year of faith – Page 8

Science and religion: a set-theoretic view

Universe

The question of how science and religion relate is a staple of this blog, yet in spite of numerous posts¹ on this topic already, I feel the need to revisit it again (and probably not for the last time either). What I would like to give some thought to here, are different beliefs (or at least assumptions) about how God and the universe relate² and the consequences they have on how science and religion are viewed.

For a change, let me start with what I believe myself and then proceed to contrast it with alternatives. To my mind, God infinitely exceeds the universe and is present everywhere and always – as St. Augustine puts it, God is “more inward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest.” (Confessions 3, 6). He has both created and sustains the universe, but does so in a way that is intelligible (and therefore also repeatable – the expectation of different outcomes when doing the same thing being one of the definitions of insanity, as Albert Einstein puts it). My position is therefore panentheistic (as opposed to pantheistic – God being equal to the universe – or deist, believing in a distant, separate God) and one that is fundamentally rational as opposed to fideist (a point also emphatically underlined by Benedict XVI during a general audience in November ’12). Here the universe, created “in and by” God,³ is both other than God and very much part of God and the top left quadrant of the diagram above is an attempt to depict it in terms of sets: the universe is represented by a circle, situated in an infinitely extending plane – God.

In this worldview, science is profoundly good not only because of the improvements to life that it can yield, but also because it tells me about how the universe that God created operates. It tells me about God in a way that is like learning about a mime artist by viewing their performance – the information is not immediate, but nonetheless leads to insights about the actor. Another source of understanding God comes to me from theology, which seeks to understand what God has revealed about himself through his relationship with the people of Israel, through his Son, Jesus and through his presence among his followers since then and into the present. These two sources of information about God are in perfect complementarity and equally fill me with wonder and admiration.

Yet science and religion (theology) are not the same – the former has methods finely tuned to bringing the laws of the universe to light and spans the sensible (empirical), while the latter has a span that exceeds that of science, by addressing the extra-empirical aspects of the universe (the whys and ought(’nt)s) as well as events and entities exclusive to its scope. This is not to place one above the other, but simply to put them in relationship as far as their scopes are concerned (bottom left quadrant of the above diagram).

In summary, my understanding of science and religion is that they jointly yield an understanding both of the world I live in and its source and purpose that I believe in. As John Paul II said, “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”

As for alternative views, a positioning of the world as separate from God and outside God, as shown on the right side of the above diagram, is also widespread among religious believers. Here God’s involvement in creation is only an initial impulse and setup, followed by a subsequent separation and distance. The scope of what science and religion have to talk about has no overlap.

My impression here is that this separation also extends into other spheres, beyond just the relationship between God and the universe. At times I come across (repulsive) statements that, e.g., imply that ethical behavior is “owned” by those who hold religious beliefs or that the same applies to truth or beauty.⁴ In my set theory of the God-universe relationship, all that is good, true and beautiful in the universe, and is accessible without faith, is mine and I just feel like I am being given more or being helped more to live it from my additional, extra-empirical sources.

I have a feeling that this (right) picture also applies to atheist believers, with the circle representing God removed. Here all that is believed to exist is the universe, which is being understood by scientific means and religion is a separate activity that has no corresponding object.

Finally, I suspect that those atheists, who don’t acknowledge that their position is a belief, operate on a worldview like mine (i.e., on the left above), but with the labels swapped. Claims about God are treated like claims about an entity enclosed in the universe and therefore fully subject to the methods of science. Religion too is an activity that can be fully reduced to scientific scrutiny just like any other human activity. If this is correct, then I can understand why atheists who fall in this category find religious belief as lacking in credibility, to the point of being hostile to it.

If any of you, my readers, identify with one of the positions other than mine, I would very much appreciate it if you let me know if I misunderstood something about it. And even if you agree with me, I’d be keen to hear from you :).

¹ With previous looks at the science of creation from nothing, a mystical view of creation, the role of belief in science (also here), the dialogue between Chief Rabi Sacks and Prof. Dawkins, the ambiguous relationship between theory and evidence, the constraints of empiricism, the “God of gaps” caricature, atheism as a creed, the evidential equivalence of atheism and religious belief, Martini and Eco’s dialogue on ethics and a call for recognizing rationality in (some of) religion and science alike – to mention just a few :).
² Many thanks to NP and AG with whom I have spoken about some aspects of this picture by email and over on Facebook over the last weeks. Their insights triggered a lot of interesting and valuable discussion.
³ “The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God,” is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God. Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §299)
⁴ My friend, SC, told me of a particularly saddening and vile case of her parish priest telling her (at the age of 7) that she wasn’t even human, because she didn’t believe in God. This has nothing to do with Christianity as I understand it, as I hear it taught by the current and previous popes or presented in the Catechism. Instead, it is its perversion.

Lumen Gentium: The Call to Holiness

Following presentations of the Church’s purpose, life, hierarchy and laity, Lumen Gentium¹ turns to the call to holiness that Jesus addresses to “each and everyone of His disciples of every condition” by inviting them to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This holiness “is expressed in many ways in individuals, who in their walk of life, tend toward the perfection of charity, thus causing the edification of others.”

