Literature & Theology, Vol 14 No 1, March 2000

SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE

PROBLEM OF GOD
Spyndoula Athanasopoulou-Kypnou

Abstract

In this study, taking exception to both the theological and atheistic

interpretations of Samuel Beckett's work and focusing on his trilogy and

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his play Waiting for Godot I first attempt to explore in what sense and to what
extent he is an atheist and explain why he uses negative language when
referring to A supposed divinity In the second part, my intention is to dis-
cuss how the heroes' metaphysical quest functions in his works as well as
to interpret the author's lyrical and mystical moments Finally, mv main
argument is that Beckett wants to overcome any metaphysical quest

SPEAKING ABOUI Samuel Beckett and the problem of God is speaking about
an ambiguity For, on the one hand he uses Biblical and religious allusions, with
which he is familiar, and on the other he reduces God, the divine, and religion
in general to the level of the ludicrous This double attitude towards his
religious heritage has caused much confusion and debate among the critics who
attempt to analyse his stance towards the problem of God and many opposed
interpretations of his work have appeared Thus, there are critics who stress
Beckett's negative attitude towards religion and others who claim that Beckett
has a positive attitude towards God
However, any effort to read Beckett's work as totally negative towards
metaphysics or as anti-Christian is marked by (1) an over-rehance on Beckett's
satiric tone towards religion, (2) a tendency to read one's own philosophical
ideas into his works, (3) a tendency to criticize a piece of art from a religious
perspective without recognizing the autonomy of art, (4) a failure to recognize
that Beckett's intention may be to free people from any kind of metaphysical
discourse, either theistic or atheistic, and (5) a failure to recognize the tender,
lyrical and even mystical tone of some passages of his work
On the other hand, taking into consideration and overestimating the mystical
and optimistic passages as well as the Biblical allusions that can be found in
Beckett's work, some other critics argue for Beckett's positive attitude towards
Christian belief and religion in general Any attempt to read Beckett's works as
Chnstianly orthodox or as having a totally positive attitude towards metaphysics
is characterized by ([) an over-reliance on a prevalence of Christian imagery and
© Oxford Univeratv Press 2000
 SPYMDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 35
symbolism, (2) the making of unfounded assumptions, and (3) a failure to
recognize irony or, in some cases, a feeling of disgust
Given that, on the one hand, Beckett shows clearly his opposition to God and,
on the other, there are some mystical and optimistic moments in his work, it is
quite arbitrary to jump to the conclusion that he has either a totally positive or a
completely negative attitude towards the divine Thus, instead of considering
Beckett's work as either positive or negative towards God, some other critics try
to explain Beckett's double attitude towards the divine bv assigning to him the
active intention of coming up with a truer vision of deity Any such attempt,
theologically upbuilding though it may be, is marked by (1) a failure to recog-
nize that Beckett's main concern is with the human situation and not with the

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nature of theological understanding, (2) a tendency to interpret instances of
blasphemy or irony as a healthy criticism of Christian religion from within,
(3) an over-reliance on the negative language used, (4) a tendency to consider
him a theologian who rejects any anthropomorphic God and argues for a
more acceptable version of the divine, (5) a failure to see that the anthropo-
morphic God appears to be the only one referred to by the heroes and
that there is no alternative offered in lieu of what is being satirized, and (6) a
failure to realize that Beckett's intention may be to free people from any
metaphysical quest
While those critics who argue either for Beckett's positive or negative
attitude towards the problem of God fail to tie isolated facts together, the
critics who suggest that Beckett wants to introduce a more acceptable vision of
God are actually reading their own theological ideas into his works Although
the latter succeed in bringing contradictory facts together and offer an explana-
tion of Beckett's double attitude towards God, this explanation is biased in
fa\our of their religious beliefs Reading Beckett as a religious thinker who
wants to introduce a more acceptable vision of the divine, does not do justice
to his free spirit For he does not seem interested in constructing a new totahtv,
but rather in deconstructing all kinds of closed systems, all sorts of certainties
In this study, taking exception to the theological interpretations of his work
and focusing on his trilogy and his play Waiting for Godot, I first attempt to
explore in what sense and to what extent he is an atheist and explain why lit. uses
negative language when referring to a supposed divinity In the second part, my
intention is to explain how the heroes' metaphysical quests function in Beckett's
works as well as to interpret his lyrical and mystical moments Finally, I suggest
that Beckett wants to overcome any metaphysical quest
At this point it must be said that my reading of Beckett's work is only one
among many possible others and is subject to the same problems of interpreta-
tion, especially the problem of reading my own ideas into his works In this
respect, my reading is only an attempt to draw attention to some problems
dramatized by Beckett and can by no means be absorbed into a fully elaborated
36 SAMUEL B E C K E T T B E Y O N D T H E P R O B L E M O F G O D
theory Besides, let us n o t forget that for Beckett ' t h e key w o r d ' in his plays
is ' p e r h a p s '

BECKETT AS AN ANTI-THEIST

Trying to explore Beckett's atheism is tantamount to regarding him as an

atheist Yet, nowhere does he state that he disbelieves in God or that God
does not exist His mistrust of God is not oncological but epistemological That
is, he opposes the belief m God not because he is an avowed atheist but
because he cannot know whether God exists or not Besides, as we will see in
the following, he is actually arguing against closed and dogmatic propositions, be
they thcistic, atheistic, philosophical or scientific Therefore, it is preferable to
speak of Beckett's anti-theism By using the prefix 'anti' instead o{ 'a', my

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intention is to emphasize his criticism of, and antithesis to, belief in the exist-
ence of a single personal God, who is the creator of and supreme authority, in
the universe
Indeed, his opposition to the personal God of theism who is at once active in
the created world and separate from it, is so radical that he chooses very strong
and often negative language to express it In Tlie Unnamable, he points out the
danger of reducing the deity to the level of the human beings As he puts it
sarcastically

