Not a test of faith

Honestly I don't think that the trials that Emilio encounters can honestly be described as those of testing his faith in God. I think instead, based on our discussion and a few re readings of sections of the book that Emilio is really have a test of his humanity. What is it that makes us distinctly human and what is it the other that we fear. When we watch Emilio be raped by the poets we do not think of the man who sent him to this fate as someone who misunderstands what Emilio wants in the first novel. When we re-encounter the character we learn of the mishap based on the culture and the language of the two societies. The misunderstanding is not so much a punishment of God but an area of language that Emilio failed to understand. This a a problem of cross cultural communication, not a sin for which Emilio is now paying. I think that the two books as a whole work to tell the story of a man who puts himself in the service of God but finds that the big questions in life are not about what might exist out there in the universe, but instead the need to explore the significance of what is at home either here on earth or in the physical realm in general.