While holiness is a grace – a gift from God – that Christians receive in baptism, they need to “hold on to and complete [it] in their lives” – again thanks to grace – by having a “heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience” (Colossians 3:12). The result then is not something restricted to Christians, but instead is the promotion of “a more human manner of living […] in this earthly society.” More specifically, the instructions to Christians are the following:

“They must follow in His footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things. They must devote themselves with all their being to the glory of God and the service of their neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history.”

Holiness thus is an imitation of Jesus, a seeking to do the Father’s will (as Jesus did) and a service to all of humanity, as demonstrated by the saints. Holiness is to “follow the poor Christ, the humble and cross-bearing Christ in order to be worthy of being sharers in His glory.”

Bishops, by the sacramental grace they have received, “are given the courage necessary to lay down their lives for their sheep, and the ability of promoting greater holiness in the Church by their daily example.” Priests, are called to “the holiness of humble and hidden service” and “should grow daily in their love of God and their neighbor by the exercise of their office through Christ.” Deacons are called to “stand before men as personifications of goodness and friends of God.” The path to holiness for married couples and parents is “by faithful love” through which they “sustain one another in grace throughout the entire length of their lives” and lead their children to the practice of the evangelical virtues (poverty, chastity, obedience). Work too is a path to holiness by which the Christian “should raise all of society, and even creation itself, to a better mode of existence.” “Poverty, infirmity and sickness” as well as “hardships or […] suffer[ing] persecution for justice sake” also result in being “united with the suffering Christ.” A shared prerequisite for all is “to receive all things with faith from the hand of their heavenly Father and […] cooperate with the divine will.”

While it might seem from the above that those in different circumstances and positions in the Church have different paths to holiness, Lumen Gentium emphasizes both that “holiness is one” and that “God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in Him” (1 John 4:16). This primacy of love, which is a gift from the Holy Spirit, is the means “by which we love God above all things and our neighbor because of God.” This gift of love is nourished by listening to the Word of God, accepting His Will, participating in the Eucharist and the Liturgy, “prayer, self-abnegation, lively fraternal service and the constant exercise of all the virtues.” It is love again that “rules over all the means of attaining holiness and gives life to these same means.” In summary, “[i]t is the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor which points out the true disciple of Christ.”

Given the above view of love, which is a gift from God, nourished by the sacraments, and which is then directed back at God, also through one’s neighbor, the supreme manifestation of love is “lay[ing] down [ones] life for Christ and His brothers” – martyrdom.

“By martyrdom a disciple is transformed into an image of his Master by freely accepting death for the salvation of the world—as well as his conformity to Christ in the shedding of his blood. Though few are presented such an opportunity, nevertheless all must be prepared to confess Christ before men. They must be prepared to make this profession of faith even in the midst of persecutions, which will never be lacking to the Church, in following the way of the cross.”

Next, celibacy is singled out, which is a “grace given by the Father to certain souls, whereby they may devote themselves to God alone the more easily, due to an undivided heart.” The free choice of poverty and obedience are also praised as means for attaining holiness. “Th[ese are] beyond the measure of the commandments, but are done in order to become more fully like the [poor and] obedient Christ.” Finally, the following exhortation is made to aid all in their seeking of holiness, which is not only an invitation but an obligation for every Christian:

“Let neither the use of the things of this world nor attachment to riches, which is against the spirit of evangelical poverty, hinder them in their quest for perfect love. Let them heed the admonition of the Apostle [Paul – cf. 1 Corinthians 7:31] to those who use this world; let them not come to terms with this world; for this world, as we see it, is passing away.”

The key takeaways for me from this short chapter in Lumen Gentium are the underlining of the oneness and universality of holiness, the obligation for all Christians to seek it and its synonymity with love. A love that is directed at God through one’s neighbors, that leads to God through the selfless giving of oneself to others. There are details here about different aspects to emphasis for different roles within the Church and different means that the Church offers its members in aid of holiness, but the core point here is that holiness is about imitating Jesus, who loved us so much that he even gave his life for us. Holiness is a path that leads from every ordinary moment to the extraordinary, total giving of oneself out of love.

¹ If you are not a Catholic, you might like to read the caveat in paragraph two of this post, where I propose a way for you to approach this post in which I attempt to summarize what I understand the Catholic Church as addressing to its members.

Man and woman: the beginning

It has been a long time since I last read a text that filled me with excitement and admiration and lead me through a seemingly inexhaustible sequence of insights and profound realizations. The book I am talking about is John Paul II’s “Man and Woman He Created Them,” which presents his “Theology of the Body” – a term that I have heard mentioned on various blogs but that has meant little more to me than a buzz-word so far.

The book presents the content of a series of talks that Blessed John Paul II gave during his Wednesday general audiences between September 1979 and November 1984 (!) that closely track a manuscript he wrote before being elected pope. Instead of the usual pastoral material, typically presented at events like these, the first chapter already makes it crystal clear that the book is going to be technical and intellectually challenging material. To think that he shared it with the crowds who came to see him in Rome is astonishing to me by itself, as it is the polar opposite of the typical dumbing-down that so often informs pubic communication.

