Is There Room In a Novel for the Big Questions?

From the diary of Ingrid Durtz

found in 

Temple of Tongues

(I re-named my Work In Progress)

Eyes born of a world whose air was death to breathe studied me.

The Ningyo called Ice murmured, "Ingrid Durtz, you died and re-awakened in another's body."

I suspected where this was going.  "Yes."

Her race was long-lived.  

That very fact made the prospect of death more frightening, not less, for them.  

Death in a strange land horrified them.  

Would their spirits become lost looking for their world not of this plane?

Death is a Void.  The body a fact.  

My tenant body they could see.  But what of my spirit?  What had become of it in the ether of non-existence?

She proved my supposition right.  "What do you remember of your journey from your old body to this one you now possess?"

There was a sadly obvious answer which was much like the answer to that tired jest: 

'How many World War II veterans does it take to change a light bulb? '  

"You don't know, man.  You weren't there."

But we were friends so I answered in a word she might believe but probably would not. 

"Nothing."

Her face lengthened as the faces of her race did when angry.  

"Nothing has two faces: 'Emptiness' and 'Infinite Potential.'"

I sighed.

That duality shaped her ideas of the afterlife.  

If she couldn't quantify the difference between the medical definition of life and the spiritual concept of the soul ...

at least she knew when there was no good reason for me to hold the knowledge and personality

 of a dead woman.

When nothing becomes something, it defies death.  

It put aside somewhat her fear that all awaiting her after death was the void.

I think having the people in my novel introspective and flawed makes them come alive 

and has the reader root for them to survive or at least die with dignity.

What do you think?

How do you make your characters believable?