McCarthy’s Proof

At the end of the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses , the principal character, Cole, asks whether God exists. Cole has been through a infernal trip to Mexico – his lover is taken away from him by her family, he watches a companion get shot, endures a brief stay in a Mexican jail where he is beaten and knifed. Does God exist? Cole says something like “I guess he must. Otherwise we wouldn’t survive a day.” In the face of human cruelty, folly, and pain, the sheer fact of human survival counts as a theistic proof.