Eliot directly questions the purpose of organized religion, but is less emphatic in questioning God, and tends to not refer directly to God (both literally and figuratively as the word “God” appears twenty-four times throughout the entire book, and most of these are general expressions.) Thus, the book is an impartial observer of the way religion is practiced and the way God is evidenced in the popular beliefs rather than a direct attack on the validity of religion and the concept of God. Eliot is very careful to never attack the existence of God, so even when Silas feels betrayed, he keeps his faith in the existence of God, but he believes that “there is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies.” Silas gains a “shaken trust in God” which quickly assures that the existence of God is never questioned by Marner or any other inhabitant of Raveloe or Lantern Yard. This allows Eliot to focus on the way characters believe in God through the practice of religion rather than the deeper theological issue of the existence of God.

Eliot observes that even within Christianity the interpretations of God are very different. She states that Marner “was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith,” but even within Raveloe, Eliot illustrates different modes of belief: one a God of precise laws and moral absolutes and another impersonal, parental God. These beliefs coexist within Raveloe because the focus of the community is not on how religious one is — “to go to church every Sunday in the calendar would have shown a greedy desire to stand well with Heaven” — but on how one behaves.

Within Raveloe, the popular interpretation of God is of the impersonal yet parental God — an interpretation very different from Lantern Yard’s belief in an active God. Alongside their belief in a Christian God, Raveloe’s beliefs incorporate some elements of paganism such as the belief in and desire for charms. Even with a faith in God, these people want a little extra assurance that things will be better for them, and they are willing to look away from Christianity and God to find it. Eliot uses these folk beliefs to demonstrate that the inhabitants of Raveloe are not entirely convinced of God’s manipulation of events and they do not share Lantern Yard’s belief that God is active in their lives, so even though the inhabitants of Raveloe trust in charms, they would never have drawn lots to determine a person’s guilt because Raveloe’s God as an almost deistic god who creates and judges, but one who is not actively involved in day-to-day matters. God to Dolly is not entirely Deistic because she allows that he may have guided Marner to Raveloe to care for Eppie, but she and the other lay members of the community are not concerned with God or religion beyond a secondary experience.

Eliot seems to suggest that this view is the correct view of religion because she warns against placing too much faith in God as do the inhabitants of Lantern Yard. She argues that once one places too much faith in God, God is in a position to be blamed for any negative event in one’s life rather than focusing on human causes. Silas Marner was betrayed by his friend; however, the lots and God decided for the community that he was guilty, so Marner believes he was betrayed by both his God and his friend because he was assured that God would reveal the truth (he even declares “God will clear me” three times.) Had the lots turned the other way, his faith would have remained, but Marner is placed in a position where his faith in God is destroyed because of the Lantern Yard belief that God is responsible for all actions. Marner eventually regains his faith in God saying to Eppie that he believes that “God was good to me” in delivering her to him, but he never fully regains a personal belief and faith in God. God remains on the outside of his life because Marner can never fully trust in him again.

Eliot warns that focusing too much on God can retard a person’s life and places one at a disadvantage in this world. The negative effects of this are demonstrated by the inhabitants of Lantern Yard’s quick belief in Marner’s guilt and their inability to see that William Dane had manipulated events. The negative traits of this are contrasted with the positive aspects of life in Raveloe where the community gathers at the Rainbow and interacts with each other rather than just with God.

The first form of light and darkness is knowledge; this is the representation of the characters ability to see beyond the surface of things and to truly understand them. The very first example of this is spoken by Oedipus at the beginning of the play when he says, “I must bring what is dark to light” in reference to the mystery of Laios’ death. This is the first and most obvious example, and it sets the stage for the use of light and darkness to represent knowledge throughout the remainder of the play. Repeatedly, Sophocles refers to the fact that Oedipus is blind to the truth just as Teiresias is blind to the world. Teiresias charges Oedipus, “but I say that you, with both your eyes, are blind!” he makes the reference not to his physical state but to his mental state. Teiresias also says: “you do not even know the blind wrongs you have done” referring to Oedipus’s unknown incestuous relationship and the murder of his father. To be blind could also mean unknowingly done or forgotten. The knowledge that is lacking from most of the play is the knowledge of one’s self. Oedipus is obviously intelligent but he lacks the knowledge of his past which, for the Greeks, meant he also had no future. Oedipus was able to answer the Sphinx’s riddle because he was intelligent enough to detect the undertones of the question, that morning, noon and night referred to the stages of a man’s life not a literal day. Yet Oedipus was unable to detect the undertones of his own life: he was blind to the many clues and hints to his origin. The lack of knowledge is the path to his downfall, for all of his intelligence he was unwilling to step aside and follow the advice of those who knew what was happening.

The use of light and darkness to represent truth is also an important part of the play. The first example is when Oedipus says to Teiresias as they argue: “You child of endless night! You cannot hurt me or any other man who sees the sun”; in response, Teiresias just says “True.” Oedipus’s claim is not that Teiresias would be unable to hurt of kill him because of his blindness but rather that he cannot hurt Oedipus with his falsehoods. This exchange can be restated as Oedipus calling Teiresias a liar and Teiresias retorting by saying that if he was lying, Oedipus would be able to tell if Oedipus actually knew the truth. Although in the beginning of the play Oedipus denies Teiresias’s accusations, later as he begins to comprehend the events surrounding his birth he say: “I’m not sure that the blind man cannot see.” Oedipus is not referring to physical blindness but admitting that Teiresias may actually be telling him the truth. Sophocles use of light and darkness to portray truth would not have been seen as metaphorical to his original audience as it is seen today, but would have been part of the lexicon of his contemporaries.

The physical blindness of Oedipus is the outward display of his prior inner state, unable to see the world around him for what it really was. When Oedipus eventually blinded himself, he fulfilled the numerous prophecies in which Teiresias declared that Oedipus in which Teiresias declared that Oedipus wold become as blind as Oedipus had declared as Oedipus had declared Teiresias to be. In the beginning of the play as Oedipus argues with Teiresias. Oedipus says, “You sightless, senseless, witless old man!” In response, Teiresias makes his first prophecy: “there is no one here who will not be cursed you soon, as you curse me.” Teiresias second prophecy occurs as he is leaving the palace and calls Oedipus a “A blind man, who has his eyes now.” Upon the death of his wife/mother, as Oedipus blinds himself, he says “Too long been blind to those for whom I was searching from this hour go into darkness!” He speaks of both knowledge and physical blindness. He blinded himself in an attempt to return to the darkness in which he had previously lived, for although he had before lacked knowledge of himself, his life was peaceful. Upon blinding himself, he was able to return to a state where he could not see the evil he lived in and the misery he caused.

After Oedipus realizes the truth, but before Oedipus rushes into the palace, he says “O light, may I look upon you for the last time.” The light he speaks of refers to several things: light in a physical sense as he has already cursed himself to be blinded, light as in goodness because this is his last moment before knowing all the evil he committed, and finally the light of knowledge as he sees the meaning of all that came before.

The three forms of light and darkness take on an extremely important role in the play and almost become another character. The subtle use of the words in their different forms give the reader subtle hints about the truth of the play. Sophocles weaves an extremely well-portrayed story in which he declares that just because a ruler can see the world around him, it does not guarantee that the ruler understands what is happening, and, in turn, that kings are not all-knowing: they are just men.