The starting point is the origin of the family in marriage, whose indissolubility Jesus categorically reaffirms when challenged by some Pharisees:

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator created them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and unite with his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? So it is that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6; emphasis by John Paul II)

Here John Paul II picks up on Jesus’ emphasis on “the beginning” and his quoting of verses from two separate chapters of Genesis. Instead of this passage from Matthew being only taken as a confirmation and reinforcement of the Genesis model of marriage, Jesus’ emphasis on “the beginning” triggers an analysis of the creation of humanity. In fact, John Paul II focuses on the specific features and complementary differences of the two Genesis accounts to look not only at the differences between male and female genders, but at key characteristics of what it means to be human.

The first account (which is chronologically more recent and which has more of a theological character) is that “God created man [hā’ādām, collective noun: “humanity”?] in his image, in the image of God he created him, man [zākār, male] and woman [neqēbāh, female] he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, John Paul II’s additions in []). In other words, the creation of man and woman is “a single act.” In contrast, in the second account (which is more ancient and has more of a mythical character), man’s creation (Genesis 2:5-7) precedes that of woman’s (Genesis 2:18-23). However, even here, the first human being is called “man” (’ādām), “while from the moment of the creation of the first woman, [Genesis] begins to call him “male,” îš, in relation to ’iššāh (“woman,” because she has been taken from the male = îš).”

While the above “single-act” creation of the sexes is an aspect of Genesis that I certainly was not aware of, the most impressive move in John Paul II’s analysis comes next and is the insight that the solitude of the pre–male-female differentiated “man,” – expressed in Genesis as “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2:18) – is a reference not only to an individual’s solitude (lacking a mate) but to a fundamental feature of every person’s nature. In Genesis, the first “man” is shown both as being separate from the rest of creation (being alone in spite of a multitude of other living beings already populating the world) and as searching for his identity (being asked by God to name “every living creature” but not “find[ing] a help similar to himself” (Genesis 2:19-20)).

This original solitude of the human person indicates self-consciousness and the commandment about not eating from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” introduces self-determination (free will) as a basic feature of humanity. These two together make the human person “created in the image of God” and a “partner of the Absolute.” Next, John Paul II argues that it is man’s (’ādām’s) body that is the source of his awareness of solitude. This body that could have made man place himself as equal among the other created bodies, instead gives him awareness of his otherness and solitude. This in turn makes it evident that “the “invisible” determines man more than the “visible”.”

Next, man’s body is also the means of his “cultivating the earth” (Genesis 2:5) and “subdu[ing] it” (1:28), as the Genesis account further states. As a result, the human body is not only involved in man’s awareness of his separateness from the rest of creation and his potential for self-determination, but also “permits him to be the author of genuinely human activity[, where] the body expresses the person.” The final ingredient that John Paul II identifies in the Genesis account is the introduction of the difference between death an immortality in the form of the mystery of the three of knowledge: “The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16-17).

With man’s features emerging as his self-consciousness, self-determination and, as their consequence, relating to God as a partner, John Paul II turns to taking a closer look at the meaning of the original unity of humanity. The starting point here is an argument for there being a distinction between “bodiliness and sexuality” whereby our being bodies is fundamental to the structure of our being personal subjects, even before differences between the male and female genders are considered. Being a body is fundamental to being human and is intrinsic to the nature of that humanity (as John Paul II argues above), while masculinity and femininity are “two ways in which [a] human being […] is a body.” These two ways of being human bodies – the “double unity as male and female” – are introduced as means of overcoming the solitude of the sexually undifferentiated human. From the Genesis account of how male and female are differentiated, John Paul II notes in particular two aspects: First, that the “second I” – the female – that emerges from the “torpor” of the undifferentiated man during which differentiation is created – is “also personal and equally related to the situation of original solitude.” Second, that man “shows joy and even exultation […] for the other human being, for the second “I”.”

The first 8 chapters, a high-level synthesis of which the above has attempted, take us to the point of the basic features of man and woman having been sketched out, which is then the starting point for looking at the nature of the marital relationship. What I found particularly impressive, beyond the actual content and the psychological and anthropological profile of the human person that John Paul II presents, is the method of analysis he applies to Genesis. Throughout this discourse he is very clear about considering that text to be of mythical character, which “does not refer to fictitious-fabulous content, but simply to an archaic way of expressing a deeper content.” And he goes on to say that “[w]ithout any difficulty, we discover that content under the stratum of the archaic narrative, truly marvelous in the quality and condensation of the truths contained there.” What a guy! While I certainly cannot echo the “without difficulty” qualifier, the marvelousness and “quality and condensation of the truths” that he manages to reveal in this ancient text is amazing. His approach strikes me as being categorically different both from a naive, literal reading of Genesis that leads some to highly irrational and a-scientific conclusions and from a superficial “this is just a story” approach that fails to uncover deeper meaning.

Venture freely into the open sea of the truth

I am glad I kept tabs on Pope Benedict XVI’s sermons, articles and speeches over the Christmas period and that I now had a chance to read them, as there were some true gems to be found there.

