One, Ben is a naturally manipulative and untrustworthy character, and it causes the audience to second-guess absolutely everything he ever says! This is a fascinating dynamic, and it’s obviously something that’s influenced your perspective of the scene here.

Two, Lost has done such a good job at making even the worst characters seem human and empathetic, and I think that’s what resulted in me ultimately feeling like I knew exactly where Ben was coming from. Whatever Ben is trying to say, and whatever Jacob is trying to say in that scene, I’ve been where Ben’s at, and it’s a completely valid place for a believer to be, though ultimately he has to come to a place where he acknowledge’s God’s sovereignty and superiority.

I think you’ve touched on the intentional ambiguity in that one phrase from last season: What about you? It was delivered so perfectly in that we can read our own perspective into it, but when we watch the next season, we may go back and watch it and see it a whole other way.

Where you saw Ben asking for simple acknowledgement from a being he has placed great faith in, and Jacob responding with indifference towards a lesser insignificant being, I saw Ben asking what’s in it for him, and Jacob trying to communicate that it’s not all about Ben.

I don’t see Ben as representative of people who act in faith, yet struggle to understand why or to what end. I see him as representative of people who seek to use faith as a means to control others or gain power. To me, he is in the same category as the villain Carnegie in “The Book of Eli”.

I agree that none of us would expect or desire an answer of, “Who are you, O Man?” from God. But does that say more about God, or about us?

This either Faith or Reason dichotomy which seems to often define the theme in the show is precisely the kind of Faith that we want to distance ourselves from as Christians.

I’m not sure that’s the case. Though the object of faith in LOST isn’t anything I’d place faith on, the paradigm seems to match the Christian one not insubstantially.

Of course, I being our resident fideist would kind of have to see things this way.

In the first place, there are scores of things we believe (as Christians) separate from reasonability. Call it a leap of faith if you like or just call it faith. Christ as God and man: unreasonable. Free will and sovereignty: unreasonable. God’s ubiquitiy and simultaneous locality: unreasonable. The Bible as the inspired, inerrant word of God: unreasonable. The Trinity: unreasonable.

We believe these things and can create justifications for some of them—but all from within the system. We cannot arrive at any sensible understanding of these things from outside the system. We must, therefore be brought into the system in order to begin reacting reasonably from within it.

Locke, as the show’s man of faith, is a very reasonable man. He pays heed to all manner of empirical evidence in his normal arena of operation: tracking, hunting, strategizing, liberating Charlie from addiction, leading, etc. The only difference between him and the others (not the Others) is that he is propelled by faith in something the burst through his understanding of the world and reshaped his perspective on things and his motivation for all the reasonable things he does.

One might call it his recalcitrant experience. Just as regeneration is ours.