All's Well

I was pondering some of the imponderables today, namely the mystical visions of Dame Julian of Norwich. In her Thirteenth Revelation, she says some of her most famous lines, in particular the one quoted as, "… all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

As usual, as in so many feel-good (feel-well?) sayings, some context has been elided. What she said was, "It behoved that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." That is, the world is a dark place, but it turns out well.

The good Dame, however, said many other things that make me (personally) feel better. One such comes in her Sixth Revelation, when she says, "The age of every man shall be acknowledged before him in Heaven, and every man shall be rewarded for his willing service and for his time." I would like to believe this is true, in my more self-pitying moments. Heh.

To get there however, one needs some knowledge of her Second Revelation, in which she says, "It is God’s will that we have three things in our seeking: — The first is that we seek earnestly and diligently, without sloth, and, as it may be through His grace, without unreasonable heaviness and vain sorrow. The second is, that we abide Him steadfastly for His love, without murmuring and striving against Him, to our life’s end: for it shall last but awhile. The third is that we trust in Him mightily of full assured faith."

But the mystery of belief is still there in the Thirteenth. I can't stop thinking about the subtleties of this line ascribed by the Dame to her Master: "I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well."

Maybe I'll post on this again.

Naturalism vs Science

I have recently entered a curious pseudo-argument with some people. The issue has been my contention that science is a subset of religion, to which I got a common reply usually summarised as, "No way!" Well, way.

I would have written this up earlier, except that I was too tired, and fell asleep. Besides, there was the sneaking suspicion that such a simple argument must have been promulgated by some more powerful philosopher than I, and the other sneaking suspicion that I might have read it somewhere else and thus could no longer distinguish between what my formulation was and what someone else's was.

So I did due diligence and came up with a little entry by Plantinga in the online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Link to important section here.

Yep, it's as I remembered. "Naturalism is presumably not a religion. In one very important respect, however, it resembles religion: it can be said to perform the cognitive function of a religion."

Science as a cognitive endeavour claims to seek truth, but Darwin's concern (as expressed by Plantinga) goes this way:

What our minds are for (if anything) is not the production of true beliefs, but the production of adaptive behavior: that our species has survived and evolved at most guarantees that our behavior is adaptive; it does not guarantee or even make it likely that our belief-producing processes are for the most part reliable, or that our beliefs are for the most part true. That is because our behavior could perfectly well be adaptive, but our beliefs false as often as true.

Darwin himself apparently worried about this question: "With me," says Darwin, "the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (Darwin, 1887)

This is the issue of faith that underpins science as a religion. We have to be somewhat Cartesian, without knowing whether this is reliable; it is reliable only because we think it is — it is our thought that assesses our thought.

Naturalism (whether Dawkinsian or any other kind) thus militates against knowing whether science is truth or not. Eventually, scientism is forced to say things like, "Well, your computer works, so we know science is useful." Well, yes. In other words, the issue of faith is lost in works, just as it often is in religion.

What is a Religion?

When dealing with students from a particular kind of institution, I often find that they have the same woolly or imprecise ideas about religion. For example, if they're from a parochial Christian school, they all think that a discussion of religion begins with their own peculiar subsect(ion) of Christianity.

But religion is easy to define more accurately, by anchoring the definition around four points. This has the virtue of coupling accuracy with precision; we can now say what a religion is, and what exactly makes it so.

A religion requires at least four elements:

1. A belief in the supernatural; that is, things which to some extent cannot be examined using the natural sciences. Whether such things can exist is debateable, but one could place abstracts (such as justice, love or peace) in this category on the basis of empiricism.
2. A belief that the supernatural can somehow interact with the natural, even though the natural cannot interrogate the supernatural.
3. A belief that this supernatural interaction has necessary consequences on human behaviour. This would define elements of human morality.
4. A belief that these moral consequences can be usefully codified as a guideline for human behaviour.

Without any one of these four belief elements, a construct purporting to be a religion cannot be one.

A religion, therefore, is based on a set of practical behaviours and attitudes centred around the detailed working-out of these four beliefs. When such a set is recognisable as such, and can be effectively transmitted as a reasonably similar package from one person to another, a religion has been established.

A religion is therefore the product of a) these four beliefs, b) the details of these beliefs, c) the construction of a behavioural construct demonstrating these beliefs, d) the self-recognised consistency of this construct, and e) the effective propagation of this construct. If one of these fails, the religion becomes defunct.

Now, a word on faith. Faith is belief without a necessary sufficiency of evidence. Since belief in the supernatural is a criterion for a religion, and the supernatural is by definition not admissible as evidence in any arena of discussion based on the natural, all religions are faith-based. What is not so obvious is that many other human knowledge endeavours are faith-based too, but we do not make that as clear as when we are discussing religion.

