Page "The Plague" Paragraph 51

Paneloux's argument is based on the theology of St. Augustine, on which he is an expert, and it is accepted as irrefutable by many of the townspeople, including the magistrate, Othon.

But it does not satisfy Rieux.

Camus carefully manipulates the plot to bring up the question of innocent suffering.

Paneloux may argue that the plague is a punishment for sin, but how does he reconcile that doctrine with the death of a child?

The child in question is Jacques Othon, and Paneloux, along with Rieux and Tarrou, witnesses his horrible death.

Paneloux is moved with compassion for the child, and he takes up the question of innocent suffering in his second sermon.

He argues that because a child's suffering is so horrible and cannot easily be ex-plained, it forces people into a crucial test of faith: either we must believe everything or we must deny everything, and who, Paneloux asks, could bear to do the latter?

We must yield to the divine will, he says ; we cannot pick and choose and accept only what we can understand.

But we must still seek to do what good lies in our power ( as Paneloux himself does as one of the volunteers who fights the plague ).