Let’s start with his Christmas Vigil homily, where he summed up the trusting fragility of the Christmas paradox particularly vividly and beautifully:

“Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.”

Then, in his article in the Financial Times, he drew out the consequences of God’s becoming man and the love for humanity He thereby demonstrated:

“Christians shouldn’t shun the world; they should engage with it. But their involvement in politics and economics should transcend every form of ideology.

Christians fight poverty out of a recognition of the supreme dignity of every human being, created in God’s image and destined for eternal life. Christians work for more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources out of a belief that, as stewards of God’s creation, we have a duty to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. Christians oppose greed and exploitation out of a conviction that generosity and selfless love, as taught and lived by Jesus of Nazareth, are the way that leads to fullness of life. Christian belief in the transcendent destiny of every human being gives urgency to the task of promoting peace and justice for all.”

However, the engagement of Christians in the world is to be done on Gospel terms and here Benedict introduces a (to me) new reading of Jesus’ famous response to the trap some Pharisees laid him: “Christians render to Caesar only what belongs to Caesar, not what belongs to God.” He goes beyond a splitting of responsibilities and highlights the wrongful demands that secular powers can lay claim to:

“Christians have at times throughout history been unable to comply with demands made by Caesar. From the Emperor cult of ancient Rome to the totalitarian regimes of the last century, Caesar has tried to take the place of God. When Christians refuse to bow down before the false gods proposed today, it is not because of an antiquated world-view. Rather, it is because they are free from the constraints of ideology and inspired by such a noble vision of human destiny that they cannot collude with anything that undermines it.”

Benedict then takes this central idea of freedom in truth and applies it, in a to me surprisingly bold way, to the topic of inter-religious dialogue, which “is a necessary condition for peace in the world and is therefore a duty for Christians as well as other religious communities.” He first presents the current rules of this dialogue as, first, “not aim[ing] at conversion, but at understanding” and, second, that “both parties to the dialogue remain consciously within their identity, which the dialogue does not place in question either for themselves or for the other.” While he underlines the correctness of not aiming at conversion, Benedict sees these rules as “too superficial” and instead proposes the following to the Christian participant:

“[T]he search for knowledge and understanding always has to involve drawing closer to the truth. Both sides in this piece-by-piece approach to truth are therefore on the path that leads forward and towards greater commonality, brought about by the oneness of the truth. As far as preserving identity is concerned, it would be too little for the Christian, so to speak, to assert his identity in a such a way that he effectively blocks the path to truth. Then his Christianity would appear as something arbitrary, merely propositional. He would seem not to reckon with the possibility that religion has to do with truth. On the contrary, I would say that the Christian can afford to be supremely confident, yes, fundamentally certain that he can venture freely into the open sea of the truth, without having to fear for his Christian identity.”

This is decidedly not a cautious edging towards compromise, but instead a realization that Christians “can enter openly and fearlessly into any dialogue.”

Lumen Gentium: The Laity

Chapter 4 of Lumen Gentium brings us to a presentation of the role of the laity – i.e., “all the faithful except those in holy orders [discussed at length in chapter 3] and those in the state of religious life [to be covered in detail later].” Like in previous posts about Vatican II documents, if you are not a Catholic, I would again encourage you to take a look at paragraph two of my post on Dei Verbum, where I propose an approach that might make reading the following more accessible.

The chapter on the laity starts with, and is run through by, repeated emphases on the unity and singularity of purpose of the whole Church, against the background of which any distinctions are to be read: “Everything that has been said [about] the People of God is intended for the laity, religious and clergy alike. [… The lay] faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ.” The specific aspect of the laity os that they “live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life […] They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven.” The key here to me is that the laity is not some sort of “other” or “miscellaneous” category, but that its members are “called there by God” – being a lay person can be a calling like being a member of the church’s hierarchy or of a religious order.

The equality of the People of God (i.e., laity, clergy and religious all together) is then stated very explicitly:

“[T]he chosen People of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”; sharing a common dignity as members from their regeneration in Christ, having the same filial grace and the same vocation to perfection; possessing in common one salvation, one hope and one undivided charity. There is, therefore, in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex, because “there is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all ‘one’ in Christ Jesus”.”

Furthermore this equality of dignity extends not only across natural but also across spiritual categories: “And if by the will of Christ some are made teachers, pastors and dispensers of mysteries on behalf of others, yet all share a true equality with regard to the dignity and to the activity common to all the faithful for the building up of the Body of Christ.” A source for this equality can also be found in the mutual interdependence of the clergy and laity: “[P]astors and the other faithful are bound to each other by a mutual need. Pastors of the Church, following the example of the Lord, should minister to one another and to the other faithful. These in their turn should enthusiastically lend their joint assistance to their pastors and teachers.” This is further (and to my mind beautifully!) underlined as follows:

“Therefore, from divine choice the laity have Christ for their [brother] who though He is the Lord of all, came not to be served but to serve. They also have for their brothers those in the sacred ministry who by teaching, by sanctifying and by ruling with the authority of Christ feed the family of God so that the new commandment of charity may be fulfilled by all.”