We also try to reduce the amount of faith required in many of these other areas of human experience, except perhaps in the aesthetic disciplines. Religious morality and behaviour is thus very much close kin to aesthetics. Theology, on the other hand, is the religious equivalent of mathematics. See this post for elaboration.

Faith as a Basis for Scientific Knowledge

Thomas Huxley, who strongly supported Darwin's cause in the 19th century, had this to say about science:-

The one act of faith in the convert to science is:
the confession of the universality of order
and of the absolute validity,
in all times and under all circumstances,
of the law of causation.
This confession is an act of faith
because by the nature of the case
the truth of such propositions
is not susceptible of proof.

For those who have ever wondered if science and faith are opposed, this statement should set such fears at rest. Faith, by definition, is the acceptance of belief despite the fact that complete evidence is lacking and proof is unobtainable. It underpins all things, but some things more than others. And yet, if it underpins anything, that thing is based on faith.

It should be noted that Huxley continued by saying that this particular faith was 'not blind, but reasonable; because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the sole trustworthy foundation for all action.' This statement, I leave to my readers to evaluate.

The Law as a Subset of Faith

After many posts on the shortcomings of science as scientia, by which we seem to mean neither sophia nor gnosis, I find myself digging once again in the old texts which form my personal foundations of meditation and philosophy. Indeed, I'm looking again at what some call the New Testament, but which is properly the final summation of an argument called the Old Testament.

The remarkable thing about the New Testament's epistles is that they are good examples of sound Greek reasoning, mostly, with a liberal compounding of Hebrew normative jurisprudence. What should the law be? What must we understand it to be, so that it has meaning? Let us use Greek logic to find out. And so on.

And so, we are told that living by the Law is a prison, and that he who lives only by Law will die by it, in total condemnation. This is true, I think of anyone who claims he lives entirely by science and scientific principles.

I once conducted an experiment in which I tried to emulate some sort of hypothalamic pause. That is, I attempted to use nothing but reason in my responses to my environment, while at the same time attempting to monitor what I was doing. The interesting thing was that I couldn't avoid being subjective, and there was no way to approach any form of Russellian rationality without feeling subcompetent.

I don't think it is possible for most people, without making them hypocrites. I suspect it is not possible for anyone. We are bound to be irrational, or perhaps hyperrational. I contend, while being unable to prove it, that all humans must live by faith, and that the assertion that one is not living by faith is falsehood.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that my years as a science teacher have allowed me to more clearly sketch the boundary at which science must fail. It fails whenever we are forced to be rational while still being ourselves. It's OK when solving a problem of language, symbols, objects, processes (etc, etc) that is outside ourselves; it is a complete failure when it comes to life.

I have met many rationalists (both theistic and not) who claim that the universe itself is sufficient to provoke a sense of wonder. Well, good. But one wonders why there should be any such sense.

The scientific rationalist answer is that there isn't any such 'sense'; it is merely a repurposed function of certain neurochemical behaviours which used to have (or may yet have) survival value in the long slog of evolutionary development. Good, then. But I think to myself about these people: I bet you felt good giving that as a response. And you can't help feeling something, can you? And in the end, you cannot establish any purpose for all those feelings without having to make assertions based on faith...

Science, you see, is like shining a bright flashlight in a dark room so that you can figure out what you are bumping into. But as we light up our universe, we realise that we don't understand how come the light works, and we don't know why there is a room. And guess what: we have no chance of answering those two questions using the flashlight alone.

Three (Again!)

Recently, I've been meditating on the idea of threeness. The point about three is that it is the minimum number of points that will define a plane; it is the minimum number of points that when connected by straight lines on a plane will give a shape. Two is good, but three is difficult to break.

And so it comes to pass that I think of threeness. I think of faith, hope and love, and how Paul (that arch-crafter of philosophical epistles) manages to squeeze them into the first epistle to the church at Thessalonica: "Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope..."

Some of this will seem boringly familiar to some of you. Indeed, I've mused about these three virtues before, and even with a reversed perspective of sorts here.

But some of you might be appalled or made uneasy or amused by the fact that some nights, as I sit and sip my Bordeaux (of whatever vintage, some better than others), I think of all the people I've taught and who have taught me. I think of my first teachers — my parents and grandparents, and my last students (and I think, O God, please may I continue to have more).

And as I think of all of these people, I remember what Paul (and his fellow workers Silvanus and Timothy) remembered without ceasing: the work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope that others have shown in exemplary manner. And the night gives way to dawn.

Responses 008 (2011-2012)

The eighth question in the list is one of those questions which elicit a sort of shrug, that odd gesture which some say is peculiarly Gallic. It requests the candidate to do something unusual: "Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of using faith as a basis for knowledge in religion and in one area of knowledge from the ToK diagram."

