Thinking about Wake Up Dead Man again and appreciating the way it handles intersections of faith and rationality. Everything that happens is in the end entirely explicable by human actions, and Benoit is an avowed atheist with little love for religion as an institution or for more personal expressions of faith in the beyond-human. And yet he respects Father Jud’s belief, inasmuch as he respects anyone, which is to say he still thinks he’s smarter than most everyone in the room and isn’t shy about it, but he’s not anymore rude or dismissive than he is to anyone else, simply because Father Jud believes something he doesn’t.
He doesn’t respect the belief, he respects that Father Jud believes, but even that is because Father Jud acts in accordance to his stated beliefs. He’s not a hypocrite. His words and his deeds align, which throws Benoit off a bit because he expected a hypocrite at the very least, if not a murderer.
But this doesn’t change Benoit’s mind or convert him or even make him doubt. He’s steadfast in his trust in the rational. He’s not staying for Mass and his opinion of the institution of religion remains unchanged. But he can accept that there is at least one good priest in the world, and that the people who choose to trust in him won’t be abused.
And neither does the movie’s event shake Father Jud’s faith, even though everything that happens is so human in its brutality and cruelty. There were no miracles, no divine intervention, and he only manages to reach one of the original flock at the moment of her death. But he moves forward undeterred. The movie gives no winks or nudges that ~maybe~ there’s something really metaphysical to support his belief. But to a true believer, believing without proof is the point. True acts of faith require *faith* not knowledge. Maybe he believes in a child’s fairy tale and built his life around it. But he’s not harming anyone and he’s *trying* to genuinely help. Father Jud’s faith is transformative because he believes in love above all things, god’s love, and he lives by his beliefs and he tries to enact that love on earth, and in doing so believes in his fellow humans. He believes that god loves everyone and so he loves everyone. He believes in god’s grace and so he extends grace. Even to the truly wicked like Wicks.
A rational man and a man of faith, who worked together for a moment and neither of them changed but both viewpoints are presented positively and as beneficial to each other. Logic stands true regardless of faith, but true faith can withstand logic as well.
