Atheism – eyebeleave

Enfleshment

Michelangelo drawing

1221 words, 6 min read

Are there some places or objects that are more sacred than others? Is there anything special about the spot where Jesus was entombed after Joseph of Arimathea obtained his dead body from Pontius Pilate? How about the relics of saints, do they deserve special reverence? Or the cell where St. Theresa of Ávila spent her life, the patch of soil where St. Francis is buried or the spots where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged or St. Thomas More beheaded? Are they any different from your local supermarket?

Before a hasty “yes” to the above, let’s approach the question from the other end too. Isn’t all of creation, the entire Universe made holy because it has been created and is being sustained by God, because it has being only insofar as God makes it participate in His own? Isn’t God present everywhere and always? Isn’t it the case that wherever I may go, God is already there, awaiting me and waiting for me to discover him and relate to him there? Isn’t each person equally loved by God and therefore given equal dignity and worth? Shouldn’t we see His presence everywhere, always, in everything and everyone? Doesn’t that result in universal equality and equivalence?

As with very many questions of this kind, I believe the answer is a resounding “both” and the template in this case could be Patriarch Athenagoras’ saying: “God loves everyone equally, but secretly each one of us is his favorite.” It is both a confirmation of universal equality and of individual exceptionality and I believe that both are needed in equal measure. Focusing only on the former, universal aspect brings with it a danger of declaring a love of humanity while not particularly liking any one person, a danger of emphasizing the general principle while loosing sight of the instances in ought to be applied to. The risk here is an idealism that lacks flesh. A focus on the latter, instead risks an idolization of some while looking down upon others, a schizophrenia of reverence for people and objects that ostensibly possess special qualities while walking past the poor, the “ordinary”, the “everyday” whose dignity is equipollent. The risk here is a materialism – even when it may appear as sacred – that lacks soul.

What does a “both” attitude look like though, in the face of these seemingly polar opposites. Here, I believe the answer is the incarnation – and if you are not a Christian, please, bear with me, because I believe that the pattern of thought that it represents (and embodies!) is more broadly relevant.

Let’s see first how Pope Benedict XVI explains what “incarnation” means:

“Incarnation derives from the Latin incarnatio. St Ignatius of Antioch — at the end of the first century — and, especially, St Irenaeus used this term in reflecting on the Prologue to the Gospel according to St John, in particular in the sentence “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Here the word “flesh”, according to the Hebrew usage, indicates man in his whole self, the whole man, but in particular in the dimension of his transience and his temporality, his poverty and his contingency. This was in order to tell us that the salvation brought by God, who became man in Jesus of Nazareth, affects man in his material reality and in whatever situation he may be. God assumed the human condition to heal it from all that separates it from him, to enable us to call him, in his Only-Begotten Son, by the name of “Abba, Father”, and truly to be children of God. […]

The Logos, who is with God, is the Logos who is God, the Creator of the world (cf. Jn 1:1) through whom all things were created (cf. 1:3) and who has accompanied men and women through history with his light (cf. 1:4-5; 1:9), became one among many and made his dwelling among us, becoming one of us (cf. 2:14).

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council said: “The Son of God… worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin” (Constitution Gaudium et Spes, n. 22). Thus it is important to recover our wonder at the mystery, to let ourselves be enveloped by the grandeur of this event: God, the true God, Creator of all, walked our roads as a man, entering human time to communicate his own life to us (cf. 1 Jn 1:1- 4). And he did not do so with the splendour of a sovereign who dominates the world with his power, but with the humility of a child.”

At the heart of Christianity there is a co-existence, a simultaneity between the eternal and the transient, the splendid and the humble, the self-sufficient and the contingent, which invests the latter with the former. It elevates material reality to a status that is inseparable from the uncreated, the eternal, since the uncreated made Himself created, while retaining His uncreatedness.

Elevating the material through the incarnation also elevates the specific to the status of the general. Material being brings with it Leibniz’s principle of identity, whereby no two entities can be the same since they will always differ at least in temporal and or spatial location. Since no two material entities can be the same, their distinction and specificity is intrinsic to material being, whose elevation through God’s incarnation also raises the specific, delimited to the level of the general and infinite.

Because God became flesh, flesh becomes not only a signifier of His presence, a token, but His actual presence. The value that materialist atheism attributes to matter is therefore in no way undermined or diminished by the Christian’s belief in its being in relationship with God, its being a manifestation of His presence. Both can, and the Christian ought, lest they deny the reality of the incarnation, value the physical, without caveats.

Pope Francis, in fact, makes Christian love conditional on being connected to Jesus’ flesh, which the flesh of the poor, the suffering and the needy makes present today, and he has harsh words for those who de-flesh the Church:

“A love which does not acknowledge that Jesus came in the flesh is not the love with which God commands us: it is a worldly love, it is a philosophical love, it is an abstract love, it is a somewhat failed love, it is soft love. No! The criterion for Christian love is the Incarnation of the Word. […]

[W]hoever wishes to love not as Christ loves his spouse, the Church, with his own flesh and giving life, loves ideologically: they do not love with the all their body and with all their soul. And this way of theorizing, of being ideological, as well as the proposals of religiosity which removes the flesh of Christ, which removes the flesh of the Church, going beyond and ruining the community, ruining the Church.”

Instead of distancing Christians from atheist materialists, the incarnation makes every Christian be as much of a materialist as their atheist brothers and sisters. It makes them be both materialists and theists, fully materialist so as to be fully theist.

Comte-Sponville: non-dogmatic, faithful, atheist mysticism

Infinity

1189 words, 6 min read

Avvenire, the Italian daily affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, has published a very interesting piece yesterday by the French atheist philosopher André Comte-Sponville, entitled “The atheist believes … But does not know whether God exists.” As I started reading it, I was immediately reminded of an enriching exchange with some atheist friends of mine – especially SC – after I wrote a very negative review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion some three years’ ago. SC, at the time, presented a new type of atheism to me, which acknowledges its belief in there being no God, as opposed to the New Atheists’ argument for that position following directly from rationality. Reading Comte-Sponville’s words made me immediately recognize that same position, and I would like to share an English translation of it with you here:

““Religion” and “spirituality” are not synonyms, nor should they be put on the same level. These two concepts function instead like species and genus: religions are a certain species, or several species, of the genus spirituality, but from among the many possible, some of which do very well without any personal God, indeed without any form of transcendence. [… S]pirituality is [simply] the life of the spirit.

Etymology speaks clearly: the two words, “spirit” and “spirituality”, derive from the Latin spiritus, which refers first of all to vital breath and, in second place, to inspiration, genius, wit, esprit. Now, atheists, as far as I know them, have no less spirit than others. Why should they have less spirituality? Why should they care less about spiritual life? As for me, I have always been interested in it. That’s how it was at the time of my youth, when I was a practicing Christian; but since I stopped believing in God, spirituality interests me even more, which might seem paradoxical and leads us to the heart of our subject. Those who have a religion, also have the spirituality that characterizes it. But how about those who do not belong to a religion? They seems devoid of spiritual resources, especially in the West. Even more reason to think about it. I summarize my position in one sentence: I am a non-dogmatic and faithful atheist. Why atheist? This is the simplest question: I do not believe in any God. Let’s not dwell on the reasons for my not believing; doing so would take me far away from the theme of my argument here, which is not metaphysics, but spirituality. Why a non-dogmatic atheist?

