I am a person of faith. It’s been interesting for me, in my life, to be a person of faith and also a person of reason. I have a science background; I like to ask questions; I like to think about questions. I think everyone has to find their own balance in this area. Some people decide they’re going to be reason only, and some people decide they’re going to be faith only. But I think there can be a balance, and I try to find my own balance in my life. I feel it’s one of the most engaging and interesting aspects of life. It leads to a lot of pondering, a lot of thinking, and a lot of personal development. It’s mostly just me finding out where I’m going to let faith reign and where I’m going to let reason reign, and whether I have to let one be suborned to the other.
Faith is very important to my life. It’s very important to my worldview and my philosophy. I believe that throughout the history of mankind, for the vast majority of people faith–or reacting against faith–has been important. I’m fascinated by the different ways people deal with it. I had in the Mistborn series a notable agnostic character, and I really wanted to have an atheist character in the Stormlight Archive. Whenever I approach something like that I try very hard to give that character the arguments that a person with their worldview would give that character if they were writing the book. I don’t want to write books that exist simply to prove certain characters wrong. I include such characters because they fascinate me. You end up, hopefully, with a range of people in my books who approach faith in different ways–because that’s interesting to me, and I hope it will be interesting to readers.