There was an interesting review of Silence in Table, a Jewish publication, that called it a great Jewish movie that handled the Job theme in a similar way as the Biblical story. The book explicitly does, but the movie as far as I remember makes no direct mention of Job. In any case at one point the priest in the book seems to deny the very existence of God; the Bible does not, it just questions his justice. The priest returns to a belief in God or at least Jesus without ever regretting that denial of God's existence. It puzzles me if Endo is being deliberately vague about the priest's beliefs