Faith in Silence: On Anselm’s Proslogion
Reflections on Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” in light of St. Anselm’s Proslogion
This article may contain spoilers on the movie, “Silence” (2016) by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” was able to latch me onto the seats of an emotional rollercoaster. It was not meant as a drama movie, but it spoke so much about both man’s companionship and remoteness from God. It is by far one of the most amazing movies I have watched since the pandemic started. It was set in the 17th century. Two Jesuit priests were sent to Japan in the East Asian region in order to look for their brother priest, Fr. Ferreira, who they heard had been captured and subsequently apostatized. They arrive and meet a community of Japanese faithful living in hiding from the authorities. Early into the movie, it was vividly shown how their belief in God was kept firmly intact despite raging persecution in the area. What struck me most about the movie was the heroic martyrdom of the three leaders of the underground Japanese lay community. They were depicted as true witnesses to the faith who endured the trials of what it meant to believe in the one true God.
Another figure that caught my intrigue was Kichijiro, the man who was so blithe for forgiveness, yet always found himself betraying his own oath of repentance. His character was allegorical to the identity of Judas. Cowardly, he apostatized several times and betrayed his friend-priests, who inevitably forgave him despite his mishaps. The irony is that his character, a sinner, is led away to die a martyr’s death. If he had been real, he would be the type that Catholics nowadays would venerate and canonize, but only if his heart were truly repentant. Fr. Garupe, on the other hand, became a “martyr” forced to witness the death and torture of some Japanese lay faithful after refusing to deny his faith. However, his brother Jesuits, Fr. Ferreira and Fr. Rodrigues, were unable to become martyrs for the faith. To be fair, it was a challenging dilemma that they were posed with. If they hadn’t apostatized, many members of the lay community would be killed in their stead.
Whether their apostasy should be an object of adoration or contempt is beyond our subject of discussion. Rather, the topic for our contemplation is to be the silence of God amidst all suffering and ambiguity. Scorsese captures the Jesuit tradition of contemplation in and finding God in all things. Clearly, we see that the apostasy of Fr. Rodrigues was preceded by a deep kind of spiritual discernment. We may not know for sure the exact intimacy of Fr. Rodrigues in his prayer, but what we do know is that he was troubled by the fact that God did not give him a clear enough signal to proceed with his decision to step on the image of our Lord. He was troubled also by the silence of God in the sense that he did not help those who were tortured and killed by Japanese persecutors.
The problem of suffering has long been debated by many philosophers. In fact, it is one of the more common topics brought up in the subject matter of philosophy. A good analogy would be that of the biblical story of Job. A wealthy man, Job had almost everything — a good family, material abundance, and moral character. In fact, he was so good that God had boasted to Satan himself of his goodness. Satan told God that Job was only good because he had been blessed abundantly by divine providence — take his possessions away, and Job would curse God in no less than an instant. God then permitted that Job’s faith be tested, so Satan went and ruined everything that surrounded Job. His dearly beloved family members passed away, his wife, his children, all gone. His house was ransacked and his possessions were stolen. He was not even spared his clothes, which led him to become a poor naked man with literally nothing left but his corpus. But despite all this, Job never sinned nor cursed God for his fate. Instead, Job “got up, tore his robe, and shaved his head; then he fell to the ground and worshipped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Eventually, however, Job despaired at his situation but still did not discount the benevolence of God as his Heavenly Father. Like Job, Fr. Rodrigues also despaired in his suffering. His friends were killed one by one in front of his eyes. He was contemplating whether or not he should follow suit in the ultimate act of Christian heroism — martyrdom. He found it difficult to hear God in prayer, until such time he made his final decision. An act of faith. He made the decision to apostatize because he thinks it was God’s message to Him in prayer, that it was “okay” to deny Him at that moment and risk living a life of cowardice. He says at the end of the movie, “It was in the silence that I heard Your voice.”
When I came to realize the impact of that line, I remembered the lamentations of St. Anselm in the Proslogion. “If You are not here, O Lord, where shall I seek You who are absent? But if You are everywhere, why do I not behold You as present?” We should relish the obvious fact that God does not like to exude his presence on us extravagantly. We must face the reality that God is difficult to find, and that it takes an effort on our part, like how Fr. Rodrigues did, to seek God with all the zeal we have. And in the awesome paradox that is silence, it is there where we meet the clashing noise of God’s presence in our hearts. “O Lord, I acknowledge and give thanks that You created in me in Your image so that I may remember, contemplate, and love You.” It is in the silence of God where we make sense of St. Anselm’s initial quote in the Proslogion, “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand.” Man is mostly deaf. But if we want to hear God, we have to trust in what he will tell us first. Such is the essence of faith, which is an important concept in Anselm’s Proslogion. Without faith, we will never be able to put ourselves sincerely in the quest for seeking the existence of God. “Fides quarens intellectum,” faith seeking understanding. This is not to say, however, that we should fall into a kind of superstitious belief and move toward a “sacrificium intellectus,” a sacrifice of the intellect. The intellectual tradition, reason, should be paired with faith in order to find the right path toward God our Father.
Like Bartimaeus, we need to foster our hunger to “see” God in prayer as we continue to study the Philosophy of Religion. “Domine ut videam!” Lord, that I may see!
*A written requirement for PHILO 12: Philosophy of Religion