St. Augustine then puts the difference between his being a Christian and a bishop in particularly clear terms: “What I am for you terrifies me; what I am with you consoles me. For you I am a bishop; but with you I am a Christian. The former is a duty; the latter a grace. The former is a danger; the latter, salvation.” Again it is the saints, whose words illuminate and breathe a heightened sense of life into the Church’s formal teaching.

Next, Lumen Gentium elaborates on the apostolic and prophetic roles of the laity and there is a clear sense here even just from the language that this is a blueprint for the future (e.g., by many sentences having the form of “let the laity …”), rather than a re-statement of well-established teaching, as is the case in some of the earlier parts of this document.

The apostolic role of the laity (to which they are commissioned “[t]hrough their baptism and confirmation”) is a call “to [making] the Church present and operative in those places and circumstances where only through them can it become the salt of the earth.” The apostolate of the laity (i.e., it’s spreading of the Gospel) is not restricted only to such conditions where the hierarchy would be less effective or appropriate. Instead, it “can also be called in various ways to a more direct form of cooperation in the apostolate of the Hierarchy. This was the way certain men and women assisted Paul the Apostle in the Gospel. […] Further, they have the capacity to assume from the Hierarchy certain ecclesiastical functions.” The model here is very much one of co-operation rather than exclusive leadership by the hierarchy. This does not in any way diminish the leadership of the hierarchy, but, to my mind, it expresses a desire to reflect the emphasis on equality in the preceding paragraphs. It shows a desire for spreading of the Gospel in a way where the talents of all are put to good use.

The way the laity spread the Gospel, “by a living testimony as well as by the spoken word, takes on a specific quality and a special force in that it is carried out in the ordinary surroundings of the world. […] For all their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne—all these become “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”.” What strikes me as key here is that a lay person is called to follow Jesus 24/7 and that even when they rest, that is an opportunity to bear witness to God’s love for all. This is very explicitly the opposite of the unhealthy compartmentalization that can creep into anyone’s life, where their Christianity is manifest only in some contexts but not in all. Finally, the part on the laity’s apostolic role concludes with the profound statement that “the laity consecrate the world itself to God.”

Turning to the prophetic aspect, Lumen Gentium states that “Christ […] continually fulfills His prophetic office […] not only through the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His authority, but also through the laity whom He made His witnesses and to whom He gave understanding of the faith (sensu fidei).” Here I was immediately struck by the attribution of a rational and reflexive function to the laity, which again does not detract from the authority of the hierarchy, but which places the lay person in a position of intellectual engagement rather than blind obedience. This is again underlined by the exhortation to “let the laity devotedly strive to acquire a more profound grasp of revealed truth, and let them insistently beg of God the gift of wisdom.”

Then comes a bit of a surprise to me:

“In connection with the prophetic function is that state of life which is sanctified by a special sacrament […], namely, married and family life. […] In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. […] They must assist each other to live holier lives even in their daily occupations. In this way the world may be permeated by the spirit of Christ and it may more effectively fulfill its purpose in justice, charity and peace. The laity have the principal role in the overall fulfillment of this duty.”

This places the sacrament of marriage in a position not only of a commitment of the spouses to each other and to their children – for their individual good, but also makes it a foretaste of things to come and a source from which Jesus’ love is to be brought to the whole world so that “justice, charity and peace” may be brought about. Such projection into the world has its challenges though and the laity is reminded that:

“[T]he faithful should learn how to distinguish carefully between those rights and duties which are theirs as members of the Church, and those which they have as members of human society. Let them strive to reconcile the two, remembering that in every temporal affair they must be guided by a Christian conscience, since even in secular business there is no human activity which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.”

The relationship of the laity and the hierarchy is then introduced as follows:

“The laity […] should openly reveal to [the hierarchy] their needs and desires with that freedom and confidence which is fitting for children of God and brothers in Christ. They are, by reason of the knowledge, competence or outstanding ability which they may enjoy, permitted and sometimes even obliged to express their opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church.”

This again underlines the need for active, rational participation of the laity in the life of the Church and even the obligation to escalate concerns to its leadership, but it also requires that “[t]he laity [… then] accept in Christian obedience decisions of their spiritual shepherds, since they are representatives of Christ as well as teachers and rulers in the Church.”

In summary, “[e]ach individual layman must stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and life of the Lord Jesus and a symbol of the living God. All the laity as a community and each one according to his ability must nourish the world with spiritual fruits. They must diffuse in the world that spirit which animates the poor, the meek, the peace makers—whom the Lord in the Gospel proclaimed as blessed.”

As a lay person I found this part of Lumen Gentium particularly encouraging as it shows very clearly that in Vatican II the hierarchy of the Church (since all of these documents’ authors were part of it!) calls for greater participation by all members of the Church in its life. The hierarchy does not shirk away from its responsibilities (and I don’t believe it should), but it makes it clear that it desires dialogue among equals. Even though a bishop is placed at the head of his local church, he is the brother of all the faithful he leads and this brotherhood, pioneered by Jesus himself outranks any hierarchical distinctions. I know full well that this is often not what happens even today – 50 years after Vatical II, but I am pleased to see at least that this is the blueprint, even if the boat is still under construction.

