The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

how was he better than the First Generation? He would be avoiding the issues,

At that moment, Elend realized something. Vin didn’t need another person worshipping her. She didn’t need another faithful believer like Demoux, especially not in Elend. He didn’t need to be a good member of the Church of the Survivor. He needed to be a good husband.

In the end, I stopped worrying about how strange you seemed. I realized that it didn’t really matter if I understood you, because I trusted you.

Sazed had found it frustrating that his friends—people who for the most part were determined atheists—would grow so offended when he threatened to join them in their lack of belief.

What is the good of faith if this is the result? A city full of people misinterpreting their god’s commands? A world of ash and pain and death and sorrow?”

“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”

“Power can be a terrible thing, Spook,” she said quietly. “I’m … not pleased with what it’s done to my brother. Don’t wish so hard for it.”

“Faith,” Spook said, “means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.” Sazed frowned. “It means that there will always be a way,” Spook whispered, staring forward, eyes glazed, as if seeing things that Sazed could not. Yes, Sazed thought. That is what I have lost. And it’s what I need to get back.

How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with the lack of proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn’t occur in the present day?

He couldn’t believe. If he believed, it meant that God—or the universe, or whatever it was that watched over man—had failed. Better to believe that there was nothing at all. Then all of the world’s inadequacies were mere chance. Not caused by a god who had failed them.

“Why?” he whispered. “Why leave me like this? I studied everything about you. I learned the religions of five hundred different peoples and sects. I taught about you when other men had given up a thousand years before. “Why leave me without hope, when others can have faith? Why leave me to wonder? Shouldn’t I be more certain than any other? Shouldn’t my knowledge have protected me?” Yet his faith had made him more susceptible. That’s what trust is, Sazed thought. It’s about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you. That was why he’d given up his metalminds. That was why he had decided to sort through the religions one at a time, trying to find one that had no faults. Nothing to fail him. It made sense. Better to not believe than to be proven wrong. Sazed looked back down. Why did he think to talk to the heavens? There was nothing there. There never had been.

How could anyone understand the pain of a faith betrayed? He had believed. Yet when he had needed hope the most, he had found only emptiness.

Belief … He remembered a voice from the past. His own voice, speaking to Vin on that terrible day after Kelsier’s death. Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure? How innocent he had been. Better to trust and be betrayed, Kelsier seemed to whisper. It had been one of the Survivor’s mottos. Better to love and be hurt. Sazed gripped the book. It was such a meaningless thing. Its text could be changed by Ruin at any time. And do I believe in that? Sazed thought with frustration. Do I have faith in this Ruin, but not in something better? He stood quietly in the room, holding the book, listening to Breeze and TenSoon outside. The book was a symbol to him. It represented what he had once been. It represented failure. He glanced upward again. Please, he thought. I want to believe. I really do. I just … I just need something. Something more than shadows and memories. Something real. Something true. Please?

“It sounds to me, young one,” Haddek said, “that you’re searching for something that cannot be found.” “The truth?” Sazed said. “No,” Haddek replied. “A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”

“But you don’t know,” Sazed said. “You are offered proof only once you believe, but if you believe, you can find proof in anything. It is a logical conundrum.” “Faith isn’t about logic, son,” Haddek said. “Perhaps that’s your problem. You cannot disprove the things you study, any more than we can prove to you that the Hero will save us. We simply must believe it, and accept the things Preservation has taught us.”

“I’ve learned something. The Lord Ruler uses unbelievers as well as believers. We’re all part of his plan. Here.”