Because I obviously recognize that my atheism is not knowledge. How could it be? No one knows, in the true and strong sense of the verb “to know” whether God exists or not. It depends very much on the question that is addressed to me. If I am asked: “Do you believe in God?”, The answer is very simple: “No, I do not believe.” But if someone asks me, “Does God exist?”, the answer is necessarily more complicated, because, for intellectual honesty, I must begin by saying that I know nothing about it. Nobody knows. I say in my book, if anyone says, “I know for certain that God does not exist,” you are not dealing with an atheist, but a fool. The truth is that I do not know. Likewise, if you meet someone who tells you: “I know that God exists,” he is a fool who has faith, and who, foolishly, confuses faith with knowledge. But in the confusion between faith and knowledge I see a double error: a theological error, because in any respectable theology (at least in Christian theology) faith is a grace, while knowledge can not be; and a philosophical error, because it confuses two different concepts, that of belief and that of knowing. In short, I do not know if God exists or not; I believe that he does not.

A non-dogmatic atheism is an atheism that admits its own status as a belief, in this specific case a negative beliefs. Being non-dogmatic atheists is to believe (rather than to know) that God does not exist. But why a non-dogmatic and faithful atheist? A faithful atheist because, as an atheist, I remain bound with every fiber of my being to a number of values – moral, cultural, spiritual – many of which were born in the great religions and, in the case of Europe, the Judeo-Christian one (unless one wants to deny their history). […] Being an atheist doesn’t mean that I have to turn my back on 2000 years of Christian civilization or 3000 years of Judeo-Christian civilization.

Because I no longer believe in God doesn’t mean that I refuse to recognize the greatness, at least human, of the Gospel message. A spirituality without God is a spirituality of loyalty rather than of faith and of love in action rather than of hope. I could stop here, but I would be left with a feeling of not having touched the essentials. I said earlier that spirituality is the life of the spirit. Fine. But if the word is taken in such a broad sense, every human phenomenon ends up falling under the umbrella of spirituality: morality and ethics, of course, but also science and myths, the arts and politics, feelings or dreams. All this belongs to the spiritual life in a broad sense (in its cognitive, mental or emotional dimensions), to the life that, for clarity, you could define as psychological or mental (from the Greek psyche and the Latin mens, two words that can also be translated by the word “spirit”, but in semantic terms very different from those derived from the Latin spiritus). Now, it is not at all these areas that you think of when it comes to spiritual life.

It is better to take the word “spirituality” in a narrower sense (although, paradoxically, a more open one), making it a sort of subset of our mental or psychological life. The definition I propose is the following: spirituality is the life of the spirit, but especially in its relationship with the infinite, eternal, the absolute. This meaning seems to me to conform to its use and tradition. Our spiritual life is our finite relationship with the infinite, our temporal relationship with eternity, our relative relationship with the absolute. Thus defined, spirituality, at its must extreme, culminates in what is usually called mysticism.”

In an earlier interview, Comte-Sponville expands on what he means by “the absolute” as follows:

“This absolute, for them, isn’t a person, but the being or the becoming, the whole or nature, let’s say the immanent totality which contains them and surpasses them. They can ponder it, think about it, it’s what we call metaphysical, but also try it out, live it, and it’s this we call spirituality. We are open in the grand Open, as Rilke says. This opening, it’s the same spirit. Should I, because I am atheist, renounce all experience of eternity, the infinite, and the absolute? Certainly not. Many philosophers – for example Epicurus and Spinoza – have challenged the existence of a transcendental spirit, without renouncing the enjoyment of what Epicurus called ‘immortal rights’. It’s this I call a spirituality of immanence.”

Natural law

Last year’s Synod on the Family lamented an almost universal lack of understanding of the concept of “natural law” among the faithful, a principle that the Church relies on for the bulk of its moral teaching, which she sees as being shared by all of humanity. Her teaching on marriage and on human reproduction makes copious reference to the natural law, as does her social teaching. As a result, I would here like to review the foundations of what natural law is, how it fits into the bigger picture of the Church’s teaching and how access to it works. Since, like any aspect of the Church’s teaching, the understanding and consequences of natural law develop over time, let me look at a couple of sources in chronological order, starting with Aristotle and arriving at the current, 1993 Catechism.

Aristotle, in his Rhetoric points to a distinction between societal laws and laws that derive from nature and that supersede the conventions of a society. While doing so, he refers to examples from Greek literature that already at his time were “classics”:

“Universal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as every one to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each other. It is this that Sophocles’ Antigone clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in spite of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature: “Not of to-day or yesterday it is, But lives eternal: none can date its birth.”

And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature, says that doing this is not just for some people while unjust for others: “Nay, but, an all-embracing law, through the realms of the sky Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth’s immensity.””

St. Augustine then emphasizes three very interesting things about natural law. First, that it relates to the orderedness of the universe (which is also its basis of intelligibility and of rationality in general):

“Therefore, let me explain briefly, as well as I can put it in words, the notion of that eternal law which is impressed upon our nature: ‘It is that law in virtue of which it is just that all things exist in perfect order.’” (De libero arbitrio, 1.8.18.)

Second, that such ontological order translates to a rational one and that acting in accordance with it leads to a well-ordered and fulfilled life:

“From this ineffable and sublime arrangement of affairs, then, which is accomplished by divine providence, a natural law [naturalis lex] is, so to speak, inscribed upon the rational soul, so that in the very living out of this life and in their earthly activities people might hold to the tenor of such dispensations.” (De Diversis Questionibus Octoginta Tribus)

“Whatever sets man above the beast, whether we call it ‘mind’ [mens] or ’spirit’ [spiritus] or, more correctly, both since we find both terms in Scriptures, if this rules over and commands the other parts that make up man, then man’s life is in perfect order … We are to think of a man well-ordered, therefore, when his reason rules over these movements of the soul, for we must not speak of right order, of or order at all, when the more perfect is made subject to the less perfect … It follows, therefore, that when reason, [ratio] or mind [mens], or spirit [spiritus], rules over the irrational movements of the soul, then that is in control in man which ought to be, by virtue of the law which we found to be eternal.” (De libero arbitrio, 1.8.18.)

Here the idea of a right order seems particularly well aligned also with the first (and again last) step of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path, which is right understanding and about which he says that it is “a knowledge and vision of things as they really are”.

