Death and Certainty

I watched "The Seventh Seal" last night. If you are unfamiliar with the film, the basic plot surrounds a crusader returned to his homeland. On a beach he comes face to face with Death, litterally. He challenges Death to a game of chess. So long as the game goes on, so does the Crusader's life, and if he wins he gains an extra extension on his life.

It's a great film, but what really struck me is something the Crusader says to Death in the first few scenes. He mentions that he is searching for certainty, not belief, or faith.
To quote the script:

                                     KNIGHT
                        I want knowledge, not faith, not
                        suppositions, but knowledge. I want
                        God to stretch out His hand towards
                        me, reveal Himself and speak to me.

                                    DEATH
                        But He remains silent.

                                    KNIGHT
                        I call out to Him in the dark but no
                        one seems to be there.

                                    DEATH
                        Perhaps no one is there.

                                    KNIGHT
                        Then life is an outrageous horror.
                        No one can live in the face of death,
                        knowing that all is nothingness

This struck me so profoundly because my girlfriend and I have had nearly the exact same conversation, she the knight and I Death. (hmm how oddly fitting..) I thought about this dilemma of faith and certainty for a while longer and a truth appeared to me. That uncertainty is a necessity of this test of life. It is easy to walk a path when you are certain of the end. Like mentioned in "Constantine"

Gabriel:
passage requires faith
and faith by definition is belief
without proof. You have proof.
And that means you're not playing
by the same rules as everyone
else.

If you KNOW the outcome you can operate differently, and so the gain is less. In the case of life, death, and the hereafter knowing would negate the benefit all together. Going into a maze with a map and a gps locator is no challange, and so not rewarding. Its common knowledge, or thought, that the greater the risk the greater the reward. This holds true in more places than you would think.

On Death
It occurs to me today that one of the most comforting, or happy things that could happen to me would be to know I had a set time left to live. A truely fatal prognosis. Not a 90% chance or whatnot, but an actual time limit on my life. This goes back to the previous paragraph of certainty. To be certain of one's end allows for different choices. I find it would be the most welcome knowledge I could gain. Now I don't want to know how much time I have left. Anything over a year would be more torturous than not knowing at all, but if I were told that I would die in 6 months, or even next week, absolutely and certainly, I would be quite at peace, even happy.