In the novel Robinson Crusoe, Defoe illustrates the contradictions that drench the thoughts and actions of man as he strives to reach for God while also forced to face the realization that he must ensure his own safety in the world. Defoe uses Crusoe's journey on the canoe to exemplify how Crusoe lives in a world where he longs to please and obey God but must also contend with his instinct, which looks to himself for his savior. .
In the passage in which Crusoe finally reaches land after a tumultuous experience at sea in his canoe, Crusoe falls to his "knees and gave God Thanks for [his] Deliverance, resolving to lay aside all Thoughts of [his] Deliverance by [his] boat" (103). Crusoe strives for the Christian ideal, an ideal that leads him to look to God for assistance and not to humans because inevitably God holds the only power to give and take life. Crusoe appears to achieve the ideal when he drops to his knees and thanks God for his safe return; however, through the use of the word 'resolve,' Defoe shows that the ideal relationship with God contradicts man's instinct. .
According to the Webster's English Dictionary, resolves means 1. to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine. 14. to come to a determination; make up one's mind (786). Since Crusoe must come to a determination in order to lay aside his thoughts that his boat saved him and not God then Defoe shows that Crusoe's first instinct is to look to his 'self' as his savior, and only after deliberation does he determine to call it providence that saves him. Although it may on the surface appear that Crusoe achieves this ideal relationship with God in which he praises Him and does not look to himself as having the power to save his own life, Defoe shows that we are reading something superficial because Crusoe never mentions that he does believe that God saved him but only that he would not think about his boat as saving him.