Thomas Hardy's Views on Religion

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Thomas Hardy's views on God and Religion
Thomas Hardy was born into a religious family and brought up with very Christian values and morals. As he matured and was exposed to the new ideas of the time, he became conflicted in his views about God and religion. He was criticized for writings that many of his peers considered to be obscene, immoral and blasphemous. Throughout his adult life, Hardy considered himself to be an agnostic. His poems show that he was much more complicated than that. His writings show a Christian who was tormented by the fact that he was no longer able to believe in the church doctrine. He had a conflicted soul that was searching for some meaning. This is evident in his poetry, especially Hap and Channel Firing. In these two poems, Hardy reacts to a world with a god that is either indifferent to human suffering or nonexistent and replaced by random chance.
In Hap, one of Hardy's first poems, the author longs for any kind of god. Even a "vengeful god" (1) who finds amusement in human suffering would be preferable to the randomness that the poet sees. If Hardy could "know that thy sorrow is (God's) ecstasy" (3) then at least he would see some purpose in his misery. If only the poets "love's loss was (God's) hate's profiting" (4) then Hardy would be "steeled by the sense of ire unmerited."(6) In other words, even if God was cruel and uncaring, Hardy would be at least "half-eased" (7). He would be comforted by God's anger or wrath even if it was undeserved.
However by the third stanza Hardy shows that there is no god. It is not a "powerfuller than I" (7) which controls life. It is random chance that there is suffering. It is "Crass Casualty obstruct(ing) ...

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...or unto Christ. Hardy does not portray God in the typical fashions of his time. This is not a compassionate god. This is not a god who is just or forgiving. Channel Firings questions a God so callous that he leaves us simply to fend for ourselves.
In both Hap and Channel Firings Thomas Hardy presents a world with no hope of divine intervention. To Hardy the idea of a Christian God is dead. Although the poems are very different and were written many years apart, they each present a common theme. They show world of chaos and disorder. It is a world where chance is the law and fate is blind. Hardy's reaction to this world is shown is his writing. I think that Hardy longed to believe in God but could see no evidence in his time that such a god existed. It is evident that he was a poet who was conflicted and frightened by the very concepts that he was proclaiming.

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