Steve Turner By Thomas Hardy

Morning listeners today’s program is the first day of our new series called ‘the literature of faith and doubt”. The series will explore the contribution literature has made over time and across cultures to the exploration of faith and doubt in human experiences. Faith and doubt is a controversial subject. Throughout our lives there will be many times where we will doubt ourselves, family and friends and even God and likewise there will be many times when our faith is tested but I believe the ultimate test of faith is when you loose your soul mate.

This morning we are going to discus two poems “natures questioning by Thomas hardy and “creed by Steve turner”. The clarification for the structure where Hardy has repeated A,b,b,a throughout
seven stanzas, he provides seven reasons to not believe in God. The first stanza describes an emotionless scene of a field containing trees, animals and a pool, which are objects, not enmeshed in his life.

Hardy describes nature as something that is vigorous and alive and is now comatose and dead.
The poem uses an alliteration and simile to get the readers attention. “Like chastened children sitting silent in a school” which enables the reader to visualize subdued children sitting emotionless as Hardy feels. Hardies questioning is about a man who has lost his wife to cancer. The poem expresses how empty the man feels without his wife and although he has had faith in God he doubts God’s control, plan and love for him since his wife has past. Hardy searches for the person to blame for his wife’s death. It is a very hard concept to believe and accept that a God of love would allow the one that you love to perish and leave you with so much pain. Hardy expresses this concept in the poem by doubting God’s intention and even suggesting that Satan could be the instigator of his wife’s death. Hardies questioning of who is to blame for his wife’s death can be seen in several stanzas in the poem. Firstly stanza four states, “Has some vast imbecility, mighty to build and blend, but impotent to tend, framed us in jest, and left us now to
hazardry.”

Which he suggests God is an imbecile and has played a prank on him and is sitting back, waiting to see if hardy is going to fail or indeed show resilience and delight God. In stanza five hardy doubts he is a child of God and questions whether a robot, a mechanical, emotionless but still powerful creator, has created him. Believing this would extinguish doubt that his maker would inflict pain. Stanza six describes hardy’s questioning whether Satan has over powered God and God’s plan of resurrection has been abandoned. The poem ends with Hardy stating he has no answer for his wife’s death and is cruel as it is, Life goes on and it is evident that Hardy’s faith has been tested by doubt but not however destroyed.

A Christian man “Steve Turner” whom describes the views of many none Christian people narrates the second poem.
Creed has ten stanzas with one concluding line and uneven line limits. Turner states what a lot of none Christians think but are too fearful to say. This poem depicts a person who is not following God and is living by his own rules and is accountable to no one. The first paragraph of the poem justifies none Christians committing sin. “We believe everything is OK as long as you don’t hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt and to the best of your knowledge. The writer portrays a person who has no faith in any higher power but only in himself and one who believes in living for the moment. Perhaps because the writer is portraying someone who has no faith, there is a nexus between the person having no faith and no
doubt.
Turner writes about someone who has no faith, a person who believes there is nothing after death. “We believe that after death comes Nothing because when you ask the dead what happens they say Nothing.” The poet emphasizes the importance of the word nothing by using a capital N for nothing. The seven stanza states that “What’s selected is average. What’s average is normal. What’s normal is good.” Turner describes what it’s like for a non-Christian to accept a lower standard of morals and beliefs. This stanza clearly explains that a non-believer does not strive for a higher standard and further. He’s not accountable for his actions.

The conclusion to this poem is a complete controversy to the first poem. The first poem depicts a person of God, a person who has faith and therefore doubt in that faith, where as the second poem is of a person who has no faith and therefore has no doubt.

So listeners, which one are you? The person who has faith but in times of tragedy and despair doubt your faith or are you the person who has no faith and therefore has no doubt.