The blue of the sky

On New Year’s Day was one of my favourite feasts of the Church calendar: that of Mary, mother of God. While the emphasis on Christmas Day is very much on God becoming man – the infinite also becoming finite, the feast of the Theotokos looks at another central aspect of the Christmas paradox.

Instead of descending to earth on a cloud or by means of some other superficial spectacle, God first sought the consent of a girl and then grew and developed inside her in the same way every human does. He joined humanity from the ground floor rather than waltzing in at the peak of its powers as a fully-grown adult. This also means that he has a mum whom he loved, respected, was concerned for and esteemed just like other children and adults relate to their mothers. He also felt her absolute love, care, commitment and devotion, just like children and adults receive from their mothers.

In an intellectual vision in 1949, Chiara Lubich received the following, particularly striking, insight about Mary’s relationship to God:

“As the blue of the sky contains sun and moon and stars, so Mary appeared to me, made by God so great as to contain God Himself in the Word.”

This image clearly expresses how great a love God has for Mary by making her contain Him as His mother (like the sky contains the sun), which in some sense shows God as being smaller than Mary. Yet, since it is God who made himself small, this self-humbling adds to his magnanimity and greatness and we see a God who is great, but whose greatness includes His making Himself small.

By having Mary be His mother, God leads us to humility by example, which is also what Jesus explicitly called us to: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30).

Happy New Year 2013

My dear readers, many thanks for the 10 295 times that you have visited my blog this year. Since the first post on 9th July, I have greatly enjoyed sharing some thoughts with you (75K words to be precise) and receiving a wealth of feedback, both directly on the blog and via emails and in person. I am pleased to see that so many of you are based in the US (66%), that a good number of you are in the UK, Spain, Slovakia and Russia and that I also have readers from Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Canada.

I am also delighted that – as a bunch – you are keen on art and science (and gossip!), with the following having been the most popular posts so far:

Contemporary art and its enemies (284 views)
An atheist creed (211 views)
A universe from nothing (196 views)
What is a holy person like? (163 views)
Jesus’ wife: clicks, facts and ‘children in a marketplace (161 views)

If you like, you can download the whole content of the blog’s first year as a PDF here.

Thank you again for all your time and attention and all the best for 2013! 🙂

A mathematical paradox of Christmas

An aspect of Christmas that is closest to my heart is that, where A is any set and where H is the set of all humans, it is also about the following:^{1, 2}

!&#8707 A: A &#8836 Q &#8658 Q &#8834 Q &#8743 Q &#8835 Q
H &#8834 Q
&#8707 h: h &#8712 H &#8743 h = Q &#8658 Q &#8712 H &#8743 H &#8712 Q

In other words,³ God (an aspect of whom is represented here by Q), who includes and exceeds everything (which is beautifully put by the Islamic expression Allāhu Akbar – الله أكبر): “God is greater”), has become an individual human person (h) – i. e., a member of one of the myriad sets whose strict superset He is. The resulting recursive, infinite regress of divine in human in divine … is a fundamental aspect of what Christians believe and celebrate at Christmas. Yes, there is a lot more to it and, no, I am not attempting either a reduction or any sort of proof here, but, I believe the mathematical representation of what happened at Christmas just makes the enormity and irregularity of it stand out more starkly than using any other means.

God – the transcendent beyond, has become a man – a finite creature, while retaining His transcendence and immanence simultaneously. This paradox (and it strictly is a paradox since it amounts to a finiteness and infinity that cannot be resolved) is a mind-boggling event regardless of the specific circumstances under which it took place and would in any case have shown God’s love for humanity. His choice of coming into being as a human from the moment of conception (which Christians celebrate on the feast of the Annunciation and when the above paradox actually took place), being born the way all humans are and doing so under the humblest of circumstances just eases our comprehension of this extraordinary event and of the inexhaustible love that God has for us – a love that can also be read from the above set theoretic notation.

Another level of recursive infinity is introduced when Jesus institutes the Eucharist (making his divine-human self present in a transubstantiated, finite quantity of bread and wine), when it is He Himself who is present among any set of two or more humans who follow his words, and when it is He Himself who is also present in each human being. This makes not only God be transcendent-immanent but every single one if us too, by participation in His life. The ontological configuration that the incarnation introduces is truly a source of constant wonder for me and I hope that I managed to share some of that with you here.

Merry Christmas!

¹ Thanks to my bestie PM for fixing my initially muddled notation!
² Yes, I know I am using Cantor’s naïve set theory here and not Zermelo–Fraenkel (ZF or ZFC), but I do so since the latter has been designed to avoid the occurrence of paradox, which in most cases makes good sense, while Cantor’s system is more unconstrained and is precisely what the expression of the Christmas paradox calls for. Also, note that the term “naïve” here merely means non-axiomatic as opposed to implying any derogatory connotations.
³ In case you are not familiar with (this) set theoretic notation, it reads as: “No set A exists such that A is not a strict subset of Q (where a set X is another set Y’s strict subset if and only if all of the members of X are also members of Y and Y has at least one member that is not a member of X), therefore Q is a strict subset and also a strict superset of itself. H is a strict subset of Q. There exists a h that is a member of H and that is identical with Q, therefore Q is a member of H and H is a member of Q.”