To do that, of course, one needs to begin by defining 'faith' and its relationship to 'ways of knowing'. The best way to do this is to point out that faith is conclusive belief without adequate evidence — if there were adequate evidence, that would be reason, not faith.

In other words, faith as a basis for knowledge allows us to decide what knowledge is without having sufficient evidence for definitive proof. This already sounds spurious. But it isn't. In fact, mathematics and theology are very similar disciplines. That's because they both rely on leaps of faith such as a belief in axioms, which by definition are assertions of truth without proof.

This means that a careful inspection of all areas of knowledge shows that there is always a gap at the base. We can reason all we like from basic principles, but basic principles have nothing supporting them except faith, whether this is by nature emotional, empirical, or anything else.

But how then to evaluate 'strengths and weaknesses'? Simply put, a candidate must put forward a variety of arguments such as those which attempt to show how faith is an asset in convincing people of the validity of knowledge in various disciplines. How much has to be taken on faith? Does it make the knowledge more accessible? More reliable? Easier to swallow? And so on.

It may prove, on analysis, that certain strengths are also weaknesses. In religion, faith allows humans to reconcile principles that seem beyond understanding; it bridges logical gaps or gaps in perception, and enables acceptance of things that seem beyond comprehension. This can be seen as a weakness from outside the religious paradigm; a science-based paradigm would scoff at the lack of replicable evidence and so on. But it should also be noted that a science-based paradigm is itself based on faith that the universe has governing principles, and is not just a scattershot series of data points linked by our need to find patterns.

That difference is what gives religion the tendency to seek firm principles and stick to them even in the face of what appears to be contrary evidence. Science, on the other hand, seeks similar firmness of principle but is sceptical enough to change its principles when the evidence seems to show something different.

Which is strength, and which is weakness? That is what you must decide. And of course, you don't have to use the sciences as your choice of area of knowledge. The other choices are literature, language, individuals and societies, mathematics, and aesthetics.

The Big Questions

Yesterday evening, I spent an hour in a teaching session. The session was about why the scientific paradigm is epistemologically supreme in modern society — it is trusted to meet needs reliably and to give a reproducible advantage to its wielders. It was also about the questions that science can and cannot answer, based on what it says about itself.

And so I found myself, last night, reading Psalm 77. The 77th Psalm is one of the psalms of Asaph, a curious blend of whiny pleading, triumphal worship, sweeping rhetoric and peculiar logic. (But because this is poetry, and not theology, we have to forgive him.)

This psalm has, in its middle, a list of big questions, all on the list of things science cannot answer. Here is that list:

• Will the Lord reject forever?
• Will he never show his favour again?
• Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
• Has his promise failed for all time?
• Has God forgotten to be merciful?
• Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Yes, it's quite a list. How are those questions to be answered?

Asaph goes to the historical paradigm for that. He asks the question, "Is there evidence for or against these things being likely, based on past performances?" He finds reassurance in the historical record. And he penultimately concludes, "Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen."

It is an affirmation of God's logical position in the universe. In order to give space for the exercise of some freedom of will, and to allow for the question of faith, his footprints cannot be seen even though his paths are visible to all.

Philosophy and the Problem of Computers

The philosopher Gordon Clark once said, "If a truth, a proposition, or a thought were some physical motion in the brain, no two persons could have the same thought. A physical motion is a fleeting event numerically distinct from every other. Two persons cannot have the same motion, nor can one person have it twice. If this is what thought were, memory and communication would be impossible…It is a peculiarity of mind and not of body that the past can be made present. Accordingly, if one may thing the same thought twice, truth must be mental or spiritual. Not only does [truth] defy time; it defies space as well, for if communication is to be possible, the identical truth must be in two minds at once. If, in opposition, anyone wished to deny that an immaterial idea can exist in two minds at once, his denial must be conceived to exist in his own mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it."

But every single one of his assertions is nullified by the existence of computers. Two computers can indeed have the same thought, or one so similar in each machine that it defies differentiation to all intents and purposes. Two computers can have the same motion, and each of them can replicate that state indefinitely. Memory and communication obviously remain possible, as do immaterial ideas that exist in two (or more) minds at once. In fact, this post, if considered an immaterial idea, will soon register on many different servers in many different places, all at once.

The Clark quotation can be found in Ronald Nash's 1994 book, Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith, in which Nash states a six-point defence of truth. A quick reading of this tome, followed by a quick re-reading of other related issues, convinces me that almost all philosophers have a blind spot which has to do with their audience. Essentially, philosophers are writing for a human audience, and so their thoughts are limited to what humans can understand, evaluate, or otherwise process. This can still be pretty strong, sometimes, since you can convert many such arguments into symbols and have a computer evaluate them.

