God and 1984

by Orlando Gonzalez

Several days ago, I had gotten around to finishing George Orwell’s (pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair) magnum opus, 1984. Despite being written about 73 years ago, I can certainly see that it still stands the test of time as one of the most recognizable and profound novels of the 20th and 21st centuries, and arguably has many rights to be so. The story of 1984 follows the life of a middle-aged Englishman named “Winston Smith”, a member of the “Outer Party” (which is a class of government workers who live in the grim and dark society of Oceania) who has a deep hatred for the government (named “The Party”) he works for and seeks to find many means to apply importance and meaning to with his pitiful life as a way of personal rebellion against his higher-ups and his nation. Unfortunately, things do not bode well for him in the end. More on that later.

The society of Oceania is highly reminiscent of Nazi Germany, the USSR, and even North Korea (though the latter was certainly not what Orwell had in focus). If anyone has done any basic research into these nations with how they handle information of all kinds, how they look at the world and treat their citizens, you can easily grasp the level of depravity Oceania was in. This is obviously done by no accident, given that Orwell himself was essentially a political writer and was a huge opponent of totalitarianism. 1984 was his blunt and graphic warning to England and the world on how ideology and economy can be used in such perverse and wicked ways that the people in charge will go so far as to ban the Bible and forbid any sole mention of the word “God” in their already heavily controlled media material.

To come back to Winston Smith, he acts as the “average joe” in the world of 1984. While he is the sole protagonist of the book, Orwell made a genius decision to make him nothing more than a man; a man who has nothing going for him. Smith is lonely, financially poor, carries poor hygiene, an alcoholic, has barely any friends (if you could call them “friends”), is not very attractive, and is, most importantly for this article, an atheist. The book gives a subtle sense to the reader that Smith is a lone wolf, albeit, not even a very strong one. For all of his time living in London, the man has continued to work day in and out at “The Ministry of Truth'' to rewrite history so that it aligns with the current political thinking of Ingsoc. He simply does what is required of him to live, but deep down in his heart, he carries searing hatred for the Party for how much they have made his life miserable. He is fairly intelligent, but throughout the book we see that Smith is far from a good man, having committed adultery with a young woman named “Julia”, having thoughts of rape and murder, carrying poor emotional intelligence, has no qualms at harming innocent life, doesn’t look far ahead to make proper decisions, and back peddles on his words. To put it simply: Winston Smith is a foolish coward.

There comes a major point in the novel where we, the readers, find out that everything was set up from the start when we see him arrested for his crimes against Oceania; the little apartment that was located above the vintage shop Winston and Julia rented to spend their time together in private was actually under surveillance for a long time. Even the shop owner, Mr. Charrington, turned out to be an agent for the “Thought Police” (an organization made by the Party to track down, arrest, and prosecute people who make even the slightest mistake in not following Ingsoc to the highest degree). Winston is separated from Julia, and then later enters the “Ministry of Love'' building, where he goes through excruciating mental and emotional exhaustion, and great physical torture, and is forced through countless interrogations that are made to ruin his name. Part III is where we see not just the true Winston Smith, but how the average man would likely react to being put in such extreme and bleak circumstances.

There comes a section where Winston is being tortured by O'Brien (a man who Winston originally looked up to as being an ally but turned out to be a devoted Inner Party member). O'Brien shows a keen interest in Winston because of his stubbornness to conform to ingraining Ingsoc into his mindset, and thus manipulates Winston with mind tricks and a play on his emotions to weaken him. Between Chapters 2 thru 5 in Part III, O’Brian engages in conversation with his victim about the functions and legitimacy of Oceania, the Party, and Ingsoc. I will not dive deep into everything that was touched on, but we do get to see a great amount of information that exposes the utterly backward logic and ridiculous lengths the Party will go to get what they want. It should’ve become obvious to the reader at that point that they want to play God, by acting like their leader, Big Brother, is divine and immortal, and the Party is infallible and all-knowing.

What I found the most intriguing in all of this, though, was when Winston and O'Brien were talking about how the Party heavily controls the media and constantly puts terror and anxiety into already heavily brainwashed and nutrient-deprived citizens. It starts with Winston exclaiming during this exchange that such a society would not be able to last so long because hate, fear, and cruelty are exhausting and counterintuitive to a nation, but O'Brien ignores this simple fundamental truth by saying “Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would it make?” (pg. 268-269).

O'Brien puts in the logic of the Party and behaviors that it is entirely in its own league, being much different from other totalitarian governments like the Nazi Regime and USSR because they’ve perfected the art of oppression, media censorship, and the control of the human mind. O'Brien dares to even claim that the Party controls all life and that Winston is imagining that such a thing as human nature can be outraged by this despicable treatment. O'Brien continues to torture Winston, and this is another clear sign of O'Brien's severe denial of reality, sadistic nature, and egotistical manner (pg. 269).

Jumping a little ahead, the exchange goes on with Winston still claiming that the Oceanic government will collapse. He doesn't know who or what will (and doesn't care), but something will. He, in his words, "knows" that something will. Some "spirit" or some "principle” will do so that the Party will never overcome (pg. 269 - 270).

Then, the most fascinating part happens.

O'Brien questions Winston with "Do you believe in God, Winston?" Then Winston replies "No."

O'Brien next asks "Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?" Winston says "I don't know. The spirit of man." O’Brien replies back “And do you consider yourself a man?” And Winston responds back “Yes.” (pg. 270).

