is selfish. His conception of Christianity is anchored in sheer, principled conviction, immune to argument or reason. He does not question his beliefs, but finds strength in his obstinance. He laughs at the Buddhism of his Japanese interrogator; beliefs he doesn’t even understand. His mindset is one of pride: pride in how committed and unmovable his Christian faith is regardless of evidence, experience, or the suffering of others. But here we start to see the contradiction involved in Rodgrigues’ missionary work. He is motivated by self-centered confidence rather than by Christian love or compassion.

Transported to prison, Rodrigues is fed, treated well, and allowed to minister to other imprisoned Christians. At the prison, he is visited by Inoue, the feared governor whose interrogation is rumored to have convinced Father Ferreira to apostatize. Strangely, Inoue is neither angry nor fearsome in his approach to Rodrigues. Instead, he engages the priest in philosophical conversation about the nature of Truth, nodding in agreement with everything that Rodrigues has to say. “We will not punish the fathers without reason,” (p. 118) are Inoue’s last words before leaving. Shortly afterwards, in sight of the Father’s cell, a Christian peasant is beheaded after refusing to trample on the fumie. Later, Inoue returns to engage Rodrigues in further conversation about the inappropriateness of Christianity for Japanese culture, but the Father remains confident and unmoved.

It is not until he is brought to observe the drowning of three Christian prisoners that Father Rodrigues begins to experience a shift in his thought process. The prisoners, wrapped up in bamboo mats, their arms and legs immobilized so that they resemble “basket worms,” are tossed from a boat into the ocean. Father Garrpe, who was also captured by the authorities, drowns while trying to rescue them. As it turns out, all of the prisoners had apostatized, but because Rodrigues and Garrpe refused to do so, the prisoners were condemned to die anyway.Through all of this cruelty, God remains silent, neither intervening nor giving any sign of discontent, causing Rodrigues to fall into despair once he returns to his prison cell:

Did God really exist? If not, how ludicrous was half of his life spent traversing the limitless seas to come and plant the tiny seed in this barren island! How ludicrous the life of the one-eyed man executed while the cicadas sound in the full light of day! How ludicrous was the life of Garrpe, swimming in pursuit of the Christians in that little boat! Facing the wall, the priest laughed aloud (p. 148).

In this world of cruelty and suffering, if God does not exist, then everything is absurd and laughable. Without God, nothing makes sense, and there is no ultimate purpose. For some, the evil and suffering of life is evidence that God does not exist, but for Rodrigues, this very same evil and suffering is evidence that God must exist, as the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Though still remaining silent, God now, according to Rodrigues, resides “near to the earth” (p. 148). God’s silence is not evidence of nihilism, but of His necessary existence.

Rodrigues, now grown “big and fat” (p. 149), is carried by attendants to meet Father Ferreira, who is clean-shaven, wears Japanese clothes and has taken the Japanese name Sawano Chuan. He bears scars from being tortured by suspension in “the pit” and is in the employ of the governor as a translator of texts. Rodrigues is shocked by the reality of Ferreira’s transformation. So it is true that he apotitized! Ferreria tells Rodrgues that Japan is a swamp; that the roots sustaining Christian faith become rotten in this place, and that even those Japanese who call themselves “Christian” really, in substance, are not true Christians. The “God” they claim to believe in really has no resemblance to the Christian God. As both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche complained about European Christians, the Japanese have taken on all of the exterior trappings of Christianity without truly embracing or understanding the real nature of the faith. “Even in the glorious missionary period you mention, the Japanese did not believe in the Christian God but in their own distortion” (p. 159). Ferreria explains:

It is like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. At first it certainly is a butterfly, but the next day only the externals, the wings and the trunk, are those of a butterfly; it has lost its true reality and has become a skeleton. In Japan our God is just like that butterfly caught in the spider’s web: only the exterior form of God remains, but it has already become a skeleton” (p. 160).

God is dead.

Rodrigues, back in his cell, falls into deep, despairing reflection, concluding that Ferreira must be weak. After all, Rodrigues himself has watched as Japanese Christians were martyred for their beliefs. They would not have sacrificed themselves for a false faith! Paraded in front of the citizens of Nagasaki, Rodrigues is then placed in a room where he is once again asked to apostatize by the interpreter: “I don’t want to make you suffer. Please! I’m not saying anything wrong. Just say the word: ‘I apostatize” (p. 170). But Rodrigues still refuses, convinced that he will soon be tortured to death. As he sits in the dark, praying, Kichijirō’s voice comes through the door, begging for forgiveness. Rodrigues mouths the words of absolution, not sincerely but from “a sense of priestly duty” (p. 175), suggesting that the father, like the Japanese Christians described by Ferreira, is merely a shell of a Christian, carrying out the motions without truly, in his heart, exercising Christian love.