The rascal, he's getting humanised, he's going to lose if he doesn't watch out, if
he doesn't take care, and with what could he take care with what could he form
the faintest conception of the condition they are decoving him into, (7",363)

Beckett refuses to see God as part of the cosmic reality, as a being among other
beings who is knowable and is placed in a world, be it sensory or suprasensorv
In llic Urmamabtc he says clearly

The mistake they make of course is to speak of him as if he reall) existed, in <i
specific, place, whereas the whole thing is no more than a project for the moment
But let them blunder on to the end of their folly, then they can go into the
question again, taking care not to compromise themselves by the use of terms, if
not of notions, accessible to the understanding (7^,375)

A god, made in the image of people and according to their needs, is not a real
god but only a projection of a weak and scared human intellect The author
points out that everything including the concept of God, is human invention
and says ' I invented it all, in hope it would console me, help me to go on,
allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, All lies' (T,3 16)
Beckett's extensive use of negative language when speaking of the unknown
makes some critics assume that he rejects natural theology and, like the negative
theologians, argues for the otherness of God For instance, Buning explores the
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 37
parallels between Beckett's works and the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite and Meister Eckhart and implies that there can be a significant
relation between the 'haunting emphasis on nothing and notness in the trilogy'
and the thirty-five negative attributes of God or Godhead, including the not
namable, found in the Mystical 'theology of Pseudo-Dionysius
However, trying to link Beckett's use of negative language with an active
intention to argue for apophatic theology and its understanding of the divine,
illuminating though as it may be, is arbitrary For not every apophatic discourse
can be considered theological It is only if it argues, in one way or another, in
favour of a transcendent deity that it can be characterized theological In other
words theology no matter how 'apophatic1 it may be, seems to reserve a
certain type of hyperessentiahtv, a being be\ond Being According to negative

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theology, God may be unknown, ineffable, beyond being, nameless, hidden,
absent or even non-existent, in the sense that God does not exist as cosmic and
finite beings do, but at the same time God is Pseudo-Dionysius puts it this
way 'So this is what we say The Cause of all is not inexistent, lifeless,
speechless, mindless ' ° Therefore, when a theologian argues that God is
beyond being, he/she does not deny God's beingness but she/he refuses to use
cosmic predicates when referring to the divine Negative theology has not
come to negate God but only God's perceptible attributes And by refusing to
apply to God the terms of speech and thought, by arguing against God's being
perceptible, conceptual and known, the theologians want to ascend from the
perceptible to the intelligible and return to the transcendent God Otherwise, if
every apophatic discourse that resembles apophatic theology is speech of God,
then God would be the truth of all negativity and therefore even of atheism In
Beckett's case, the writer may use negative language but his discourse is not
theological For, in his works, he never distinguishes between the available and
personal God of theism and the completely distant and unknown God of
apophatic theology Although he criticizes and opposes the available God of
theism he does not argue in favour of another God, and does not preserve a
certain type of hyperessentiahty In this respect, although Barge admits that 'in
work after work Beckett not only caricatures but has his heroes reject and
eurse the God concocted of human words and reflecting human evil', she
points out correctly that 'the problem is that this anthropomorphic God
appears to be the only one referred to by the heroes or the narrators throughout
the canon
Yet, if Beckett does not argue either for a new understanding of the divine
or for the apophatic theology and its negative language, then why is he using
apophatic language to speak of the unknown' In my judgment, he uses nega-
tive language in so far as he wants to show the ineffectiveness of predicative
language when referring to the unknown Although negative language is a
language and thus positive, it is the only way to show the weaknesses of
38 SAMUEL B E C K E T T B E Y O N D T H E P R O B L E M O F G O D
language w h e n speaking positively of an ineffable deity In other words, he is
using negative language only as a vehicle to criticize or even satirize theism in
so far as theism speaks positively of God's attributes and tries Co prove God's
existence For example, in The Unnamable, h e seems to argue against G o d ' s
names and attributes w h e n he refuses to name the u n k n o w n and unnamable
As he says

it's the fault of the pronouns, there is no name for me, no pronoun for me, all
the trouble conies from that, that, it's a pronoun too, it isn't that either, I'm not
that cither, (T,4o8)

Similarly, by using negative language, he attacks the ontological argument for

God's existence While, in terms of this argument, G o d , as the greater than can

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be conceived, must be t h o u g h t of as existing, for Beckett existence does not
necessarily depend on conceivabihty Beckett puts it this way

Feeling nothing, knowing nothing, he exists nevertheless but not for himself,
for others, others conceive him and say. Worm is, since we conceive him, as if
there could be no being but being conceived if only by the bee'r (7,349)

Consequently, arguments that seem to derive from the discourse of apophatic

theology b e c o m e the means by which Beckett shows the inconsistencies ot
theistic belief
Nevertheless, using negative language and arguments that have similarities
with those of apophatic theology is only o n e way of expressing his anti-theistic
feelings For satire, parody, and radical irony are also used in order to suggest
that any theistic belief is untrustworthy In Waiting for Godot, in his bitter
m o n o l o g u e , Lucky refers to God's controversial and incompatible attributes
and says ironically

Given the existence of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard

quaquaquaqua outside time without extension W h o from the heights of divine
apathia divine athambia divine aphasia lovts us dearly with some exceptions for
reasons unknown (WC4.2)

Beckett chooses also the supreme sacrament of the Christian faith, the Euchanst,
to ridicule it In Molloy, Moran is very m u c h c o n c e r n e d with the effectiveness
of t h e Euchanst if taken on top of beer, h o w e v e r light (7,97) In the follow-
ing pages of the novel, Beckett's parody of the Euchanst is even m o r e radical,
especially w h e n his h e r o takes the sacred feast but realizes n o benefit from doing
so As his hero confesses

