The
initial tweet, by someone whose twitter handle I don’t remember, was that
atheists had to have faith in something as the start of the big bang. What I
received was a declaration that atheists don’t claim anything. It’s a neat mental trick to demand answers
without offering anything. I get the
image of a man standing on a corner demanding “answers” or “evidence” of
something they do not or will not accept: the existence of God.
This is
the status of the believer today. With
faith in not only the existence of Almighty God but in His concern for us, we
are faced with those who are steeped in skepticism about spiritual realities,
metaphysics and the non-material soul of man.
It is a mental and relational struggle that is beyond comfortable
parameters of discussion. If someone
accepts no metaphysics, no causality and even no requirement to affirm anything
positive, how can one engage in a dialog on what is above and beyond scientific
enquiry? A man who only speaks Greek
will not have a fruitful conversation with someone who knows Greek, but
suggests that English offers another view point. Language, after all, carries
with it not only subtleties of syntax and grammar, but also cultural and
intellectual positions that are not easily translated.
This
barrier of language can be breached, however, in a far more simple manner than
a disagreement about first principles and modes of thought.
Consider
the problem of discussing a work of art with someone whose only point of
reference is economics or politics. Van
Gogh produced marvelous works of art.
The one fixated on economics might want to know how much “Starry Night”
might be worth on the market. A person
concerned only with politics might want to get into a discussion of Vincent’s struggle
with poverty and acceptance. How much is
missed when beauty, aesthetics, form and color are not allowed in the
discussion? The path to common ground is quite difficult, and is reminiscent of
Plato’s “Cave” analogy. The one who leaves the cave has a difficult time
telling those still chained what the real world is all about.
Getting
back to the twitter discussion I mentioned earlier, I made efforts to get my
interlocutors to tell me if they accepted any form of metaphysics. All I received in response was a demand for “evidence”. Even after admitting that scientific evidence
for God’s existence (putting “God” on the table, to be analyzed and dissected)
was not possible, the demand continued for such evidence. Here is a fundamental intellectual
disagreement about how we know and what we can know.
At this
point, I tried to get some admission that it is rational to accept as true what
someone else proffered as, shall we say, testimony, and received a modicum of
agreement. Yet, the dialog disintegrated
back into a rejection of any need to continue the discussion (“What makes you
think I want anything from you?”) and a mockery of the very worthiness of
metaphysics (“Metaphysics is just more philosophical bulls***.”). I did not mention that they were the ones who
engaged me first.
The
discussion more or less ended with this, as time was not on my side.
Strangely,
about this time I started to re-read Cardinal Ratzinger’s book “Introduction to
Christianity”. This book is based upon
lectures that then Father Ratzinger had given in Germany in the 1960s. It’s
relevance to this twitter discussion and to recent public conversations about
the existence of God was remarkable. He
actually brings up the loss of metaphysics as a common ground of dialog, and
the metamorphosis of intellectual discovery from that ancient discipline into
scientific and then political language. No longer do men think in terms of what
lies beyond physics. Now it is either simply
scientific language, or, worse, the politics of what can be done politically
towards a preset plan or desire of social perfection. Thought has turned from a reflection of what
is true to planning for what should be.
Then
Father Ratzinger expounds upon the difficulties of this discussion, and offers
some possible ways out. But what is
disturbing is the unwillingness or inability to move beyond what is verifiable
in a predetermined system of proof to an open dialog of what may in fact be
true outside of those bounds.
The
believer is one who has made a choice for what is not seen beyond the physical,
but the non-believer has also made a choice: that only what satisfies a
possibly un-proven ground of physical, political or emotional principles.
Perhaps
there is a way to engage this discussion on those levels. The difficulty of the believer is finding the
mode of engagement that does not do damage to the faith. At some point, one must shake the dust from
one’s feet and move away. Charity
demands that we at least make an effort.
Prudence will guide us to know when to go all in, and when to walk away.