Through the darkness, as the father reflects on his situation, there comes a sound that he mistakes for the snoring of the guards. This “snoring” continues all night long. It is Ferreira who appears to tell him that the sounds he hears are not snoring guards, but the pained moans and groans of Japanese Christians being tortured by suspension in “the pit.” This is why Ferreira apostatized; not because of the physical torture that he endured, but because he could not bear the suffering of these peasants. And all through this suffering, God remained silent. “God did nothing” (p. 179). Rodrigues continues to pray, mechanically reciting words, which also do nothing to alleviate the unspeakable suffering of those being tortured.

And then Ferreira offers a suggestion: “Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them” (p. 181). Out of pure love, wouldn’t Jesus have renounced his own faith in order to save others? Isn’t this the true core of Christian belief? Isn’t stubbornly hanging on to the external appearances of Christianity, refusing to apostatize, just an empty gesture, an empty husk, like the skeleton of the butterfly in the spider’s web? The egotism that remains in Father Rodrigues is rooted in his own desire for salvation at the expense of those around him. This must be overcome if he is to embody true Christian love. The irony of the situation is that in order to truly be a Christian, Father Rodrigues must renounce Christianity.

And so he tramples the fumie placed at his feet by Father Ferreira and apostatizes. Like Ferreira before him, Rodrigues takes a Japanese name and spends the rest of his life serving the governor.

Silence is a powerful novel that grapples with painful and difficult issues that are not unique to Christians. It encourages us to reflect on the nature of our idealistic convictions and to examine the reasons why we believe and act the way that we do. The underlying message that the book conveys strikes me as fundamentally existential: when faced with the silence of the universe, the actions and beliefs that you choose must ultimately be undertaken without objective justification or certainty. It would be comforting to have an airtight philosophical argument whose conclusion compels you, or to hear the voice of God commanding you to act in a certain way. But arguments always have counterarguments and God does not speak. As Sartre points out, even if one encounters a compelling argument, or even if one claims to hear the voice of God, the individual still needs to choose to accept the argument or choose to believe that it is God that speaks. Such responsibility can never be evaded. A character like Father Rodrigues is an illustration of this existential reality. In his struggles throughout the novel, he develops an awareness that objective proof for his beliefs is non-existent. All of his attempts to argue for his religious convictions fail. He convinces no one – not even himself – through philosophical argumentation. Likewise, his desire to gain a sign from God verifying that he is on the right path is consistently frustrated. God is silent throughout the book. In the end, Rodrigues tramples on the fumie simply because he chooses to do something that will stop the suffering of those around him. This choice is his choice alone, and there is nothing other than his own will that can initiate it.

It was Kierkegaard who wrote of the spiritual transitions between the aesthetic, ethical, and religious phases of human life. In spiritual infancy we find ourselves in the aesthetic stage, preoccupied with pleasure and outward appearance. In the ethical stage we progress toward a concern for principles and universal codes of conduct. It is only in the religious stage, according to Kierkegaard, that we become spiritually mature, turning completely inward and remaining unconcerned with how we appear to the outside world, solely concerned with the call of inner conscience. This is the most difficult stage to achieve as it may require us to act in ways that those around us condemn as antisocial or even immoral. Nevertheless, it is the stage at which we are the most authentically true to ourselves and to God. Abraham achieved this state, according to Kierkegaard, as did Socrates. It is the state of being enjoyed by those who refuse the comforting illusion that any objective set of social rules or moral principles can serve as dependable guidelines for how we should act in all circumstances. We must always choose for ourselves how we act, and sometimes those choices will earn us the condemnation of others.

Father Rodrigues’ choice at the end of the novel Silence may represent something like this sort of religious choice. In apostatizing he turns against everything that he has, up until that point, lived his life for. He makes a choice to renounce his faith – at least externally – to alleviate the unbearable suffering of others. Other Christians (especially those back in Europe) will certainly condemn him as a weakling and a villian, but he seems to act according to the call of his conscience. On the other hand, if his internal motivation comes from a desire to make his life easier, to earn comfort and the regard of the authorities, then Rodrigues has certainly not acted out of spiritual maturity, but out of concern for appearances. The 9th Chapter of Silence, which details the continuing inner, mental struggle and uncertainty of the father’s ruminations while living in Japan, seem to suggest that far from finding final peace and happiness, he remains tortured by his inner struggle until the end of his life, leading me to think that, along with Abraham and Socrates, he has entered a state of being far removed from the merely aesthetic or the ethical.

In 2016, Martin Scorsese adapted Silence into a motion picture that offers a less ambiguous conclusion to the story of Father Rodrigues’ battle with his faith. Like the book, the movie is harrowing, but unlike the book it leaves the audience with a more comforting sense that Rodrigues ultimately remained steadfast in his Christianity.

As is often the case, the movie is good, but the book is better.