Third, St. Augustine – rooted in St. Paul – is also very clear about natural law being accessible to all, regardless of their beliefs and he even goes as far as to recognize its knowledge in the “ungodly”:

“For who but God has written the law of nature (naturale legem) in the hearts of men? that law concerning which the apostle says: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when the Lord shall judge the secrets of men.” [Rom. 2:14-16] And therefore, as in the case of every rational soul, which thinks and reasons, even though blinded by passion, we attribute whatever in its reasoning is true, not to itself but to the very light of truth by which, however faintly, it is according to its capacity illuminated, so as to perceive some measure of truth by its reasoning.” (Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount)

“For hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity, and rightly blame and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. And by what rules do they thus judge, except by those wherein they see how men ought to live, even though they themselves do not so live? And where do they see these rules? For they do not see them in their own [moral] nature; since no doubt these things are to be seen by the mind, and their minds are confessedly changeable, but these rules are seen as unchangeable by him who can see them at all; nor yet in the character of their own mind, since these rules are rules of righteousness, and their minds are confessedly unrighteous. Where indeed are these rules written, wherein even the unrighteous recognizes what is righteous, wherein he discerns that he ought to have what he himself has not? Where, then, are they written, unless in the book of that Light which is called Truth? Whence every righteous law is copied and transferred (not by migrating to it, but by being as it were impressed upon it) to the heart of the man that works righteousness; as the impression from a ring passes into the wax, yet does not leave the ring.” (De Trinitate, 14.15.21.)

St. Augustine paints a picture of great harmony here: the universe is ordered, reason recognizes that order and even those who do not live in sync with it understand that there is an order that is proper to human conduct and that is inscribed in nature.

Next, St. Thomas Aquinas develops the concept of natural law by thinking of it as a rational agent’s participation in God’s eternal reason:

“All things partake somewhat of the eternal law, insofar as, namely, from its being imprinted upon them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent way, insofar as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end, and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.” (Summa q91, a2 (p20))

Going beyond just the concept of Natural Law, Thomas Aquinas takes a stab at spelling out its “first principles” as being the following: that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided, that life is to be preserved, that one is to reproduce and raise one’s offspring and that knowledge and life in society are to be pursued:

“Whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of natural law as something to be done or avoided. […]

All those things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good and, consequently, as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil and objects of avoidance. […] Wherefore the order of the precepts of the natural law is according to the order of natural inclinations.”

What is interesting here is that, in addition to the orderedness of reality being reflected in our understanding of it that St. Augustine spoke of, St. Thomas adds to it also a link to our inclinations, making being, understanding and desire all aligned with each other. Even though St. Thomas already speaks about limits to the understanding of natural law, and gives examples of it being overridden in some societies (e. g., “theft, although it is expressly contrary to the natural law, was not considered wrong among the Germans, as Julius Caesar relates.”), the overall picture is one of all-encompassing harmony.

In 1888 Pope Leo XIII picks up the subject of natural law in the context of his encyclical entitled Libertas (“freedom”). There he first challenges the notion of freedom being opposed to an adherence to laws, which he in turn equates with reason:

“Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason; whereas the truth is that we are bound to submit to law precisely because we are free by our very nature.”

Leo XIII then defines natural law as follows, identifying it again with reason:

“natural law […] is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin.”

and proceeds to elaborate on how God helps us to adhere to it in a way that does not cancel our freedom:

“To this rule of action and restraint of evil God has vouchsafed to give special and most suitable aids for strengthening and ordering the human will. The first and most excellent of these is the power of His divine grace, whereby the mind can be enlightened and the will wholesomely invigorated and moved to the constant pursuit of moral good, so that the use of our inborn liberty becomes at once less difficult and less dangerous. Not that the divine assistance hinders in any way the free movement of our will; just the contrary, for grace works inwardly in man and in harmony with his natural inclinations, since it flows from the very Creator of his mind and will, by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature.”

The need for help with discerning natural law is also underlined in Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, where he writes:

“[T]he human intellect, in gaining the knowledge of such truths is hampered both by the activity of the senses and the imagination, and by evil passions arising from original sin. Hence men easily persuade themselves in such matters that what they do not wish to believe is false or at least doubtful.”

And with that we arrive at the Church’s present understanding of natural law, which is clearly set out in the current Catechism. There human rationality (which already to St. Augustine was key) is presented as the interface with the natural law [note also the referring to humans as animals, consistent with evolutionary continuity]:

“Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him.” (§1951)

“Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie.” (§1954)

The aims of natural law, it’s subsisting in reason and being accessible universally are spelled out next:

“The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature. […] The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.” (§1955)

“The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties.” (§1956)

The Catechism then picks up on St. Thomas Aquinas’ point about variation in the application of natural law and presents a particularly useful way of looking at how our varying understanding of natural law differs from the immutable natural law itself (a relationship akin to that between science and the laws of nature):

“Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.” (§1957)

“The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history; it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies.” (§1958)

While the Christian sources cited so far all speak about a close link between natural law and divine law, the vast majority of what they assert about it can, in my opinion, be considered even in the absence of theist beliefs and depends only on whether moral values can be discerned by reason or whether they are all solely the result of social convention or individual choice. E.g., whether the goodness of treating men and women equally can be arrived at by the use of reason alone or whether it is solely the result of a social contract. Whether we could all just agree on its opposite tomorrow or whether the rational appeal of it would persist against social consensus.

This is a question that has been controversial for centuries and I won’t even attempt to do it justice here, skipping even Hume’s famous distinction between is and ought (i.e., that what is (e.g., as in human nature) has no normative power), and I’ll just conclude with presenting a pair of opposite assessments of natural law from the atheist perspective.

The first is Mark Murphy’s flat-out declaration of their incompatibility in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“If Aquinas’s view is paradigmatic of the natural law position, and these two theses — that from the God’s-eye point of view, it is law through its place in the scheme of divine providence, and from the human’s-eye point of view, it constitutes a set of naturally binding and knowable precepts of practical reason — are the basic features of the natural law as Aquinas understands it, then it follows that paradigmatic natural law theory is incompatible with several views in metaphysics and moral philosophy. On the side of metaphysics, it is clear that the natural law view is incompatible with atheism: one cannot have a theory of divine providence without a divine being.”

To me this sounds a bit tautological though in that it can be read as saying: the way St. Thomas Aquinas speaks about natural law is theist, therefore there is no atheist way of positing natural law. It does not engage with considering whether those aspects of Aquinas’ thought on natural law that are not theist (i.e., “human’s-eye point of view”) don’t also make sense in isolation (and would argue that they do).

Second, Murray Rothbard’s rebuttal of such a facile opposition to the concept of human nature in atheist thought, arguing precisely from a perspective of humans being just as much part of the material world as atoms, molecules and stones, all of which have specific shared features.

“It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term “nature” as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple (as well as the world in general). Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water — behavior that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. Why then cavil at the concept of “nature”? […] And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man’s nature is open to inspection; the current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary and a priori.”

Considering all of the above, I believe there is a basis for recognizing that humans have rational access to innate moral values, from which normative laws can be derived. This does not necessitate a belief in a superhuman source of such laws (although for a Christian such a belief has added incentives for discernment and adherence) or a belief that those laws are perfectly and unchangeably known. In fact, the Church too recognizes that the natural law is not immediately accessible and that it subsists beneath our attempts to elucidate it, attempts that because of this alone need to continue and may yield evolving results. All that a subscription to the concept of natural law entails is a belief to there being values that derive from who humans are rather that only from our arbitrary consensus.

The salvific atheism of Christ

[Warning: Long read.]