The host, it is only fair to say, was lying heavy on my stomach And as I made
my way home I felt like one who, having swallowed a pain-killer, is first
astonished then indignant, on obtaining no relief (T,iO2)
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 39
By companng the host with a pain-killer, Beckett implies that religion is
people's last resort Tired of a painful life, people find in religion a kind of
consolation Having tried everything, or at least that is what they think, they
pray to God for help and salvation People's piety grows 'warm in times of
crisis' (T,2io)
Nonetheless, although there is, undoubtedly, an abiding criticism and satire of
theism as well as of Christianity, Beckett is not an avowed anti-Chnstian who
tries to relieve himself of his anti-Chnstian feelings in his works If he uses the
Bible and the Christian imagery to ridicule religion, he does so because he is
perfectly familiar with Christianity and therefore he can use effective examples
taken from this tradition to criticize theism in general Besides, he opposes not
only theism and religion but also all those philosophies, be they sacred or secular,

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that start from the idea that human thought can reduce the totality of the
universe to a complete, unified and coherent system " While religion, with its
theistic world-view, is one way of answering human questions and of putting
things in an order, science and philosophy are other ways of giving meaning to
an absurd life In so far as science and philosophy introduce a closed and coherent
system and argue for eternal truths, they do not differ from religion and thus
provoke Beckett's satire
In other words, he ridicules and opposes any culturally established authority,
be it religious or secular, that tries to interpret the universal chaos and the human
tragic condition According to Theodor Adorno, Beckett's work is "a parody of
the philosophy' as well as 'a parody of forms' What Beckett refuses to deal with
is interpretation Besides, Beckett himself points out that the supposed direct
relation between the human mind and reality has broken As he puts it

The crisis started with the end of the seventeenth century, after Galileo The
eighteenth century has been called the century of reason, le siecle de la raison I've
never understood that, they're all mad, ils sont tous fous, lls deraisonnent1 They
give reason a responsibility which it simply can't bear, it's too weak The
Encyclopedists wanted to know everything But that direct relation between
the self and - as the Italians say - lo scibile, the knowable, was already broken

Taking into account his general mistrust of the traditional understanding of

reason, when I argue for Beckett's anti-theism, I regard it as part of his general
opposition to any closed philosophical or scientific system that searches for or
claims that it has already found the eternal truths In Watting for Godot both
protagonists are suspicious of any complete and coherent system, be it secular or
religious, for as they say 'nothing is certain' (WC, 14,53) ' n this respect, Beckett
is as much of an anti-theist as of an anti-philosopher whose oeuvre is a
transmutation of his unconventional and liberating ideas into art
Following his general opposition to secular and religious metaphysical
systems, that argue for universal principles and order, Beckett presents a picture
40 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF GOD
of a disintegrating world that has lost its certainties, traditional values and
revelations of divine purpose W h e n it is no longer possible to accept a divine
horizon or a metaphysical point of reference, life must be faced in its ultimate,
stark reality, in the reality of nothingness In his works, the writer dramatizes the
Democntian proposition that 'nothing is more real than nothing' and presents
the human tragic condition
Yet, his heroes are not tragic For the tragic hero, although he/she suffers and
loses his/her struggle against the absolute, his/her downfall is a confirmation and
recognition of the absolute Beckett's heroes are rather grotesque T h e grotesque
figure, although he/she loses the struggle against the absolute, her/his downfall
means mockery of the absolute and its desecration In the world of grotesque,
mockery is directed not only at the tormentor, but also at the victim, w h o

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believed in the tormentor's justice, raising h i m / h e r to the level of the absolute
While in 'tragedy' the absolute remains authoritative and justified, for 'tragedy'
is always followed by catharsis, in the realm of the grotesque, the absolute cannot
bejustified or be blamed, for it is a trap set by people themselves into which they
have fallen (> In terms of Beckett, human tragic condition can be understood as
the lack of tragedy For, in his works, human pain is purposeless since there is
no absolute, no god(s) to justify it, like in the ancient Greek tragedies or in the
Biblical stones Therefore, in a godless world, the tragedy of human existence
consists of the awareness that life will always be a farce and never a meaningful
tragedy where suffering can be redeemed by an absolute force
Indeed, Beckett's world is the world of the farce and the grotesque where
there is no harmony, no order and nothing on people's horizon in Endgame,
Clov realizes the modern metaphysical emptiness and asks a rhetorical question
'What in God's name would there be on the horizon 5 ' (F-,26) N o t h i n g All
Beckett sees on the horizon is nothing T h e writer is like the mad friend of
H a m m w h o was shown all the world's illusory loveliness but he could only see
the world's ashes (£,32)
Finally, in a meaningless world people 'stink' no matter h o w hard they try
to keep themselves 'clean' As Beckett says in Premier Amour 'Us ont beau se
la\er, les vivants, beau se parfumer, ils puent (/M,y) Beckett's heroes seem to
be haunted by the consciousness that their life is tied up with death As the nar-
rator admits, in Maione Dies 'I am being given, if I may venture the expression,
birth to into death, such is my impression ' (T,285) For the Irish writer, in life,
'the end is in the beginning', (£,44) in other words, a coffin is laying next to
every cradle
Yet if there are no god(s), n o absolute to give meaning to this m o m e n t
between the cradle and the grave, people will have to live in despair Thus,
the problem to be discussed is what Beckett suggests that people should do
in order to face successfully their metaphysical emptiness and their tragic
condition
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 41
1
B E C K E T T B E Y O N D ANY M TTA I H YS I C A 1 Q U F S T
In work after work Beckett dramatizes people's metaphysical emptiness after
the concepts of God and the transcendent have lost their effectiveness Wherever
his heroes look they face nothingness However, living in a meaningless world
where the concept of God has proven untrustworthy, does not mean that human
beings do not need a point of reference, that is, someone or something to believe
in, and something that can provide them with \alid principles Universal chaos
needs to be explained People seek answers In Bndqame, Hamm says 'Ah the
creatures, the creatures, everything has to be explained to them ' (£,32) Human
curiosity rests behind the scientific and philosophical theones And where these
theories cannot be applied there is always the concept of the divine revela-
tion that can offer explanations People need to construct totalities and invent

