"...I think God might reply a bit like this...Nobody invented me but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn't expected. Then they invented ideas about me-some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible...'
The Archbishop's letter resonates with me tremendously. My brand of Christianity is very much based on my faith which is an intangible emotion. My faith works through prayer and seeing the spirit of God move through my life rather like kinetic energy which then transforms my faith into action. Being a Christian involves quiet assent somewhat which is why I find it quite sad that this is not enough in contemporary times where everything has to be evidence based.
I watch the debates on TV where Christian intellectuals and professor heavyweights have to produce evidence and debate the finer points of the gospel to convince the audience that our religion is real. You cannot proclaim your Christian faith anymore without knowing when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found (1947-1956) or whether St. Paul was accurate in his accounts.'Blinking heck' I say. Take a leap of faith. Go on, it works.
Well said. If Christian theology and theological/biblical learning are the criteria by which a true christian is recognised then I fear there would be precious few. (myself included).
ReplyDeleteReading one's faith does not equate to living it, I'm with you on this.
There does, as you say, appear to be a lot of talking heads going on about historical and scientific evidence. But I think we are just hearing the final gasps of the 20th. Century modernists. The real zeitgeist of the early 21st. Century is a turning away from certitude and the need for certitude and the embracing of paradox, uncertainty and the importance of narrative for human beings.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Chelliah. The simplest things to grasp are also paradoxically the most difficult. That leap of faith sometimes just needs a push from someone like you or a read of some blog post like yours
ReplyDeleteHI MP,
ReplyDeleteDo you think Cardinal Newman's theory of assent is relevant to the 21st century?
Jane
Hi Margaret,
ReplyDeleteHumans have a tendency to overcomplicate matters. Nice to see you here.
Jane
Yes. But we have to be careful because Newman has been misinterpreted and his thoughts on this matter reduced to the false dichotomy that matters of faith and matters of science are two different things. Newman was a realist and not a dualist. Everything that is real is one in God. In fact, Newman would say that matters of faith are more "real" than matters of science as they are more closely connected to the supreme reality that is God. Matters of faith are as potentially observable as matters of science but, as Newman points out, we do not have the ability at this moment in time to perceive matters of faith in the same way that we can perceive matters of science. We do not even have the mental capability to understand some matters of faith. This is not a cop out as we can perceive many things nowadays using scientific techniques that were not even imagined to exist in Newman's day. Just because the scientists of Newman's time did not even know of the existence of photons does not mean that they didn't exist back then.
ReplyDeleteScientists have a tendency to restrict the possible to that which they can observe, comprehend or mathematically predict today. Such a restriction ignores the history of science. Newman believed that we can apprehend things that are not, at present, observable and he insisted on the reality of such things as much as he, as an educationalist, insisted on the reality of those things brought to light by the scientific method.
.'Blinking heck' I say. Take a leap of faith. Go on, it works.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with you!!
Dear Anita,
ReplyDeleteSNAP! Nice to see you here.
Jane