like david in the bible , ben had walked with god and found favor with god for no better reason than god liked him , just flat-out liked him better than other people who also worked hard , and god made a big show of liking him and protecting him and favoring him over people who worked just as hard to do better things , for the world , anyway , and in blaises mind bens death abruptly split the ideas of life and faith into two separate things when they had so easily been understood as one in the example of ben , and this same split drove love to the sidelines as an inconsequential third party because it had been hidden under faith until faith turned treason on ben , and love , for whatever it was worth , suddenly seemed little more than a trickster emotion and a harlequin exposed to broad daylight and shown to be not half-so-pretty as shed seemed , and spiteful for being revealed , and running quickly for cover .