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the concept of God It is human, all too human As the narrator puts in 77ie
Unnamabk 'So they build up hypotheses that collapse on top of one another,
it's human, a lobster couldn't do it ' (7",375)
In Beckett's works, people seem to be like 'strangers' in an absurd world and
seek their lost 'homeland', the place or rather the situation where everything is
familiar to them and where certainties give meaning to their life As he puts it in
Malotie Dies

Yes, there is no good pretending, it is hard to leave everything The horror-worn

eyes linger abject on all thev have beseeched so long, (/,27s)

Aware of people's metaphysical emptiness, Beckett adopts a nostalgic tone to

speak of their lost 'homeland' and their illusion that someone or something will
come to save them This illusion is presented as the eternal feature of the human
imagination to assimilate the unutterable dimensions of life In his works, the
protagonists either take refuge in the traditional values and concepts of the
transcendent or try to construct new totalities, new points of reference
In this respect, the critics who argue for Beckett's totally negative attitude
towards the concept of God and metaphysics in general overlook his interest in
people's hope for 'salvation' and fail to explain why his heroes search for a
horizon For instance, in Mahne Dies we read a lyncal and mystical passage The
narrator seeks the person—and if we use allegory this person can be interpreted
as the 'old God'—who used to protect him and says tenderly

What 1 sought when I struggled out of my hole, then aloft through the stinging air
towards an inaccessible boon, was the rapture of vertigo, the letting go the fall
the gulf, the relapse to darkness, to nothingness, to earnestness, to home, to him
waiting for me always, who needed me and whom I needed, who took me in his
arms and told me to stay with htm always, who gave me his place and watched
over me, who suffered every time I left him, whom I have often made suffer and
seldom contented, whom I have never seen (7,195)
42 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF GOD

Similarly, in the French version of the play Waiting for Godot, Vladimir speaks
of Godot's arrival and says optimistically

Ce soir on couchera peut-etre chez lui, au chaud, au sec, le ventre plein, sur la
paille Qa vaut la peine qu'on attende N o n ' (EAG,2$)

These optimistic or even mystical passages, far from being evidence for Beckett's
positive attitude towards the transcendent, show people's constant search for
some meaning in a godless and purposeless universe W h e n Beckett adopts a
lyrical tone to speak of the unknown, he does so not because he wants to justify
any belief in it, as Baldwin implies in her book, but because he knows that
people still need the ineffable to be their horizon Beckett is quite sensitive to

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people's insecurity and realizes that they want something to depend on, though,
as we will see, he does not justify this attitude T h a t is why even when he does
not refer to any traditional concept of the divine or any 'old God', he presents his
heroes as seeking an absolute or a saviour to be their new point of orientation In
his works, there is always someone or something missing, someone or something
wanting In Watt it is Mr Knott, in Molloy Youdi, in 77ie Unnamable W o r m , in
Waiting for Godot Godot, and right from the beginning of Endgame a light
becomes the point of the heroes' orientation
At this point, the problem to be discussed is why Beckett is haunted by this
metaphysical quest Is it because he argues for the traditional understanding of
metaphysics that he dramatizes people's metaphysical hope, as the critics w h o
stress Beckett's positive attitude towards metaphysics claim 5 O r is it rather
because he wants to come up with a truer vision of the divine that, on the one
hand, he criticizes theism and, on the other, he transmutes people's metaphysical
quest into art' Different though these propositions may seem, they argue for one
and the same thing, that is, for the fact that Beckett justifies people's meta-
physical quest and therefore is haunted by it Based on his interest in people's
existential anxiety and metaphysical quest, critics like Baldwin, Butler and
T e r n e n read Beckett as a metaphysician w h o tries to construct a new vision of
religion, G o d and metaphysics in general In terms of their interpretations, the
Irish writer stands in the realm of metaphysics, for he has not abandoned the
concept of the transcendent and is still waiting for the u n k n o w n to reveal itself
Nevertheless, if we read his works from a different perspective, we may realize
that Beckett is haunted by metaphysics because people are haunted by it T h e
optimistic, tender and mystical passages which can be found in his works may be
understood as part of his presentation of people's desperate search for a point of
reference Beckett dramatizes people's metaphysical quest in so far as this
dramatization serves his method of challenging metaphysics That is to say, that
he presents people's metaphysical quest in such a way that the reader or the
audience can recognize the vanity of metaphysical hope
 SPYR1DOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 43
One comes across this method in revisiting Watting for Godot, the play that
emphasizes the human tragic condition as well as people's waiting for something
or someone to 'save' them For, on the one hand, the play speaks of and stresses
people's hope for 'salvation' and, on the other, it seems to deconstruct it by
satirizing it and by showing the absurdity of waiting for an external force to help
Instead of arguing for metaphysics, the play's intention is to go beyond any hope
and free people from any metaphysical quest, be it secular or religious Before I
go any further with the interpretation of the function of people's metaphysical
quest in the play, I should first analyse the title IVattmgfor Godot—French title
En Attendant Godot—which is very revealing
The title consists of two parts, namely, of a present participle and its object
Waiting—in French En Attendant—is the participle and Godot its object