The title of this post is a quote from a conversation between Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and the journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari. There, Ravasi argued that Jesus’ cry on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) can be described as a “salvific atheism.” An atheism that is juxtaposed with the Resurrection, where Jesus remains the Son even when He doesn’t feel the Father and thereby “plants the seed of the infinite in mortality.” Many shy away from attributing atheism to Jesus in this moment, where He laments His being abandoned by God, with a lot of hand-waving and “as if”s or appeals to reason along the lines of “how could Jesus, who is God, have been abandoned by God?!” Such attempts at denying Jesus’ profound experience of the absence of God may have good motives, but they have always struck me as being misguided, since they obscure the extreme nature of this most important moment of Jesus’ life.

That Jesus underwent a trial of this magnitude, where his suffering drove him to a loss of feeling united with the Father – i.e., the very heart of the Trinity, is the most powerful indication of how far God is willing to go towards us, whose faith is limited at the best of times. He is showing us that He is our brother also in darkness and during experiences of the absence of God.

The importance of this nadir in Jesus’ life (and pinnacle of His self-noughting love) was profoundly understood also by Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement who is now on the path of being considered for sainthood, and by the agnostic Swedish film director, Ingmar Bergman.

For Lubich, who with her first companions has spent years focused on putting the Gospel into practice, the realization of the importance of Jesus’ forsakenness on the cross came, when – in 1944 – her spiritual director asked her when Jesus suffered most and declared that he thought it was in his cry of forsakenness on the cross. Looking back to that moment some 56 years later, Lubich described it as follows:

“Right from the start we understood that fullness had another side to it, the tree had its roots. The Gospel covers you in love, but demands everything from you. “If the grain of wheat doesn’t fall to the earth and die – we read in the Gospel of John – it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). And the personification of this is Jesus Crucified, whose fruit was the redemption of humankind. […] Through a particular circumstance, we came to know that the greatest suffering of Jesus and, therefore, his greatest act of love, was when on the cross he experienced the abandonment by the Father: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This touched us to the depths. And our young age, our enthusiasm, but especially the grace of God, urged us to choose only him in his abandonment, as the means to realize our ideal of love.”

Having identified Jesus’ forsakenness as the pinnacle of his love, Lubich and her companions sought to find, love and console Him in the sufferings of all around them and in themselves:

“From that moment on, we seemed to discover his countenance everywhere. He had experienced within himself people’s separation from God and from each other, and he had felt the Father far from him. We saw him not only in all our personal sufferings, which were never lacking, but in those of our neighbor, often alone, abandoned, forgotten, in the separation between generations, between rich and poor, within the very Church at times, and, later, between churches, then between religions and between persons of different convictions.

But these wounds didn’t frighten us. On the contrary, because of our love for him in his abandonment, they attracted us. He had shown us how to face them, how to live them, how to cooperate in overcoming them when, after the abandonment, he placed his spirit in his Father’s hands: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” giving to humankind the possibility of being restored to itself and to God, and he showed us the way. And so he manifested himself to be the key to unity, the remedy for every disunity. He was the one who recomposed unity between us each time it cracked. In him we recognized and loved the great and tragic divisions of humankind and of the Church. He became our only Spouse.”

During Lent that same year, Lubich meditated on Jesus’ forsakenness in this way:

“He who is life itself was giving himself completely. It was the culmination of his love, love’s most beautiful expression.

All the painful aspects of life conceal his face: They are nothing other than him.

Yes, because Jesus, crying out in his abandonment, is the image of those who are mute: He no longer knows how to speak.

He is the image of one who is blind – he cannot see; of one who is deaf – he cannot hear.

He is the weary person, moaning.

He is on the brink of desperation.

He is hungry … for union with God.

He is the image of one who has been deceived, betrayed; he seems a failure.

He is fearful, timid, disoriented.

Jesus forsaken is darkness, melancholy, contrast. He is the image of all that is strange, indefinable, that has something monstrous about it. Because he is God crying out for help!

He is the lonely person, the derelict. He seems useless, an outcast, in shock.

Consequently we can recognize him in every suffering brother or sister.”

Finally, Lubich, who has made love of Jesus forsaken her life, describes the following effects of identifying and loving Him in others: “after each encounter in which we have loved Jesus forsaken, we find God in a new way, more face-to-face, with greater openness and fuller unity. Light and joy return; and with the joy, that peace which is the fruit of the spirit.”

To get another, deeply insightful, perspective on this key moment in Jesus’ life, Bergman’s “Winter Light,” that premiered in 1962, has its characters speak about it twice. First, when the pastor of a town, plagued by doubt, breaks down in front of a parishioner who comes to him for help, saying, with obvious anguish and torment throughout:

“If there is no God, would it really make any difference? Life would become understandable. What a relief!

And thus death would be a snuffing out of life. The dissolution of body and soul. Cruelty, loneliness and fear … all these things would be straightforward and transparent.

Suffering is incomprehensible, so it needs no explanation.

There is no creator. No sustainer of life. No design.

My God…

Why have you forsaken me?

I’m free, free at last.”

Before giving thought to the above, let’s look at the second reference to Jesus’ forsakenness, which comes later, when the disabled sacristan (who didn’t hear the pastor’s lament) shares the following reflection with him:

“Wouldn’t you say the focus on [Christ’s] suffering is all wrong? This emphasis on physical pain. It couldn’t have been all that bad. It may sound presumptuous of me – but in my humble way, I’ve suffered as much physical pain as Jesus.

And his torments were rather brief. Lasting some four hours, I gather? I feel that he was tormented far worse on an other level.

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. But just think of Gethsemane, Vicar. Christ’s disciples fell asleep. They hadn’t understood the meaning of the last supper, or anything. And when the servants of the law appeared, they ran away. And Peter denied him. Christ had known his disciples for three years. They’d lived together day in and day out – but they never grasped what he meant.

They abandoned him, to the last man. And he was left alone. That must have been painful. Realizing that no one understands. To be abandoned when you need someone to rely on – that must be excruciatingly painful. But the worse was yet to come. When Jesus was nailed to the cross – and hung there in torment – he cried out: “God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” He cried out as loud as he could. He thought that his heavenly father had abandoned him. He believed everything he’d ever preached was a lie. The moments before he died, Christ was seized by doubt. Surely that must have been his greatest hardship? God’s silence.”

To my mind, the above are two great attempts at an identification with the forsaken, crucified Jesus. The first, the pastor’s, is an identification from within – a re-experiencing of Jesus’ forsakenness at first hand, that leads the protagonist to a wishing away of it all, to a denial of the problem’s reality and a subsequent, forced declaration of freedom (forced and strained because of how it is portrayed in the movie). The second is an identification from the position of compassion and intuition – the disabled sacristan takes his own physical and psychological sufferings as a basis for inferring the greater magnitude of the latter, and – by extrapolation – intuiting that Jesus’ forsakenness on the cross – the experience of “God’s silence” – must have been most severe.

In many ways it is the pastor’s experience that gives the greatest sense of what it may have been like for Jesus himself, by the anguish and despair that it presents. The sacristan’s monologue, in turn, is – to my mind – already a source of hope in that it demonstrates another’s capacity to intuit my despair and therefore be lead to compassion.