Rational and evidential equivalence

I don’t usually chase popularity, but what I saw after my previous post was published gave me cause for reflection. Of the 94 posts on this blog, “An atheist creed” has certainly had the best first 24 hours, with more than 100 views during that period alone. It was also my most popular post by far, reaching 10 “+1s” within a couple of hours. On Twitter and Google+ too it was received well, which suggested that I had picked a good topic. Not only that, but on Google+ it also lead to a conversation that made me append an update to the original post.

And then three of the original +1s were revoked, still leaving a respectable seven but clearly signaling disagreement with the update’s content. After a day of trying to work out what might have lead to someone changing their mind (and if you are one of the three who did, I’d love to hear from you), I have decided to expand on what I said, with the hope of being more explicit than the update’s 100 or so words allowed.

While the initial post attempted a summary of Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and arrived at the conclusion that his position is one of unacknowledged belief, for the explicit variant of which he chides those who hold religious ones. At the end of the post I then admitted that, while I respect agnostic positions and hold a Christian one, I fail to see the honesty of atheism. After an enriching exchange on Google+ I then returned to the post and added an update in which I quote one of my atheist friends as saying that their atheism is a belief in there being nothing else out there beyond what we experience. Since this was the first time I have encountered atheism as a creed (my post’s title originally having been intended as a dig at Dawkins), I was surprised and felt like I needed to take a fresh look at it.

I suspect, although I am not sure (and, please, do correct me if I am wrong), that the following may have been the root of the discontent with the post’s update: “the nature of [religious or atheist] belief and [their] relation to evidence and rationality are, to my mind, equivalent.” While the original post was decidedly negative about atheism, the update may have looked like I have softened my stance and like I may even have devalued my own Christian beliefs. Let me therefore be more explicit about these two possible interpretations.

First, everything I have said in the post before the update still stands as is. The atheism presented by Dawkins, and many other militant, aggressive atheists like him, is to my mind rationally feeble and delusional. It claims to be a purely rational, evidence-derived position, while it cannot possibly be. This lack of honesty about the nature of such atheism is fundamentally harmful to those who hold it, since it endows them with an illusory sense of superiority that dramatically (and demonstrably) inhibits their capacity for dialogue.

Why do I claim that their position cannot be evidence derived? For a more detailed answer see this previous post, but in a nutshell it is this: All empirical evidence that I can ever have is in the form of my own experiences and not directly of entities beyond myself. I experience images, sounds, sensations of texture, pressure, temperature, etc. but in all of this I am only conscious of aspects of myself. When I have the experience of seeing an apple, my evidence is not of some external entity – the “apple” as separate from events in my stream of consciousness – but of an image formed in my consciousness. No amount of reference to others, method, measurement or anything else can possibly result in anything other than events that I can with certainty place anywhere other than my own consciousness. This is the nature of experience that has been well understood by philosophers for some centuries now (very clearly by Hume and Locke and to different extents also by many others in preceding centuries).

The only exclusively empirical position is to restrict oneself to making statements only about oneself. Anything else requires belief. A belief in a physical world that causes the experiences we have access to, or even a belief that there is nothing beyond oneself (or some of the more esoteric beliefs typically posited for the sake of exploring the nature of knowledge, like the idea that we are all brains in vats, being fed signals that give rise to the experience we have). A belief that the physical world is all there is or that there is something or someone else beyond it. Beliefs about what it is that lies beyond the physical world. All of these beliefs have the same relationship to empirical evidence – i.e., none! Empirical evidence can contribute to greater or lesser confidence being attributed to one theory or another that explains it, but its scope is only that of the empirical. Evidence cannot point one way or another when it comes to what is beyond it – whether it be nothing or something.

It is with this in mind that I said, and repeat, that an atheist creed has the same empirical and rational status as a religious creed (including my Christian one). The position that is rationally inferior is an atheism that considers itself to be derived from evidence and devoid of the necessity of forming beliefs beyond its scope.

Finally, let me also emphasize that this position is fully compatible with how Christianity understands its own beliefs – as a gift from God (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §153-154):

“Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us […] or to trust their promises […] to share a communion of life with one another.”

My belief in God is empirically and rationally equivalent to another’s belief that there is nothing beyond the physical world and I look forward to learning from my atheist friends what it is like to hold the beliefs they do. Open, honest and charitable dialogue can only be enriching to all who partake in it and I am pleased that I can now count some atheists among those who appreciate it as much as I do.