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Although the participle seems to be inclusive, in the sense that its subject is not
defined and thus anyone can be its subject, later on in the play, Beckett refers to
the subject of waiting Yet, although in the English version of the play he uses
the personal pronoun 'we' to define who is waiting for Godot, in the French
version the writer chooses the impersonal 'on to speak of the subject of waiting
In this French impersonal form, expectation is thrust upon actor and audience
alike However, even when the personal pronoun 'we' is used, it is not clear if it
includes the readers and the audience or if it simply refers to the heroes of the
play This ambiguity of the subject of waiting may imply and speak of human
expectations in general and not only of the heroes' act of waiting
Similarly, the object of waiting is very unclear Although a name, that is,
Godot is used as the object of people's expectations, we do not know who
Godot is For in his play, the writer does not give a clue as to who or what Godot
is Despite the attempts that have been made to define Godot's identity, the
only thing we know for sure about him/her/it is what Vladimir and Estragon
think of him/her/it and what the messengers of Godot tell us about him/her/
it " But why trust Godot's messengers' How do we know that the boys are
telling the truth-1 And even more, why depend on Vladimir's and Estragon's
conception of Godot' What if the heroes are deceived by their own expectations
and needs and thus invent the idea of Godot' What if Godot is a human
construction that exists only in the constructor's mind5
If we take into account how unfounded the information about Godot is, wt
realize that we know nothing about Godot except for how he/she/it functions
in the play In fact it is Godot's role in the play that gives evidence of Beckett's
criticism and rejection of any metaphysical quest and hope Indeed, the figure of
Godot is used as that which keeps people in existence and offers the purpose of
life As Estragon reveals 'We always find something, eh, Didi, to give us the
impression that we exist'1 (IVC69) Godot is the ineffable and unknowable
'that represents hope in an age when there is no hope' Yet Godot is not
only unknowable and absent but he/she/it may not even exist, for Godot is
44 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF GOD

whatever people want h i m / h e r / i t to be as long as Godot justifies their life as

waiting
In Beckett's works, people are afraid of accepting their metaphysical
emptiness and of going on with their life As the narrator admits in The
Unnatnable

Unfortunately I am afraid, as always of going on For to go on means going

from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning
again, (^304)

Therefore, people are still waiting for some help to be offered by an external
force It there is nothing out there they create the goal for which the waiting

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then seems to be justifiable Anders characterizes the behaviour of Vladimir
and Estragon by saying that their guiding principle seems to be 'We are wait-
ing, therefore there must be something we are waiting for ' In other words, it
is because people cannot move on that they create the concept of Godot so
as to have something to wait for Yet if people's behaviour generates its own
goal then it is a classical case of petitw pnnaptt and as Rolf Breuer says, in this
case 'the solution is the problem'
In terms of Beckett, since people wait for that which they hope for, that
which they hope for never appears in the play, for it is only the projection of the
human needs Moreover, the writer suggests that Godot will never come by
emphasizing that Godot has not appeared in the two acts of the play As Worton
points out, Beckett, who is fascinated by mathematics, knows that in mathem-
atical theory the passage from o to 1 marks a major and real change of state, and
that the passage from 1 to 2 implies the possibility of infinity ~ In this respect
two acts are enough to suggest that since Godot has not arrived in these two acts,
he/she/it may never come
Furthermore, although the title of the play reters to the act of waiting, the play
argues for the act of going on For, as I have already argued, Beckett's method is
to present what he wants to challenge and then deconstruct it by showing its
weaknesses and its futility Indeed, in Waiting for Godot, the two tramps are
waiting In the meantime, nothing good happens The protagonists cannot find
anything to eat, their relationship does not develop, their metaphysical empti-
ness does not disappear and nobody seems to come to their help As Estragon
says 'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful1' (WC4.1)
While waiting for something, people fail to achieve their subjectivity and
explore their ego In The Unnatnabk the narrator speaks of the time he spent
searching for something and says

When I think, that is to say, no, let it stand, when I think of the time I've wasted
with these bran-dips, beginning with Murphy who wasn't even the first, when
I had me, on the premises, within easy reach, (7",394)
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 43
Similarly, while waiting, people loose their moral consciousness Absorbed by
the act of waiting they forget their responsibilities for the rest of humankind
As Hamm puts it in Endgame

All those I might have helped (Pause ) Helped1 (Patae ) Saved (Pause ) Saved1
(Pause) The place was crawling with them1 Get out of here and love one
another' Lick your neighbour as yourself (£,44)

People wait In the meantime, they are trapped bv their hope for salvation and
they cannot change their situation In Waitin^for Godot, Estragon admits that
'they all change Only we can't * (WG^R) Waiting for a 'saviour' to arrive

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prevents people from taking the responsibility of moving on and of overcoming
their tragic situation That is why, in Molloy, the narrator considers hope to be
'hellish' (T, 134) Hope is hellish in so far as it is a pretext for not facing the reality
and for putting off the time that people must decide for themselves If people
admit the folly of their hope, they will find themselves in hell For they would
then have to be more serious about their situation and their behaviour Hope
that is expressed by waiting is a very convenient habit 'But habit is a great
deadener ' (\VG,i)\)
In Beckett's works, there are many allusions to an escape from the hellish
hope In Waiting for Godot, both acts end with the heroes' unsuccessful effort
to move on In the first act it is Estragon who takes the initiative and asks

ESTRAGON Well' Shall we go'