God is dead

Today the Church remembers that Jesus – fully man and fully God – was dead for over 24 hours – from Friday afternoon until the early hours of Sunday (Sunday, which in the Jewish week starts at sundown on Saturday). Just like Good Friday is an opportunity to remember his suffering and self-sacrifice, and Easter Sunday is a celebration of his resurrection, so today – Holy Saturday – is a day for remembering his death. The death of God.

I have always found the Easter Triduum a very special moment, since it is set up for a contemplation of Jesus’ death and resurrection in real time. The services are timed to coincide with the times recorded in the Gospels, which allows for a meditation on the Easter events at the pace at which they happened. They give a sense of scale.

This morning, when I went to pick up my son from the altar servers’ rehearsal for the evening’s vigil, I arrived early at the church and went straight to the side chapel where the tabernacle is located. As soon as I entered, I was reminded that today was an exceptional day, since the tabernacle, where the Eucharist is usually kept, was open and empty. Like the hospital room of a recently deceased patient. An absence with a very clear and strong message.

As I sat down, I realized that I won’t be spending time in Jesus’ presence and I quickly decided not to pretend otherwise and pray as if everything was normal. The emptiness of the tabernacle had to be taken seriously and responded to sincerely and honestly.

God is dead.

What must it feel like to believe that? To believe that there is no God, that there is no beloved in and beyond everything. Instead of paralysis, my thoughts turned to my close friends who are agnostics or atheists – the pull of transcendence was too strong. To be fully myself, I had to go beyond myself (to paraphrase Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium, §8) even as I tried to stop short of rushing to God. A great conversation with my überbestie JMGR – in the midst of a buzzing conference – then came to mind, when I asked him about whether transcendence meant anything to him as an agnostic (as I was thinking about Kenan Malik’s article). Together we arrived at a definition in the absence of religious belief – that “my transcendence is another’s immanence.” Thinking more about it now, I see that this definition works also for a Christian – only an “other” becomes the “Other.”

As I thought of my atheist or agnostic friends, I felt a particular closeness to them and a joy even as I attempted the impossible – to imagine what it is to be like someone else. This joy of closeness, reminded me of Pope Francis declaring closeness to be Jesus’ own method of spreading his message (EG §269). Feeling pulled to return to a direct conversation with Jesus and away from my trying to contemplate his death, I made another attempt by trying to experience the physicality of the chapel as if it were a Serra. Since it wasn’t, that was a bit of an effort :), but the morning light that filled the simple space and the perspective that the rows of chairs emphasized, nonetheless gave me joy too. The joy of being, of relating, of seeing, of experiencing. Again, I couldn’t help but delight in God’s creation and feel his sustaining presence.

Even though my attempts at imagining the death of God ultimately failed, I was grateful for the opportunity that Holy Saturday gave me. An opportunity to think of my friends, to feel the wonder of being and to have the focus directed to a world where God’s presence is absent, but where there is friendship, goodness and beauty.

Paraphrasing Giles Fraser’s great Guardian article from this morning, I can say that I am about 1/365th atheist. And with that, it’s off to the Easter vigil.

The BBC’s Rev: Christian or “just” nice?

One of my favorite TV series of all time is Rev – the BBC comedy about an Anglican priest in a London inner-city parish, with a minuscule congregation of misfits, and facing a barrage of trials both internal and from within and outwith the Anglican Church. The casting and acting are superb, the story lines varied, the contrast between the Rev’s psychology and the supporting cast’s caricatures comedic and the insightfulness of observation razor sharp.

Unlike other religiously-themed comedies, like the legendary Father Ted, Rev is not only about laughs, but very much also about a portrayal of a man’s sincere desire to love God and his fellow men and women. It is a love that falters and falls, but a love that is sincere and persistent.

In one episode we see the Rev go out of his way to be welcoming to a sinner (a sex offender just released from prison) in spite of his entire congregation’s opposition and his own revulsion. In another episode he struggles with his Church’s and his own views on homosexuality while going out of his way to be welcoming of his gay friends. In yet another episode he goes out of his way to work with the local Imam in spite of the humiliation that their financial imbalance brings him.

In fact, the formula of a Rev episode is a going out of one’s way, in pursuit of the excluded, the peripheral, the needy, regardless of the cost to oneself. And throughout these trials and adventures, the Rev converses with Jesus, with whom he pleads, to whom he complains, but in whom he trusts and whom he loves. In many ways, Rev expands on Blessed Mother Teresa’s saying: “God does not require that we be successful, only that we be faithful.”

Why, you may ask yourself, have I gone to the trouble of writing the above, albeit short, review of Rev? The reason is simple – an article in yesterday’s Telegraph, where Rev is denounced as un-Christian by reducing Christianity to being merely “nice” and leaving out “that Christians do nice things not just because they are nice people but because they are commanded to by scripture.” The article’s author then proceeds to list 8 “against”s that Christians need to be, and concludes with the following, peculiar piece of moral theology: “Christians who fail to point out these sins are surely as culpable as the people who commit them.”

However, the most offensive aspect of this article is not so much its twisted view of Christianity, but the following anti-atheist statement: “Nice atheists don’t have to [tell people when they’re going wrong] because there’s no commandment to rescue others from themselves.” This is offensive not only because it suggests that Christians only do what they do because they are commanded to do so – rather than because they (like all men and women!) are made in the image of God and have a deep-seated call to participate in the Trinity’s life of mutual self-giving – but also because it suggests that atheists don’t have a desire to correct wrongs. This is absurd, offensive and factually incorrect. Rather than try to build an extensive case, let me just point to a single counterexample: Albert Camus speaking to Dominicans about what atheists expect of Christians, showing great concern for them and being an exemplary “external” conscience for them.

In an attempt to bolster its credibility, the article also refers to Archbishop Justin Welby, who “disagrees with the show’s depiction of Anglican life because he notes that many churches are growing.” That is quite true – and a point I wholeheartedly agree with. However, it conveniently fails to mention that – in the same piece by the Archbishop – he also says that it is “great viewing.” Furthermore, the former Archbishop of Canterbury – Dr. Rowan Williams says that it tells us “something about the continuing commitment of the church to run-down and challenging areas. It also shows us someone who prays honestly.”

Finally, let me put one more card on the table – Pope Francis’ ever-versatile Evangelii Gaudium, where he has the following to say:

“[A] missionary style is not obsessed with the disjointed transmission of a multitude of doctrines to be insistently imposed. […] What counts above all else is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Works of love directed to one’s neighbour are the most perfect external manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit: “The foundation of the New Law is in the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is manifested in the faith which works through love”. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 108, a. 1.)” (§35, §37)

Benedict XVI – Odifreddi: searching for Truth, with gloves off

Boxing gloves

[Warning: long read :)]¹

If you are even remotely interested in the dialogue between faith and reason, between religion and science, the last fortnight has to be among the most electrifying periods in the history of mankind. Not only did it kick-off with the beautifully sincere and profound move by Pope Francis in his letter to the atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari, but it saw the publication of “the” interview that Pope Francis gave to Jesuit media and in which he spoke about science in terms that, to my mind, take the Church’s appreciation of science further than ever before. And if that wasn’t enough, today saw the publication of extracts from an 11-page letter that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote to the Italian atheist mathematician Prof. Piergiorgio Odifreddi, in response to his book “Caro Papa ti scrivo: Un matematico ateo a confronto con il papa teologo” (“Dear Pope, I write to you: An atheist mathematician confronting the theologian pope”).

