At times he tries to convince the child, and possibly himself, that God is still at work in the world: "My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God " (77). On an earlier occasion, kneeling Job-like in ashes (Job 2:8), the man expresses doubt about God's existence: "Are you there? . Will I see you at the last? "1 Like the man, Job goes about "in sunless gloom " (Job 30:28); unlike the man, Job possesses unwavering faith: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth . then in my flesh I shall see God " (Job 19:25-27). Job asks God: "Do you have eyes of flesh? " (Job 10:4). The man wonders: "Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? " (McCarthy 11-2). The man's last remark is reminiscent of the advice given to Job by his wife: "Curse God and die " (Job 2:9). Indeed, the man recalls this advice himself later (McCarthy 114).
The man's predicament illustrates the following paradox. Great suffering appears to constitute evidence against the existence of a loving God, but it also has the capacity to.
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produce or strengthen belief in such a God. It is when we suffer that we most need belief in a loving God to keep ourselves going. The more reason we have to doubt God's reality, the more we need to believe. The world of The Road is described as "[b]arren, silent, godless " (McCarthy 4) and the man recognizes that "[s]ome part of him always wished it to be over " (154). It is precisely because of this that he needs to believe that he is on a divine mission.
Contemporary research suggests a correlation between misery and religiosity. There is a growing body of evidence from sociology and psychology that indicates that the happiest nations of the world are also the least religious; the most socially dysfunctional exhibit the highest levels of religiosity.2 Particularly striking is Phil Zuckerman's book Society without God, which is an examination of Sweden and Denmark.