Peter Espeut | Making sense of nonsense

To some it makes absolutely no sense! Right from the start 2000 years ago! How could the all-powerful God – creator of the universe – be born of a woman and become human – become part of his creation – and then die a horrible death nailed to a cross? It makes no sense!

The apostle Paul was pelted with the same questions by pagan philosopher and Jew alike. He was forced to remark, “We proclaim Christ crucified, a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to gentiles” (1 Cor 1: 23).

A scandal to the Jews because for them, God is wholly transcendent and could never become part of his creation, never mind to die. It is scandalous and blasphemous to suggest it!

And foolishness to the philosophically minded Greeks, because it just makes no sense! If the omnipotent God on high wanted to save humankind, all he had to do was speak a word and it would be done. No need to go through the trouble of nine months in a uterus, and a humiliating, excruciatingly painful death. No intelligent God would go through all that. Pure nonsense!

Those Jews and Greeks of long ago have their descendants today. Along with today’s Hebrews, Jehovah’s Witnesses (and others) do not believe that Jesus, the son of Mary, is also God incarnate. Divinity – pure Spirit – is too radically “other” to take on human flesh and genuine human nature, and be both God and human at the same time. Unthinkable!

And modern-day ‘Greeks’ – steeped in the empiricist philosophy of science – either reject what they cannot prove (which is itself unscientific, and which leaves them only with what they can see and touch, which even they – surrounded with beauty and wonder, and with inner feelings of love and moral obligation – must realise is not the whole of reality); or they become deists, believing in a dry, grey, distant God of pure reason, who has no personality.

Part of the problem is the fact that so many are highly trained in their professional avocation – be it in accounting, engineering, medicine, or law – but have only a childish Sunday School appreciation of religious matters. As calculus is to arithmetic, and quantum mechanics is to Newtonian physics, so is theology to scriptural fundamentalism and literalism, which is what many, if not most of us, learned as children. The aspects of the Christian religion that many thinking people find absurd or objectionable, can become clearer and its internal wisdom exposed when parsed by theology, the ‘Queen of Sciences’.

CHILDISH FUNDAMENTALISM

What many reject – thinking that they reject religion – is the childish fundamentalism and facile use of “proof texts” they were taught as children.

There is no intrinsic conflict between science and religion, between faith and reason; they operate in different, but connected realms. Those who think there is, do not properly understand either one or the other – or both.

Gregor Mendel, the founder of the science of genetics, was an Augustinian monk, and abbot of St. Thomas’ Abbey. The first proponent of the ‘Big Bang’ theory was Georges Lemaître, a Roman Catholic priest. Charles Darwin, the founder of evolutionary biology, studied to be an Anglican clergyman. A large number of famous scientists were men and women of faith.

Think about it; if God exists, could the most complex human mind comprehend him/her/it unassisted? We can’t even find appropriate language. Could faith be rendered unnecessary simply by exercising the intellect?

No one can disprove the existence of unicorns or fire-breathing dragons, or duppies; epistemology does not allow it. How then can people who claim to be intelligent publicly state that God does not exist? All they do is wear their lack of faith as their personal identity, but they do not make a scientific or philosophical statement. Their declaration of infidelity has no more claim to credence that the declaration of faith by a believer.

In the face of scientific uncertainty, the prudent keep their mouths shut!

The open-minded search for meaning in human experience, and in nature. Why is there a world at all? How is it that the world has a structure that the human mind can penetrate by means of its own processes? There could have been a lack of fit between the world and the human mind. Why is there this harmony?

Why is it that human nature is dissatisfied in the midst of plenty? And seems to want more? What explains this restlessness in the midst of the things of this world?

Why do some things seem “right” and other things seem “wrong”? What is the source of this sense of value? Science claims to be value-free, so where does our need to have values come from?

From time to time we do things, not because it is in our interest to do them, but because they seem intrinsically right. If we left them undone, we might say that we could not live with ourselves. The voice of conscience just would not let us be. From where does conscience come?

SENSE OF HOPE

From where does our sense of hope come? We all hope for peace in the world, good health, a clean and healthy environment, a happy marriage, and that our children turn out to be successful. But that is not the kind of hope that we are talking about here.

Humanity seems to have a general attitude of hopefulness in the face of an uncertain future. It seems that even seemingly impossible situations, the human spirit has the capacity to hope against hope for the best. Even if a nuclear holocaust devoured Earth, people would go on hoping amidst the ruins. It seems that it is natural for us to hope.

From where does this hope come? Why does humanity seem to reach out beyond itself to find value, hope, satisfaction, rest, happiness?

This is human data that require serious analysis, and the natural and social sciences can take us only so far. The Queen of Sciences can provide some answers that satisfy. Faith guided by reason might turn out to be a door to higher levels of truth and reality.

Both Jews and Greeks have good arguments why the incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas, and the redemption, which we celebrate at Easter, are beneath the dignity of both logical and pious people to accept. Theology reveals these mysteries as reasonable within the mystery of God.

In a couple of days we will celebrate divinity becoming humanity, God becoming human, to teach us how to be like God. The baby Jesus will grow up to be a man challenging us to build a kingdom of justice and peace. Look beyond the gifts and the food and drink and the trees and music, and see a great story unfolding! Play your part!

Have a happy and holy Christmas everyone!

Peter Espeut is dean of studies at St. Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com