Looking at the two letters (or, more precisely, the extracts from Benedict’s versus the full text of Francis’), Francis’ and Scalfari’s style is like a polite, yet illuminating, exchange between two gentlemen over a cup of tea, while Benedict’s and Odifreddi’s exchange is like a bare-knuckle fist-fight between a pair of prize-winning boxers who in the end sincerely shake hands and respect each other, but without giving an inch during the fight itself.

To begin with, let’s take a quick look at Odifreddi’s opening move – his 204-page book, addressed to Benedict as “between colleagues” – from a maths to a theology professor. Early on, Odifreddi identifies a point in common with Benedict’s thought, by pointing to the following passage from Benedict’s Regensburg address:

“the experience […] of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason”

While Odifreddi identifies this – the adherence to reason – as a common point of departure, he quickly objects to Benedict’s excessive use of it (“your almost obsessive use of the word “reason,” repeated around forty times, akin to a musical motif or continuous base”) and to the “scandalous” words from Benedict’s sermon before the conclave that elected him:

“[H]aving a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

While being critical of Benedict’s words, Odifreddi argues that “both religion and science are perceived as antidemocratic and absolutist” as a result of their focus on “ultimate truths” and then proceeds to arguing against a series of passages from Benedict’s “Introduction To Christianity” and his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy.

Since it is the full, fine detail that is key to understanding the nature of what is going on between Odifreddi and Benedict, let me just pick out a single point of contention (from among many important and interesting ones that I hope to return to soon!),² which Benedict objected to most forcefully and which the following passage from Odifreddi’s book sums up nicely:

“There is little to say about the historical Jesus, literally, because there are virtually no traces of him in the official history of the period. In total, there are only few tens of lines about him in the works of Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius and Flavius Josephus. Some are of uncertain interpretation, like the “Chrestus” of Suetonius. Others are of dubious authenticity, like the interpolation of Flavius Josephus. […] If, therefore, Jesus truly existed, he must have been irrelevant to his contemporaries, beyond the narrow circle of his relatives, friends and followers.”

Odifreddi further accuses Benedict of side-stepping questions of fact by saying to him: “you seem uninterested in (or seem interested in not) discussing the historicity of the Gospels and the facts that they report” and attributes to him an opposition to historical-critical methods of Biblical interpretation, by quoting Benedict as saying that they “can effectively become an instrument of the Antichrist.”

Benedict’s response here is as sharp as the jab he received:

“What you say about the figure of Jesus is not worthy of your scientific status. If you put the question as if nothing were, ultimately, known about Jesus, as a historical figure, as if nothing were ascertainable, then I can only firmly invite you to become more competent from a point of view of history. To this end I particularly recommend to you the four volumes that Martin Hengel (exegete at the Protestant Faculty of Theology of Tübingen) has published with Maria Maria Schwemer: it is an excellent example of historical precision and of vast breadth of historical information. […] Further I have to forcefully reject your affirmation (pp. 126) according to which I have presented historical-critical exegesis as an instrument of the Antichrist. Discussing the account of Jesus’ temptations, I have only recalled Soloviev’s thesis, according to whom historical-critical exegesis may also be used by the Antichrist – which is an unquestionable fact. At the same time, however, I have always – and in particular in the foreword to the first volume of my book on Jesus of Nazareth – made it evidently clear that historical-critical exegesis is necessary for a faith that does not propose myths using historical images, but demands true historicity and therefore has to present historical reality in its affirmations also in a scientific way. Because of this, it is not correct either that you say that I have been interested only in meta-history: on the contrary, all my efforts have had as their objective to show that the Jesus described in the Gospels is also the real, historical Jesus; that it is a matter of history that really took place.”

Uff … I have to be honest and admit that I was at first a bit uneasy about the tone of both Odifreddi and Benedict, neither of whom are pulling punches and both of whom are blunt to say the least. Looking more closely though, and reflecting on my professional experience as a scientist, I recognize that this is the tone and strength of academic argument and doing anything less would be dishonest on the part of both the professor and the ex-professor. This is a very different context from the Francis-Scalfari one and it demands the unforgiving rigor, precision and detail of the quotes shown above. Treating Benedict like any other academic shows Odifreddi’s respect for him (which he is explicit about when saying “Having read his Introduction to Christianity, […] I realized that the faith and doctrine of Benedict XVI, unlike that of others, were sufficiently solid and fierce that they could very well face and sustain frontal attack.”) Benedict is equally complimentary about Odifreddi, when he tells him that he “considers very positively the fact that you […] have sought such an open dialogue with the faith of the Catholic Church and that, in spite of all the differences, in the central themes, there is no lack of convergence at all.”

What this, academic, dialogue is truly about is put best – and to my mind beautifully lucidly – by Odifreddi, who says that:

“[The aim], obviously, was not to try and “convert the Pope,” but instead to honestly present to him the perplexity, and at times incredulity, of a mathematician with regard to faith. Analogously, the letter from Benedict XVI does not try to “convert the atheist,” but to direct at him his own, honest, symmetrical perplexity, and at time incredulity, of a very special believer with regard to atheism. The result is a dialogue between faith and reason, which, as Benedict XVI notes, has allowed both of us to confront each other frankly, and at times also bluntly, in the spirit of the Courtyard of the Gentiles that he himself has initiated in 2009. […] Divided in almost everything, but joined by at least one objective: the search for Truth, with a capital “T”.”

Wow! I have to say I am very impressed with Odifreddi (having come to this clearly as Benedict XVI fan) and I look forward to seeing his next steps in this full-contact dialogue. In many ways, I believe, that the most important thing to take away from this first encounter is the seriousness and complete transparency, with which both parties approached the challenge of dialogue – a dialogue that is not a watering-down or a “playing nice” but a striving for Truth, regardless of how vast the abyss may appear between its opposing cliffs. It would be a mistake to get stuck on whether I happen to agree with one side or the other, as it would miss the masterclass in serious dialogue that we have just witnessed. In many ways, I read Odifreddi’s closing thoughts as a transposition – from an intra-Christian to a Christian-atheist setting – of Francis’ call to an ecumenism that starts now, while there are clear differences between the parties, when he says in “the” interview: “We must walk united with our differences: there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus.”

¹ Apologies, again, for the rough translation from Italian – once “official” translations are available, I’ll point you to them.
² I can’t not mention the following zinger from Benedict, which points to the widespread use of “science fiction” in science, in response to Odifreddi’s claiming that it was religion that practiced the genre. Benedict here says, referring to Heisenberg and Schrödinger’s theories, and adding Dawkins’ “selfish gene” to the list, that “I’d call them “science fiction” too, in the good sense: they are visions and anticipations, to arrive at true knowledge, but they are, indeed, only imagination with which we try to get closer to reality.” 🙂 I agree and I’ll definitely pick this line up in a future post.

