On Francis Farmer and her essay "God Dies"

In April 1931 a highschool girl by the name of Francis Farmer won a $100 prize from Scholastic for her controversial essay titled "God Dies".(HistoryLink.org. Essay 5058) The heat surrounding this essay was similar to the heat surrounding the Scopes Monkey trial; which questioned our understanding of the world. Francis Farmer's essay did not indicate her atheism, as some like to say, but her understanding of God.

I think that what is really being said in Francis Farmer's essay is not that God dies but her understanding and motivation to understand God dies. In her eassay she talks about the difference between religion and God himself. "Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel"..."That wasn't religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it."(atheisme.free.fr/Contributions/God_dies.htm) I realized from her essay that religion was not an end in itself but a vehicle to an end, which is God. How could a human who has the witness of history and birth say that their Creator doesn't exist. It is because the understanding of the Creator perishes, leading to the denial of the Creator.

So when Francis Farmer analyzes the 'usefulness' of God she comes to a stopping point, at which some theologians and many philosophers stop at. The stopping point of 'deus otiosus', at which the will of God is limited to cause and effect or the cosmos. Francis Farmer's analyzing is the same analyzing of many human beings from the past and for time to come, and that is to explain the world that we are in. Many come to the conclusion that He doesn't exist, but this is just a clear indicator of the intellect giving up on the search. Though one is unable to drive the vehicle of reason to The Well of Truth does not mean one should give up walking the spiritual path. Some can reach this Truth through reason but if we cannot, we can through spirituality. Religion is the vehicle to understanding these paths of reason and spirituality; with revelation being the light that reveals the Truth of the world. Religion is a path and God is the end and my argument is not to stop searching for that end.
Lest our hearts die.