VIADIMIH Yes, let's go (IVC.,94}

In the second act it is Vladimir who suggests that they should go and receives
the same positive response However, in both cases the heroes do not move
Analogously, in Iutdqame Hamm suggests that they should go from there But
Clov reminds him that 'God forbid1' (k,2#) Thus, although people have started
realizing the vanity of any metaphysical quest and hope, and try to escape from
them, the powerful routine of waiting and the traditional metaphysical systems
plunge them back into the passivity of illusion and keep them from 'reaching the
painful but fruitful awareness of the full reality of being'
Given his negative presentation of the consequences of people's waiting and
the allusions to an escape from the routine of expecting, Beckett argues for
people's responsible decision to leave behind all certainties and move on with
their life without clinging to any metaphysical hope Unlike Combs who implies
that Beckett opposes people s impulse to go on and that in Waiting for Godot
the writer justifies people's waiting for something or someone to come and
save them, I suggest that Beckett is deeply concerned with and emphasizes
46 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND T H E PROBLEM OF G O D
people's potentiality for going o n While in his plays there are only allusions of
his concern with moving on, in The Unnamable Beckett is very clear when he
says ' you must go on, that's all I k n o w ' (7",4i8)
Although it is difficult to abandon the traditional metaphysical systems and
live without a point of reference,

the recognition of the illusonness and absurdity of ready-made solutions and

prefabricated meanings, far from ending in despair, is the starting point of a new
kind of consciousness, which faces the mystery and terror of the human condition
in the exhilaration of a new-founded freedom 2H

In the final sentence of The Unnamable the narrator realizes the difficulty of

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going on but is determined to continue his life Thus he says

it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence
you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on (7",4i8)

In terms of Beckett, people cannot k n o w if there are universal principles or a

suprasensory world and a transcendent deity Thus, he suggests that if nothing is
certain it is futile to search for metaphysical truths or wait for a saviour to help us
or even construct totalities to explain the universal chaos T h e universe is absurd
Nothing can change its absurdity People must accept it and move on in silence
As H a m m says at the end of Endgame

Since that's the way we're playing it (he unfolds handkerchief) let's play it that
way (he unfolds) and speak no more about it (he finishes unfolding) speak
no more (£.52)

Searching for rules and coherent principles in an absurd universe where there
may be no closed systems and no metaphysical truth, is not the sign of a superior
peace of mind but rather an indication of people's resignation and weakness
According to Beckett, it is by realizing that any metaphysical quest is doomed
to failure that peace of mind enters in the human soul As the narrator puts it
in Molby

For to know nothing is nothing, not to want to know anything likewise, but to
be beyond knowing anything, to know you are beyond knowing anything, that
is when peace enters in, to the soul of the incurious seeker (T/>4)

To sum up, in terms of the Irish writer, the dignity of human beings lies in their
ability to face reality in all its senselessness, to accept it freely, without fear,
without clinging to illusions, without waiting for anything, to laugh at it and
go on As the narrator says in The Unnamable

the essential is never to arrive anywhere, never to be anywhere, neither where

Mahood is nor where Worm is, nor where 1 am, it little matters thanks to what
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPRIOU 47
dispensation The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as
long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a sporting God to
plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits (T,34i)

CONCLUSION

In the opening line of my paper I suggested that speaking about Samuel Beckett
and the problem of God is speaking about an ambiguity Yet what we con-
sider to be an ambiguity does not necessarily mean that it is one For Beckett's
double stance towards God and metaphysics in general can be reconsidered
and reinterpreted in such a way that his attitude will no longer be regarded
as double

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Indeed, Beckett's intention seems to be only one that is, to free people from
any metaphysical hope and quest, be they secular or religious His method of
liberating people from metaphysics or, rather, of suggesting that they should
abandon any metaphysical hope and quest is twofold That is, on the one hand,
he opposes and criticizes theism and traditional metaphysics by satinzmg and
ndicuhng them, and, on the other, he deconstructs any future hope and quest by
presenting them in such a way that they are proven not only untrustworthy and
ineffective but also dangerous for human dignity and freedom
At the end of the iyth century, Nietzsche spoke of the ineffectiveness and
un trustworthiness of traditional metaphysics and argued against the concept of
God and its substitutes In the 20th century, Beckett renders what Nietzsche says
in The Gay Science into art That is to say, that the Insh wnter argues not only
against God and the traditional metaphysics, but also against anything that might
replace the 'dead God' or the 'dead metaphysics' In a Nietzschean context,
Beckett fights the 'tremendous' shadow of God that is still haunting people's life
That is probably why, in Waiting jor Godot, Beckett chooses the name Godot
and not the word God to speak of and challenge what people wait for In his
play, Godot stands as the 'shadow of God', for Godot is a weakened form of
God and can thus refer to both the divine and to whatever might substitute the
traditional concept of God
Admittedly, one could argue that I stress Beckett's negative attitude towards
God This is true to the extent that I emphasize Beckett's opposition to every
metaphysical system, be it theistic or secular Nevertheless, his mistrust of
God and metaphysics is not ontological but epistemological That is to say,
rhaf h p K nnt m :>• n."r''A nthe'i!" r»r m " 1 M s t Kiir r-it-Vi^r m n m n i f i r i » K n smMrtKfs

that people cannot know whether life has a meaning or not and whether God
exists or not
Unlike the critics who argue for cither Beckett's positive or negative attitude
towards metaphysics, I suggest that he wants, in fact, to overcome this dilemma
In his works, he neither rejects nor justifies metaphysics Similarly, he neither
48 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF GOO
denies nor accepts the existence of God, for the problem of God's existence
simply exceeds the limits of human knowledge
In this respect, Beckett is not really interested in discussing the credibility of
the concept of God and of metaphysics, and therefore his active intention is not
to come up with a truer vision of the divine or a better understanding ot
metaphysics His abiding concern is rather with people's metaphysical anguish
and emptiness after God and traditional metaphysics have lost their effectiveness
In work after work, he dramatizes the human tragic condition after people have
lost their metaphysical horizon and suggests that no matter h o w hard they seek
eternal truths and values, their efforts are doomed to failure for the problem rests
in the nature of their quest In other words, in so far as people are searching for
truths and are waiting for an external force to help them, they do not face up to