Pope Francis’ letter to non-believers

That Pope Francis cares deeply for non-believers¹ is nothing new, with his previous declaration that Jesus has redeemed atheists too having lead both to very positive responses and to a great media muddle. In today’s issue of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Francis continues in this dialogue with non-believers by responding to questions sent to him by the atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari regarding Francis’ encyclical Lumen Fidei, and I would like to share my favorite parts of his letter with you here.²

Francis starts out by arguing that dialogue between the followers of Jesus and non-believers is “necessary and valuable” today for two reasons: First, the paradox that “Christian faith, whose novelty and impact on human life have since the beginning been expressed through the symbol of light, has become branded as the darkness of superstition that is opposed to the light of reason,” resulting in an absence of communication between Christian and Enlightenment-based contemporary culture. Second, for those who seek “to follow Jesus in the light of faith, […] this dialogue is not a secondary accessory[, but …] an intimate and indispensable expression of faith instead.” This, Francis argues, is expressed by §34 of Lumen Fidei, from which he proceeds to quote:

“Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent, but grows in respectful coexistence with others. One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, since believers know that, rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is truth which embraces and possesses us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and dialogue with all.”

After a beautiful exposition of how Francis himself came to believe in God and how the Christian faith has Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection at its heart, through which all of humanity is shown God’s love and connectedness to each other – to every single human being,³ he proceeds to answering the three questions Scalfari put to him.

The first of Scalfari’s questions regards whether “the God of Christians forgives those who don’t believe and don’t seek faith.” Here Francis’s response, which I particularly like, is the following:

“Given that – and this is the fundamental point – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to Him with a sincere and contrite heart, the question for those who don’t believe in God is about obeying one’s own conscience. Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, occurs when one goes against conscience. Listening and obeying to it means, in fact, taking decisions in the face of what becomes understood as good or as bad. And it is on the basis of this decision that the goodness or evil of our actions plays out.”

Wow! While this is in some sense nothing more than what the Catechism has been saying explicitly since Vatican II, having it presented in the above universal way is great. I have often argued in exactly these terms and have faced quizzical looks from other Catholics, who wouldn’t quite believe it. It also confirms me in the answer I have given to several of my best, atheist or agnostic friends when they have asked me whether they should want to believe in God, which was “no,” with the caveat of seeking to be honest in front of their consciences.

Scalfari’s second question asks whether “thinking that there is no absolute and therefore no absolute truth either, but only a series of relative and subjective truths, is a mistake or a sin.” Great question! 🙂 To this Francis responds by saying:

“To begin with, I wouldn’t talk, not even to those who believe, about “absolute” truth, in the sense that the absolute is that which is disconnected, which is devoid of any relation. Now, the truth, according to Christian faith, is the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the truth is a relationship! It is also true that each one of us takes it, the truth, and expresses it by departing from oneself: from one’s history and culture, the circumstances in which one lives, etc. This does not mean though that the truth is variable and subjective. Instead, it means that it gives itself to us always and only as a journey and a life. Didn’t maybe Jesus say the same: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”?⁴ In other words, truth, being ultimately all one with love, requires humility and openness when sought, accepted and expressed. Therefore, it is necessary to understand each other’s terminology better, and, maybe, to avoid the constraints of an opposition that is … absolute, deepen the framing of the question. I believe that this is absolutely necessary today, so that a serene and constructive dialogue can take place.”

Another fantastic answer! Anyone who has tried to pigeonhole Francis as a populist, as opposed to the thinker that Benedict XVI undoubtedly is, can proceed to eat their own words …

The third, and final of Scalfari’s questions asks whether “the disappearance of humans from Earth would also mean a disappearance of thought that is capable of thinking God.” Here, Francis’ answer, which I won’t translate in full, revolves around arguing that, in his experience and those of many others, God is not an idea, but a “reality with a capital ‘R’.” Instead of going into more detail here, I’d instead like to translate Francis’ closing thoughts, before which he expresses his hope that his reflections would be “received as a tentative and provisional response, but one that is sincere and faithful to the invitation of walking along a stretch of road together.”:

“The Church, believe me, in spite of all the slowness, the unfaithfulness, the mistakes and sins that it may have committed and may yet commit in those who compose it, has no other meaning and end than that of living and giving testimony to Jesus: Him who has been sent by the Father “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).”

I have to say I am delighted by these words of Pope Francis – both the emphasis on conscience that I have held dear for a long time and the insights about truth as relationship and love – and I would be keen to hear from my atheist, agnostic, humanist (and even Christian 🙂 friends what they made of them.

UPDATE (12 Sept. 2013): This morning Vatican Radio broadcast a short interview with Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi on the topic of Pope Francis’ letter discussed above (which is now available in an official English translation here). Ravasi, who leads the Pontifical Council for Culture and in its context the “Courtyard of the Gentiles” initiative, whose aim is dialogue with non-believers, naturally welcomed Francis’ letter with great positivity, including it among the initiatives foundational documents. He then also proceeds to elaborate on the, to my mind key, point Francis made about the truth being a relationship:

“Already Plato affirmed [that the truth is a relationship] when he said that the chariot of the soul runs along the plane of truth, which means that the truth is not a cold reality like a precious stone that you can put in your pocket. Instead, it is an immense plane, a horizon – or, to use another image by a writer from the last century⁵ – we can say that the truth is a sea that one enters and navigates. So, in this light, I believe that the concept of truth not as absolute, but personal, interpersonal, will be very fruitful for dialogue, without losing the dimension of objectivity, of identity in itself, typical of the truth.”

¹ Picking what term to use to refer to those who do not believe in God is tricky and I am going with the term Francis is using himself, not necessarily because I believe it is the most appropriate one, but because my aim here is to share his message with you today. I am mindful though of Prof. Cox’s point about the undesirability of negative labels, but since the positive alternatives (e.g., humanist) may not be self-applied by all whom the Pope intends to address here, I am sticking with his terminology. If you belong to his target audience (and to some extent everyone does – including me, a Catholic) and have a suggestion for what term to use, please, let me know.
² Since I haven’t found an English translation of this article yet, the following quotes are my own crude translations, for which I apologize in advance.
³ I’d like to return to this great synthesis of Christianity in a future post and, if you understand Italian, I’d wholeheartedly recommend reading the full letter to you straight-away.
⁴ John 14:6.
⁵ Ravasi refers to this quote in an earlier talk, where he attributes it to Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, although I couldn’t find it there.

Me atheist, you Vatican spokesman

The journalistic farce that followed Pope Francis’ now-famous “atheists” homily is best viewed through Monty Python lenses, where it is in many ways like the final scene of the Life of Brian.¹ There, a centurion comes to rescue Brian from the cross, but when he asks “Where is Brian of Nazareth?!” everyone volunteers, even to the point of one of the other crucifixion victims saying “I’m Brian, and so’s my wife!”

Let’s backtrack though and see what happened step by step. First, there was Francis’ homily itself:

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

When I first read this, a couple of hours after Francis delivered it during his 7 am Domus Sanctae Marthae mass on 22nd May, I felt great joy and gratitude for having a Pope who is open and welcoming to all – just like Jesus was. I thought no more about it, since it seemed to me to be just a re-iteration – albeit a very welcome and clear one – of what the Church has been teaching consistently since Vatican II.² In essence, Francis was saying that we hope to see atheists in heaven as much as we hope to be there ourselves. This is not to impose beliefs on those who believe neither in God nor in the existence of heaven, but to assure them that we, Catholics (and many other Christians too), believe in a God who loves all and welcomes all, regardless of their beliefs.

