Owen Meany Essay

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The theme of religious faith versus doubt is prominent throughout A Prayer for Owen Meany. Owen Meany has an absolute faith in God and seems to have possessed it from a very early age. When he is eleven, for example, he tells John that God knows who John's father is and will eventually identify him. Owen never doubts that there is a purpose to everything, and his faith in his own destiny as decreed by God never wavers. In contrast, John, as a child, has no particular religious beliefs or faith. He learns to believe in God mostly through his knowledge of Owen's life and death. And Rev. Merrill believes that faith and doubt coincide with each other. The relationship between faith and doubt is that they coexist with each other. The relationship between faith and doubt is different for each character. Each character has his own belief of God and his doubts. Some have more faith than doubt and vice versa. John will be swayed into having faith because of Owen’s faith. Owen is different from everyone else because he had a “wrecked voice,” and was, “the smallest person”. He is also different because even from a young age he has complete faith. He was smarter than kids his age and he had a vast knowledge of the world for someone so young. John and Owen go to church together as kids, “When [John] complained about church, [John] complained about the usual things a kid complains about: the claustrophobia, the boredom. But Owen complained religiously.” Owen never doubted that God was real even when most people were non-believers. Even after Owen accidently kills John’s mom with a baseball he has faith because he believes he was “the instrument of [John’s] mother’s death” and that he is “God’s Instrument.” Owen sees his death date and has a dream of how he will die, he embraces what he believes to be his destiny as decreed by God. Owen believed that God had a reason for
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