This is exactly where Winston is perfectly right, and so fatally wrong. He, not knowing God and also denying God's existence, made the fatal error of not putting full trust in Him. The only hope Winston could think of was in the Proles (the low class of Oceania) who he thinks could be able to realize what is truly happening and rise up to overthrow the Party. This faith is futile. To not put trust and faith in the Lord but on purely mankind to do the work of taking down bodies of authority is an awful error that many worldly people think. It is God who establishes and destroys governments on His own time (Romans 13:1). Yes, governments have been destroyed and replaced by rebellions before, but that doesn't mean they were done solely by the rebels. Whether they knew about it or not, and in one way or another, God put certain things into motion behind the scenes to carry out his plans for the world (Proverbs 16:9).

Furthermore, it is worth noting that O'Brien surprisingly didn’t bother trying to avoid the topic of God. Ironically, he was the first to bring Him up because Winston mentioned the word "spirit." I believe that O'Brien must've felt some sense of internal relief or even gratification when Winston didn't start a religious debate with him. The confirmation of his atheistic worldview would’ve made O’Brian naturally think that he would have a much easier time handling such a man as Winston rather than a strongly religious man, let alone a Christian. If the opposite were the case, then O'Brien would not be in any good position in terms of logic and reasoning because his entire agenda directly contradicts the concept and role of God. If Winston were a Christian, he would've likely struck O'Brien as someone who wasn’t just a heretic to the Ingsoc belief system, but as a massive threat to the entire nation. He would be a living sign of real hope and love for the people to seek after, not Big Brother.

I think O'Brien bringing up God was also a test for Winston. If Winston already didn't believe in God, then O'Brien had already won. For without God, the human spirit is nothing but self-fulfillment and personal desire, and if those are the only purposes for a man's existence, one need only threaten or take away those two things, and the man is broken. He could only rely on nothing but himself. Additionally, not mentioning anything about God in the media, the government will claim to be fully omnipotent and infallible to the populous.

However, if you give the populous a Bible, or even just tell them about the concept of God, then that government will have problems that even they will not be able to stop. The USSR, the Nazi Regime, the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, and the Jews all attempted to squash the existence of Christianity but failed miserably. Even Communist China struggles to this day to try and suppress religion. I’ve heard a while ago that more and more Chinese citizens are seeking the word of God, albeit in secrecy. O'Brien acknowledged that it was a possibility for someone to still know and believe in God. I wonder if that was O'Brien's biggest fear, hence why he was the one who brought it up.

Let’s focus now on a hypothetical: If Winston had been the man we desired him to be; a man of purpose and resolve who believed in God and would not bend his spirit for any man, would he have succeeded in breaking the system? Or would he have been deemed too great a threat to be allowed to continue his existence? If either of those were to happen, it would certainly be a sign that the Party isn’t all strong as it is initially presumed to be. Personally, Winston likely would’ve died much like Stephen (Acts 7: 54-60) in a hasty and brutal fashion. Yet, his death would’ve been a righteous example of someone who didn’t go quietly into the night. It would’ve been so profound and so unusual that even the strongest and most devoted Ingsoc followers would’ve been perplexed as to how such a man managed to stay faithful to his beliefs up till death. Imagine how different 1984 would’ve been if we followed a Christian in such a society.

Unfortunately, the real Winston wasn’t a Christian, and he was caught by living in sin and having foolishly bought the notebook from the antique shop, which was what began his downfall. If he hadn’t fallen into that temptation of committing adultery, but instead managed self-control and carefully considered his situation, he might’ve not been arrested in the first place. He would’ve even chosen to leave Oceania entirely and place his bets on living somewhere else, much like how those refugees left to escape from North Korea.

This brings up another question about this dialogue exchange: Why was it placed here in the first place? Think about this carefully. 1984 is written by an atheist with a humanist outlook on life [Gray, Robert (11 June 2011). "Orwell vs God – A very Christian atheist". The Spectator. UK. Retrieved 2 November 2017] and had big criticisms of Christianity, but oddly he attended services of the Church of England Holy Communion regularly [Thomas Cushman and John Rodden eds., George Orwell: Into the Twenty-first Century (2004), p. 98] I wonder if when writing 1984, Orwell might've felt some deep inclination to mention God in his writing, even if it was just a couple brief sentences. It's amazing how such a small mention of God could potentially change or expand on the meaning of a story (whether it was intentional or not).

Actually, you could even say, too, that Orwell was a hypocrite and used his own version of "doublethink." He even stated, "It seems rather mean to go to HC [Holy Communion] when one doesn't believe, but I have passed myself off for pious & there is nothing for it but to keep up with the deception.” ["Letter to Eleanor Jaques, 19 October 1932" in The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: An Age Like This, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. Harcourt, Brace & World Inc. New York, 1968. p. 102]

Quite ironic, isn’t it? It just goes to show that even some atheists can't escape from thinking about God. I think it is inherent in the human psyche to believe there is some greater power that controls the events in our world. It's no wonder, with such a poor explanation for the universe, that atheists may every once in a while question the existence of a divine being. Still, with free will, they can choose to continue to ignore the Bible and make up their own rules on life and existence. They sure have a very sad emptiness to their beliefs, much like Winston Smith.

As this article comes to a close, I would like for you to consider this: When you face enormous and dangerous opposition that threatens to beat you down, ruin your reputation, harm your loved ones and even your life, what will you do? Will you act cowardly and selfishly when physical and emotional pain comes, and accept defeat? Or will you be like Stephen and willing to be a lamb led to the slaughter in order to stand up for your Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus? Remember that there will always be trials and tribulations in your life, but God is always watching, is always in control, and will deliver you from the hands of your enemies, one way or another. No matter what happens in the U.S. or the rest of the world, God wants you to be strong and courageous (Joshua 1:9) and carry on through the difficulties of life (Proverbs 17:3, Psalms 166:10).