Day One
These reflections address issues
which are very important to a people but do not admit of definitive answers
using scientific method. This is not to say that they are anti-science. A
common misconception is that religion and science are antagonistic. Pope John
Paul II wrote: “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.” It is a
benefit to all to contemplate aspects of reality which cannot be reduced to a
scientific formula. St Paul wrote: “For this slight momentary affliction is
preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look
not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is
temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Cor. 4: 17-18).
We know the issues are important
because people are prepared to die for them, for example, freedom, love and
what is right. No answer, however, says
everything because these issues are mysteries rather than problems. Problems
have a solution whereas mysteries are to be delved into but are never entirely
understood. What is important in such an enterprise is what the Bible refers to
as wisdom that opens us up to the infinite: “Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who
seek her.” (Wis. 6: 12)
Day Two
Today I look at the concept of
order. How is it that there is order rather than disorder? If it is accepted
that the Universe came arose through a “big bang” what explains the order we
perceive around us? We know that an explosion brings disorder. The Twin Towers,
destroyed on 9/11 in New York, would not have been able to rebuild themselves
no matter how many millennia they were left.
Yet the world and indeed the
Universe is constantly establishing and reasserting order. Some people speak of
“laws of nature” but this does not get us any further ahead since if there are
laws who is the lawgiver? Others say that order is a deception – it is “as if”
there is order. This idea is self contradictory because the person who is
speaking does not seem to say that it is “as if” they are speaking sense – he
or she believes they are exercising reason which is another way of speaking
about order.
The continuation of things and
there ordered existence is evidence that a being, which we can understand as
God, has intended them to be as such: “God did not make death, and he does not
delight in the death of the living. For he created all things so that they
might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no
destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For
righteousness is immortal.” (Wis. 1: 13-15, 23-24)
Day Three
Today I consider freedom. Many
people over the centuries have sacrificed much for freedom. Regardless of their
material circumstances self-determination as so important as to risk even
imprisonment or death. Today we rightly hold the practice of slavery in
abhorrence. Human beings are not treated in the same way as animals who, much
as they are loved, are able to be owned as pets and controlled in all sorts of
ways. Yet, freedom is intangible and the desire for it has not been explained
by evolutionary science.
Our desire to be free is an
inmost human desire and is only satisfied when it is vindicated in action.
Paradoxically, humans can misuse their freedom and be enslaved to addictions
and fears that are not legal constructs and yet cause just as much suffering as
the institution of slavery. St Paul perceived in his time that true freedom lay
in Jesus Christ who frees us from sin and death and makes us all brothers and
sisters, regardless of socio-economic status: “For whoever was called in the
Lord as a slave is a free person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was
free when called I a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not
become the slaves of human masters. In whatever condition you were called,
brothers and sisters, there remain with God.” (1 Cor. 7: 22-24)
The harshest
task master in the world is our self-condemnation so true freedom lies in the
one who has loved us.
Day Four
Building on previous reflections
I look today at the phenomenon of morality. The philosopher Immanuel Kant
believed that the only philosophical way to prove the existence of God was the
“moral imperative.” That is, we cannot know what God is in himself using the
categories given us by reason, but we do desire to do the good. The related
issue of justice is apparent to anyone who has children who bridle at the idea
that one of them is being treated more favorably than the others – “it’s not
fair!” Even relativists speak of absolutes when they say that “everything is
relative”! Again, the existence of right and wrong is not quantifiable by
scientific data yet is remains central to our existence both individually and
collectively. Justice and right, as shown by the Nuremberg trials after World
War II, are not given by human legislation. Human rights had to be declared
because the arbiter of right and wrong is in fact the origin of the order and
freedom I have spoken of previously. The Bible says that our first parents were
tempted to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil: “You will not
die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3: 4-5) When they ate of the
forbidden fruit all that happened was that they knew their vulnerability and
nakedness that brought them shame and confusion.
Day Five
Today I look at suffering and
death. The existence of these is a reason, often given, not to believe in God.
The argument goes something along the lines that: “if God is good how then
could he allow for innocent suffering to occur? Surely, such a God is not
worthy of belief or is a sadist.” These issues are not dealt with adequately by
science which can describe them but cannot explain their meaning. If the
Universe is meaningless how is it that I rebel against suffering and death? Why
is it that I long for life and to share it indefinitely with those I love
despite my biological limitations? The answer is not easy and no one can
resolve it adequately in this life. Job says to God: “Therefore, I have uttered
what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know… I
had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees you; therefore
I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42: 3, 5-6) The
conviction of Christianity is that God in Jesus Christ did not shy away from
death but experienced it in its fullness and in doing so felt the abandonment
and loss of his creatures thereby entering fully into our reality: “At three
o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’
which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’.” (Mk 15: 34)
Day Six
The truth of the matter regarding
the mystery of suffering and death, which I addressed yesterday, is that they
are absurd. If death has the last word then the Universe is, contrary to what I
have written previously, meaningless. The mysteries of order, freedom and
morality evaporate in the cold harsh glare of the futility of a human existence
condemned to annihilation. Such is the thought of people like Jean Paul Sartre
who spoke of “the anguish of existence.” What is left to us, he maintains, is
to confront our existential fate with dignity. But we do not live that way!
We
still strive to love and want to be loved despite death. C. S. Lewis, said of
the death of his wife: “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before.
That's the deal.” It is through love that we find meaning, even in suffering,
The key, however, lies in accepting that we have been loved first: “Beloved,
let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born
of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way; God sent his only Son into the
world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our
sins.” (1 Jn 4: 7-9)
