Volume 15, Issue 3, October 2002

Robinson Crusoe reflects a theological world in transition – from Protestant piety to a world of “Enlightenment Man” colonising all under a benevolent (deist) Providence. Hence, the story depicts two forms of providence, pietist and deist, vying for dominance, yet never separable in Crusoe’s experience. Further bifurcating tensions surface after a significant turning point in the narrative – the discovery of an enigmatic footprint in the sand. This discovery is antithetical to Crusoe’s residue of Puritan sensibilities – with its utter trust in God’s sovereignty, and it is incommensurate with the sensibilities of Enlightenment Man – with his circumscribed world of reason. Discovery of the footprint exposes an antipathy to the other, which becomes a hallmark of modern individuality, propriety, and counter-inventiveness under the rubric of Providence. The story implicitly calls for a further theological dimension, that neither pietist nor rational sensibilities are able to deliver, which can open possibilities of inventive providence in the face of alterity.