When I then looked at Twitter later in the day, I saw it ablaze with two types of reactions: very positive ones both from Christians and atheists, welcoming the invitation to dialogue and the appreciation of the good done by atheists (e.g., see the Huffington Post article from the same day and note the Pope’s homily being the second most shared piece on Reddit) and very critical ones – mainly from “traditional” Catholics (e.g., see a particularly forceful and conceited criticism here).

The day ended well for this story though, with a spot-on rebuke of Francis’ critics from a 1964 homily of the then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, shared in a blog post by Anna Williams:

“It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people’s damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord’s parable [of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-6)] is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time.”

So far, so good: another great homily by Pope Francis, mostly positive and some negative reactions and a great put-down of the critics to round out the day.

The next morning, the weather turned though and a farce of epic proportion began brewing with the news of a Vatican spokesperson having issued a correction of Pope Francis’ words. As far as I can tell, the source of this red herring was a post on cnn.com, which stated that “On Thursday, the Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning to ‘salvation.’” The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that people who [are] aware of the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”” This was quickly picked up by media outlets around the world, with headlines like: “Vatican Clarifies Pope’s ‘Atheist’ Remarks,” “Vatican corrects Pope: Atheists are still going to hell,” and “Not so fast: Vatican says Pope Francis got it wrong, atheists do go to hell.”

It was immediately clear to me that something didn’t add up here: first, Fr. Thomas Rosica isn’t “a Vatican spokesman” (Fr. Federico Lombardi being “the” Vatican spokesperson, who has been in office for many years),³ second, “people who are aware of the Catholic Church and are not in her cannot be saved” is not at all what the Catechism says⁴ and third, any member of the Catholic Church (never mind a priest or Vatican member of staff) who felt it to be their job to issue an “explanatory note” about the Pope’s words off their own back and unprompted by the Pope better check themselves, before they wreck themselves.

In any case, I was curious to see this alleged “explanatory note,” so I (foolishly!) headed over to the Vatican website, where – naturally – there was no trace of it. Instead, I tracked it down on zenith.org here and I found – as I should have anticipated – that it was actually not a bad commentary on Francis’ words (and, no, it did not contain the offensive quote on “being aware of the Catholic Church” attributed to it on cnn.com). So, the facts of the matter are that the Vatican never issued any communication to “correct” Francis’ words and Fr. Rosica actually did a good job of commenting on the Pope’s words in my opinion (if you take care to read the whole text rather than pick phrases out of context – or even misquote them).

Like in so many cases before (did anyone say “Jesus’ wife”?), this incident was a display of journalistic ineptitude, carelessness and superficiality.

To conclude though I’d rather leave you on a positive note – a quote from Pope John Paul II’s address to the United Nations from 1995, which Fr. Rosica quoted in his explanatory note:

“Because of the radiant humanity of Christ, nothing genuinely human fails to touch the hearts of Christians. Faith in Christ does not impel us to intolerance. On the contrary, it obliges us to engage others in a respectful dialogue. Love of Christ does not distract us from interest in others, but rather invites us to responsibility for them, to the exclusion of no one and indeed, if anything, with a special concern for the weakest and the suffering. Thus, as we approach the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Christ, the Church asks only to be able to propose respectfully this message of salvation, and to be able to promote, in charity and service, the solidarity of the entire human family.”

[UPDATE] I actually started writing this post several days ago and I was beginning to wonder whether it still made sense to publish it, since the events it speaks about took place two weeks ago. Surely the storm in a teacup would have died down since then and Francis’ words would be seen for what they were. Last night and then this morning I saw two articles that changed my mind though: first, one by the otherwise very cogent Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith, who concluded his latest blog post with the following: “Heresy, and atheism, produce nothing beautiful. They can’t. They are stony barren fields.” and second, a post by the atheist Herb Silverman, whose take on the matter is that “Perhaps Pope Francis forgot to run this concession by the papal censors, because the following day the Vatican announced a do-over. The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that those who are aware of the Catholic Church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.” […] So Rev. Rosica is simply reiterating the traditional Catholic position that atheists can go to hell.” Sadly, this post still has currency, but I hope that you have found it to be of some interest.

¹ And those of you who are well versed in all matters Python, will also have spotted the direct reference to the “nurse” sketch, which is closely related to the present matter too.
² For previous coverage of how the Church relates to atheists, see the following posts.
³ Though he did translate for Lombardi during the last conclave, so the mixup could be excused – if the source were not supposed to be engaged in journalism.
⁴ What the Catechism actually says is this: “Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.” (§846) Knowing and necessary – two very strong words, on a very different end of the scale to being aware that the Catholic Church exists! In effect it means that if you act against your own certain conviction that being in the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation, you are choosing to reject it and it is your freedom that is being respected instead of you being excluded.

The infinite nouns of unbelief

I have been a fan of the physicist Prof. Brian Cox for a while (not least for his TED appearances and the great “Wonders of the Universe” and “Wonders of Life” BBC series) and I now have a new reason: his views on the science-religion relationship:

“As someone who thinks about religion very little – I reject the label atheist because defining me in terms of the things I don’t believe would require an infinite list of nouns – I see no necessary contradiction between religion and science. By which I mean that if I were a deist, I would claim no better example of the skill and ingenuity of The Creator than in the laws of nature that allowed for the magnificent story of the origin and evolution of life on Earth, and their overwhelmingly beautiful expression in our tree of life. I am not a deist, philosopher or theologian, so I will make no further comment on the origin of the laws of nature that permitted life to evolve. I simply don’t know; perhaps someday we will find out.” (Preface, Wonders of Life)

Not only does Prof. Cox put himself into the shoes of those who hold beliefs different from his own – “if I were a deist” – (a key pre-requisite for dialogue), but he even extends the possibility of cognitive consonance to them – “I see no necessary contradiction between religion and science.”

While the above is great, and a real departure from how others, who equally don’t believe in God but have a negative take on the science-religion question, have been approaching this topic, what struck me most about Prof. Cox’s words¹ is his saying that “I reject the label atheist because defining me in terms of the things I don’t believe would require an infinite list of nouns.” When I read this, I immediately thought that the same is true of me – “defining me in terms of the things I don’t believe would require an infinite list of nouns” – and that I would not want that either, if I were someone who does not believe in God. Just like I wouldn’t want to be labeled an “amanichean”² (which by virtue of what it denies links me to it), I can see why Prof. Cox is distancing himself from the atheist tag.

What the above attitude also points to is its complement: a focus on what one does believe in, and I think that Prof. Cox and I would have a lot in common, even in the absence of a shared belief in God.³

¹ I first saw them in a tweet by @brainpicker and then traced their origin to the “Wonders of Life” book via a blog post.
² Apologies for the possibly unnecessary neologism …
³ E.g., see a set-theoretic take in an earlier post here.