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anxiety and despair and therefore anxiety, metaphysical emptiness and despair
cannot be overcome It is thus only by going beyond metaphysical quest, by
challenging all certainties and traditional values, by accepting reality in all its
absurdity, and by moving on with their lives, that people can allow peace,
dignity and freedom to enter in their souls For Beckett, it is by believing in
nothing and by waiting for nothing that people can sputter out 'a last prayer,
the true prayer at last, the one that asks for nothing' (T,2jH)
Yet, if nothing is certain, if people should accept their life in all its absurdity
without hoping for anything and without believing in anything, h o w can they
move o n ' If human life is meaningless or if people do not k n o w whether life has
a purpose or not, is it by going on with their life or is it rather by dying that
peace, dignity and freedom enters in people's souls 5 What is this then that may
make people want to live' What made Beckett write his w o r k s '
Beckett's work is characterized by a contradiction O n the one hand, he does
not reserve any kind of hyperessentiahty or a being beyond Being and tries to
overcome metaphysical quest and, on the other, his entire oeuvrt is a recognition
of the significance of a horizon in human life However, in terms of Beckett, this
horizon does not seem to be transcendent, but rather reduced to the level of
moral consciousness and responsibility towards humanity It is his concern with
ethics—which I only imply in this paper—that opens up n e w horizons for the
theological interpretations of his work For what could be of more significance
for theology than Hamm's proposition in Endgame which invites us to get
out of here, love one another and lick our neighbour as ourselves (£,44)

Room jj, 54 Richmond Grove, Lonqstght, Manchester Mi3 oDP, UK

REFERENCES

\EAG=kn Attendant Godot (Pans Les A Play in One Act Followed by -\ct Without
Editions de Minim 1952), C = Endgame Words -\ Mime for One Player (London Faber
 SPYRIDOULA ATHANASOPOULOU-KYPR1OU
and Faber 1958), P4 = Prtmier Amour (Pans
Les Editions de Minim, 1970), T— Trilogy
\lolloy, \lalone Dies, The Unnamable (London
Montreuil New York Calder Publications
1994), WG — Waiting for Godot
Tragicotomedy in Two Aits (London Faber
and Faber i9S>)]
Beckett received a thorough grounding in
the Biblt as a child and added to it a close
knowledge of both Protestantism and
Catholicism This double heritage
Christianity in two forms, constitute-, the
mythology with which he has declared
himself perfect!) familiar Lance St John
Butler, A mythologv with which I am
49
Samuel Beckett A Collection of Critical Essays
(Englewood Cliffs New Jersey Prentice-
Hall 1965), p 145, Francis W Nichols,
'Samuel Beckett and Ecclesiastes on the
4 borders of belief Encounters, 45 (1984)
pp 14—1 (1
4
See Gabriel Vahaman, The Death oj God The
Culture oj Our Post-Chnsttan Era (New York
George Braziller, 1961), p 120, Richard
N Coe Le Dieu de Samuel Beckett ,
Cahters Renaud-Banault, 44 (1963), p 27,
Andre Manssel Samuel Bickett (Pans
Editions Universitaires 1963), p 88, Louis
Barjon, "Le Dieu de Beckett', Ftudes, 322
(1965), p 656, Jean Onimus, Beckett Les

