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Life of Pi is a book full of postmodern musing and thought. Postmodernism is intellectual movement characterized - among other things - by skepticism about the knowability of "the truth." As Jean-Francois Lyotard once said, "There is an incredulity toward metanarratives." This is a fancy way of saying postmodern people have a suspicion of and disbelief in "big stories" or all-encompassing truths). Life of Pi propagates this very notion. Here is what one book review says:
Life of Pi is very much a self-conscious postmodern novel. Martel plays with postmodern skepticism about the knowability of true truth and the distinction between fact and fantasy. The book begins with an "Author's Note," purportedly about how Martel came to write his story. This is the part of the book that we instinctively understand to be factual, rather than fictional. Yet partway through, Martel, sitting in a café in Pondicherry, encounters a minor character from the story, who tells him he knows a story that will make him believe in God, and that he should look up Pi - now a middle-aged zoologist living in Toronto with his family - and hear it for himself.
So right off the bat Martel creates doubt about whether this story is factual or fictional. He propagates this doubt all the way through the novel. Written as though it were a combination of Pi's memoirs and Martel's investigative reporting, it begins as a simple memoir of a childhood in Pondicherry amongst the zoo animals. Then it turns into a rousing adventure of survival on the high seas. However, some of Pi's later adventures begin to test the limits of your credulity. Finally it wraps up with a sequence that calls everything you have read into question.
As you have observed, the postmodern ideology found throughout Life of Pi manifests itself in Pi's religious plurality. He is a Hindu, Christian, and Muslim, and sees no conflict between these three mutually exclusive faiths. Pi's desire is to "love God" and go beyond the notion that one must commit himself to only one religion. At first glance, this sounds reasonable. After all, don't all roads to the same mountain top? Unfortunately, the answer is NO. Hinduism, Christianity and Islam contradict each other. The way to God is not a climb up a mountain, but to make it through a maze where there is a single correct path and many incorrect ones that lead to dead ends. Consider the law of non-contradiction, which says something cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense. So if we apply this law to the claims of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, it means one is right and two are wrong or two are right and one is wrong (Islam and Hinduism claim that Jesus is not God, whereas Christianity claims He is). This is why statements such as "It’s true for you, but not true for me." It is either true or untrue. Jesus is either God or he’s not. Period.
As you can see, there is a problem when Pi claims that he only wants to love God (implying that there is no such thing as the exclusive truth: Even those that deny the exclusive nature of truth are actually making a truth claim! This is one of the major problems with postmodern thought that tells us to deny the existence of "truth." Either hinduism is right. Or Islam is right. Or Christianity is right. Or none are right. You cannot embrace all religions like Pi and have integrity. Ravi Zacharias tells us that there are four fundamental questions that every religion seeks to answer: Origin, meaning, morality and destiny. Each one of these belief systems are vastly different and therefore provide answers that contradict one another.
Your last question, "Is it wrong to believe in God because it just seems to be more hopeful/purposeful/joyful?" is an interesting one. It is never wrong to believe in God because he does give us the only (and highest) hope, purpose and joy we desire and need. In fact, God commands us to do so (Psalm 37:4). But I must ask: What kind of God do you believe in? The god of Pi is a mix of several gods in an attempt to find the best of each one. Yet this is not how God wants us to come to Him. Faith isn't really believing in the "better story." It is believing God at his word - as he truly is; not what we THINK he should be. Listen to the conclusion of the fore-mentioned review (here, he quotes C.S. Lewis):
Faith in the Biblical sense isn't blind optimism in the "better story." It means taking God at his word: specifically, believing the Bible when it promises that the sacrificial death of Christ is sufficient to turn away the wrath of God on account of our own sins. "In other words," says Lewis, "I believe it on His authority. Don't be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you've been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent. of the things you believe are believed on authority. . . . A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life." Don't let Martel's deficient understanding of faith keep you away from what is still a gripping yarn in its own right.
Hope this helps.
[Answered by Pastor HM]