An atheist creed

I have finally read Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and I highly recommend it: if, like me, you consider “faith and reason [to be the] wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” then this book will give you an (albeit laboriously gleaned) insight into Dawkins’ views and the insults directed there at you will be good practice for charity and compassion. If, on the other hand, you are among those religious fanatics whom Dawkins most vehemently attacks, then you are unlikely to be reading this anyway and anything I say will have about as much effect as Dawkins’ words themselves. The category of reader for whom Dawkins’ book is probably of least value are those who are genuinely seeking to understand the questions he addresses, as they will find far more chaff here than wheat.

While I have heard Richard Dawkins speak on several occasions and have also read various articles of his, I have always come away with a feeling of not knowing what his position is as opposed to what he attacks (the latter having always come across crystal-clear). “The God Delusion” has certainly helped me here and I will try to share my understanding of it next. If you are thinking of reading the book yourself (and I do encourage you to) – just a word of advice: gloss over his attacks on religion and focus instead on those sparse passages where he exposes his own views.

I believe Dawkins’ philosophy is most succinctly expressed by the following needle of a quote from his book:

“An atheist […] is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world [… and i]f there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural.”

In other words: a belief in nothing existing beyond the physical and a hope for an understanding that vindicates such a belief. As an ontological position this is vanilla-flavor materialism and not worthy of further comment. What is more interesting though is not the ontology of this view, but its being posited in terms of “belief” and “hope.” Dawkins (implicitly) acknowledges that atheism is a position that (like all other ontological positions, including religious ones) cannot be held on purely epistemological grounds. Whether there is or isn’t something beyond the physical, sensible is by definition of what counts as evidence beyond its scope (since no sensory, empirical data will ever derive from it). Holding beliefs about nonexistence is more complicated still, thanks to the challenges of evidencing absence,¹ which Cowper puts beautifully by saying that “absence of proof is not proof of absence.”² The presence of hope is also noteworthy since it suggests that this ontological position is not held dispassionately, but that Dawkins cares about its truth value. While not being a religious position by any means, it nonetheless exhibits two of the three key aspects of Christianity: faith and hope, with love also being of clear importance to Dawkins. This is in no way a “gotcha,” but simply a realization that Dawkins’ atheist beliefs share features with my Christian ones and I don’t begrudge him this.

While Dawkins’ hope for and belief in only the physical existing are not derived from evidence (there being no evidence for the absence of non-physical existence), he happily challenges those who hold religious beliefs for making assertions “for which they neither have, nor could have, any evidence.” In fact, he goes even further by mounting an argument for a particular entity not existing in this non-physical void: God.³ Here Dawkins’ argument against God’s existence is the following:

“The argument from improbability states that complex things could not have come about by chance.”

“However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable.”

It is ironic to see what Dawkins does here. He takes a weak cosmological argument for the existence of God (that many have torn to shreds) and “leverages” it for his own ends, while inheriting (even amplifying) its weaknesses. In essence this argument – a favorite among Creationists – is that the world is so complex that it couldn’t have come about by chance or from simpler entities and that a designer or creator had to be its source. Dawkins then comes along and thinks he is trumping them by adding that the presumed creator must be more complex still and therefore even less likely. Far be it from me to defend the original cosmological argument, but it is disappointing to see Dawkins attempt its use as an argument for the almost-non-existence of God. The irony is greater still since it is Dawkins’ own scientific work that has contributed to illuminating how it is that greater complexity comes about from simpler origins …

My final takeaway is a deflated “oh …” in the face of the naïveté of Dawkins’ position. First, for his schoolboy materialist creed and, second, for his clumsy attempt at offering an argument for the statistical non-existence of God. Is this the best that atheism has to offer intellectually? Before writing this piece I have tried to think about whether I could offer a better atheist position, but I have to admit that I have failed. Atheism just does not make any sense since it is at its core an oxymoron: the belief in an entity’s non-existence. Agnosticism is another matter altogether. It is a position I don’t hold, but one that I have great respect for and that I have seen stated convincingly and with a great sense of honesty.

UPDATE (19 December 2012): I have just read the following, illuminating comment on this post on Google+:

“I could very elegantly be an agnostic, which is the rational stance, and save myself some problems. But I actually have this belief inside, my gut bets that there is NOTHING else out there. So I have to be honest about that.”

This is the kind of atheist position I was trying to (but failing to) intuit before writing the post. It is an atheism that to me sounds ultimately honest and is very much like my own Christianity: it holds a belief about what there is beyond the empirical. There is a clear difference in what that belief contains, but the nature of the belief and its relation to evidence and rationality are, to my mind, equivalent. I now feel that I need to look at atheism in a new way and I hope to learn more about it.

UPDATE (9 January 2013): This post is fast becoming one of the most popular on this blog and it has certainly triggered a lot of discussion both on- and off-line. For coverage of some of its aftermath see the following post.

¹ For a very well presented analysis of this point, and with reference to Dawkins, see Brian Garvey’s paper.
² This dictum is not without challenge and I hope to return to it in a future post.
³ Dawkins goes to great lengths to be clear that he doesn’t mean an “Einsteinian God” or a God of the laws of physics, but a personal God like that of the Abrahamic religions. From my perspective this only amounts to a display of a profound misunderstanding of how Christianity sees God (displayed with particular virtuosity when discussing the Trinity).