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perfectlv familiar ' Samuel Beckett and the
absence of God in Robert Welch (ed ), InJi
Writers and Religion (Buckinghamshire
Colin Smythe 1992), p 180
For some readings of Beckett's negative
attitude towards the divine see Fnednch
Hansen-Love, Samuel Beckett oder die
Einubungins Nichts Hochland >o 1 (iys?)
pp 36-46, John Fletcher Samuel Beckttt\
Art (London Chatto and Windus 1971)
p 12, K M Baxter Speak What We led
4 Christian Looks at tin Contemporary ITieatrt
(London, SCM Press, 1964) p 84, Martin
Csslin Hit Theatrt of the Absurd (London
Penguin Books iyyi), pp 56-57 Dan
O Via, Jr , Waiting for Godot and man's
search for community Journal of Bible and
Rtltqwn, 30 (1962) p 36 Hersh Zeitman
'Religious imagery in the ph\s of Samuel
Beckett in Rub\ Cohn (ed ) Samuelftetktit
A Colin lion oj Criticism (New York
M L G H W - H I I I , 1975). p 93, Laura Barge,
Beckett's meuphvsics and Christian
thought a comparison Christian Scholar's
Revuw 20 1 (1990), p 44 Laura Barge
'Light in a dark place' Christianity loday,
'** 21 (1973), P '3
For some readings of Beckett's positive
attitude towards the divine see G S Frazer
Waitmo for Godot in Derek Hudson (ed)
English Critical Essays 1 wennein Ctntury, 2nd
senes (London Oxford UP, 1958) p 326
Charles S McCoy ' II ailing for Godot A 7
biblical appraisal', Religion in Life 28 4
(1959) pp 565-603, Gunther Anders
Being without time on Beckett's pla\
llaitmy for Godot' in Martin Esshn (ed ),
tirivatn divant Dieu (Pans Declee de
Brouw er 1968), p S8, Eugene Combs,
Impotence and ignorance A parody of
prerogatives in Samuel Beckett", Studies in
RihywnI'Sciences Rehouuses, 2 2 (1972) p i2>
Samuel 1 errien 'A theological look at
[1 aitinii jor Godot', Theology I oday, 46
(1989), p 140, Helene Baldwin, The
theme ot the pilgrim in the works of
Samuel Beckett , Christian Scholar's Review,
8 3 (1978) PP 217-228, Helene Baldwin,
Samuel Btckttt s Real Siknce (University Park
and London The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1981), Manus Biming,
Samuel Beckett s negative wav intimations
of the via negativa in his late plays' in David
Jasper and Colin Crowder (eds) European
Lttiraturt and Puoloqy in the Iwentuth
Century Ends of lime (London Macmillan
1990) pp 129-142
5
Quoted in Michael Worton Waitino for
Godol and Lnd^ame theatre as text' in John
Pilling (ed), Ilie Cambridge Companion to
Bicketl (Cambridge Cambridge UP, I994),
P f>7
For definitions of 'atheism' see Robert
Audi (ed ) I ht Cambridge Dictionary of
Philosophy (Cambridge Cambndge Univer-
sity Press i99>), pp 51-52, John R
Hinnells (ed ), 4 New Dictionary of Religions
(Cambridge Massachusetts Black well,
1995) P 55
At this point I do not overlook propositions
like 'The bastard1 He doesn't exist' ((£38)
or 'Yes God, fomenter of calm, I never
believed, not a second * (/ 307) However
radical these propositions mav be they are
 SAMUEL BECKETT BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF GOD
not dogmatic rejections of God's existence
For, in thefirstcase Hamm lsjust ridiculing
the supposed personal God who does not
respond to his prayers, whereas in the other 1(1 Jan Kott, Shakespeare our Contemporary,
case the narrator rejects God so far as God
plays the role of the fomenter of calm
Beckett may be influenced bv Kant
about what can and cannot be known
PJ Murphy, 'Beckett and the philo-
sophers' in John Filling {ed ), We Cambridge
Companion to Beckett, p 229
Buning, 'Samuel Beckett's negative way ,
PP I33. 137 I" the last chapter of her
recent book, Mary Bryden discusses also
the influence that the mystical tradition has
on Beckett's works Mary Bryden, Samuel
Beckett and the Idea of Cod (London
Macmillan, 1998)
Pseudo-Dionvsius, The Mystical
Theology' in Pseudo-Dwnystus Ilie
Complete Works, trans Colin Luibheid
(New York Mahwah Paulist Press,
1987), p 140
Laura Barge, God, the Quest, the Hero
thematic Structures in Beckett s Fiction
(Chapel Hill University of North
Carolina Press, 1988), p 30
Discussing Beckett's attitude towards philo-
sophy Jacqueline Hoefer reads Watt as a
philosophical farce on Logical Positivism
Jacqueline Hoefer, Watt' in Martin Esslin
(ed), A Collection of Critical Fssays,
pp 62—71') And more recently Sylvie
Debevec Henning views Murphy as an
instance of a 'carnivalesque irony' and
daims that the novel does not so much
embody a specific philosophy as satirize
vi hat is perhaps the dominant strain of the
Western tradition a general faith in the
reality, or possibility, ot ultimate identity or
totality Quoted in Murphy, Beckett and
the philosophers' p 225
Theodor Adorno 'Trying to understand
Endgame , tr Michael T Jones, Ntw "" When Alan Schneider asked Beckett who
German Critique 26 (1982), pp 121-122
Quoted in Murphy, "Beckett and the
philosophers', p 233
By suggesting that Beckett is an anti-
philosopher, I do not mean that he cannot
be influenced by philosophy but that he
opposes the closed philosophical svstems
Besides, anv attempt to reject the traditional
philosophy is a different philosophical
stance and is thus standing in the light of
philosophy
trans Boleslaw Taborski (Bristol
Methuen and Co Ltd), p 105 G Farrell
Lee says, also, referring to the grotesque
The grotesque embodies quite a different
reality not the empirical reality of order
and logic but the reality of chaos and
irrationality 'G Farrell, Grotesque and the
demomsm of silence Beckett's Endgame',
Notre Dame English Journal, 1 4 ( 1 9 8 1 ) , p 61
In the English translation of the p l a y -
done bv Beckett himself—the writer omits
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this passage
m
Baldwin, Samuel Beckett's Real Silence
'" Lance St John Butler in his book Samuel
Beckett and the Meaning of Beinq A Study in
Ontologtcal Parable (London Macmillan
Press, 1984), pp 196-197, 188 says that
'Beckett is trying to go beyond the normal
Christianity, beyond a world-view based
on belief and beyond mere "metaphysics''
so that there is always left open the
possibility of some profounder view of
religion Progressively Beckett 'takes his
eyes off the world and tries to confront the
Absolute' Baldwin asserts that if one goes
through these works with the fine-toothed
comb of pedantry, one sees that the object
of satire is never the transcendent nor the
mystical intuition of the transcendent
Bildwin, 'The theme of the pilgrim,'
p 220 Additionally, Temen claims that
'Beckett warns the people of the Book
bothjews and Christians against the graven
images and the molten gods of presump-
tion, superiority, and possessiveness By
indirection Waiting for Godot defines at
once the insecurity of existing and the
certitude of living in faith ' Ternen, 'A
theological look at Wattinqfor Godot p 153
or what was meant by Godot, he received
the answer If I knew i would have said so
in the play Quoted in Esslin p 44
See Melvin J Fneman, 'Cntic',' Modem
Drama, 9 (19(^6) pp 300-8
Worton, 'Watting for Godot and Endgame '
p 7i
Anders 'Being without time p 143
 SPYRIOOULA A T H A N A S O P O U L O U - K Y P R J O U 51
Rolf Breuer, 'The solution as problem 2b Esshn p
Beckett's Waiting jor Godot' , Alodern 27 Combs 'Impotencv and ignorance
Drama, ly 3 (1976) P 230 P I25
Worton, Waiting for Godot and Endgame , 2S Esslin, p 88
P 70

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