Defoe's Failure To Justify Providence

Even if we accept that Defoe's intention is to justify and honor Providence, the question still remains whether he carries out his intention. Leopold Damrosch, Jr. thinks not:

Defoe sets out to dramatize the conversion of the Puritan self, and he ends by celebrating a solitude that exalts autonomy instead of submission. He undertakes to show the dividedness of a sinner, and ends by projecting a hero so massively self-enclosed that almost nothing of his inner life is revealed. He proposes a naturalistic account of real life in a real world, and ends by creating an immortal triumph of wish-fulfillment.

Damrosch does not attribute Defoe's failure to carry out his intention to insincerity; rather it stems in part from a failure in Puritanism, which changed from an ideology which wanted to transform the world (e.g., founding Massachusetts Bay Colony as God's commonwealth on earth) to a social class motivated by self interest.

John Richetti offers a different explanation for what he sees as Defoe's failure. Richetti identifies Crusoe's mastery of himself and nature as the novel's central concern; this concern, he believes, invalidates Crusoe's religious beliefs and experience. Defoe was unable "to allow Crusoe to achieve and enjoy freedom and power without violating the restrictions of a moral and religious ideology which defines the individual as less than autonomous."

Is there an inherent conflict between Crusoe's religion and his economic concerns, one which Defoe may or may not have been aware of? Are diligence in making money and concern about worldly affairs necessarily incompatible with spiritual well-being and a sincere religious faith? Puritans debated these questions in terms of faith versus works, and some found ways to resolve the conflict. Stephen Charnock urged, "Tho we are sure God has decreed the certain event of such a thing, yet we must not encourage our idleness