The problems begin to surface when you substitute the implicit or explicit human audience with an audience of computers. You might not be able to duplicate, clone, or replace chunks of memory perfectly in a human — but you can do this with computers. In theory (well, information theory, anyway), you can do many more things with computers reliably than with humans, when it comes to information. The only escape is to assert that a computer doesn't think and hence cannot be used to answer philosophical questions about mind and God, while asserting that this 'idiot-savant non-thinking data-processing' ability is different for humans.

That, however, is a point not of philosophy, but of faith. I have no problem thinking of this as an article of faith, but I think it is dishonest to sell it as a premise on which to base rigorous systems of philosophy.

Little Bits

Today I was paying excruciating attention to my pasta. The word 'excruciating' of course hints at the agony of being crucified; crux is 'cross' in Latin. In this case, I was crosseyed by the delightful hotness of the real chillies I found in my screws (well, fusilli if you prefer). I don't normally get crosseyed like that, but it happens when chilli which is hot and yet tolerable in itself gets into the back of your throat and up your nose instead of down towards the gut.

It took a lot of effort not to ejaculate ('launch forward', from Latin iaculator — '(javelin/spear) thrower') through my contrary nostrils. Fortunately, I have large nostrils and can therefore vent pressure easily.

The thing about all this is that, in life, it's the small things which really matter. A chilli seed, a grain of gunpowder, grit in a gear-train, stuff like that. Big things matter only because small things do. The small things of the world confound the great.

So I looked closely at my pasta, at the thinly shaved parmesan, the small and very hot chillies, the flakes of dried Italian seasoning. And all at once, I felt that yes, one should have faith in small things; without faithfulness in the small things, where is the faithfulness in large?

Faith is Weak

It was not always that way. As Matthew Arnold once wrote, the Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full. But since then has come the Enlightenment and the rewriting of the histories and lives of men.

In the past, you could believe. These days, belief is so weak that you need proof, without which you cannot believe. These days, faith is so weak that you need signs. I watch my fellow journeymen, my fellow Christians, and I realise that our common danger is that we are either Judaists or Graeco-Roman philosophers, just as is implied in this passage.

The key verses from the first epistle to the Corinthians read:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom — but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

This is it. The Judaists require signs to establish faith; the Greeks require philosophy (sophia means 'wisdom') — but the Christian faith in its strength needs neither. There is no need for proof; only defence of belief and reliability of witness.

To the material world, which I sometimes spend time debating, I have one main argument: how do you know what you know? The answer normally is either given in terms of signs (sensory perception, data) or by sophistry and logic. But none of these is reliable except by itself; it is reason that makes us trust reason, and our senses that lead us to trust our senses. All these things are circular in nature.

But I assert that which I believe: that though I am doomed in my sins, I am saved by God through no inherent virtue of my own. At which point, the materialist says, "You make this assertion, you have to prove it." And I reply, "No, I need not prove it except to convince you. And only the Spirit of God can do that. I need not prove it to myself, because flawed as I am, I believe."

The materialist says, "Your God is inconsistent, he defies logic." My answer is, "If He were consistent, then He could not be God." But isn't consistency a virtue? Isn't it true that God says He is the same always? No, He never says He is logically consistent; He is always the same but He is never quite perceivable as the same, being infinite.

How else would an infinite deity behave? Any of the proofs a materialist might demand would immediately make a not-God. Any limitation on His morality, His powers, His behaviour, His reason, this would make Him the slave of the material.

And so, I rest in a faith that is stronger than I. My own faith does not avail, for I am a scientist, a teacher, a philosopher, a person who must learn to put all that aside for this most important single matter. Then only, can I believe.

Anchorage

Today my father's sister's husband died. To me he was a shepherd, one of few, always a rock and a pillar around which I clung as a child when in need of consolation. For he always attempted to be cheerful, and yet he was always firm about what ought to be, and what ought not to be; to a child, these are powerful things. He too was a teacher, in many ways and to many people.

I am persuaded that he — like a great ship of war in times of war, a great ship of trade in times of peace — has come to anchor at last in a safe and secure harbour. It was a harbour he had always sought, like a pilot seeks the light of port, whether in tower or lighthouse or burning beacon of flame. In the epistle to the Hebrews it is said, "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast — and which (the soul) enters into that (hope) within the veil."

I think of bagpipes and comfort, I think of the shepherd who enters into the shepherd's rest, I think of how good it was to see him last, and as a Christian, how good it will be to see him again. Goodbye uncle, not only adieu, but au revoir. For that is the hope in which we live.

The first hymn I thought of is the one I shall reproduce below, in memory of my uncle's life:

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift and the cables strain,
Will your anchor drift, or firm remain?

Refrain:
    We have an anchor that keeps the soul
    Steadfast and sure while the billows roll,
    Fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
    Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.

It is safely moored, ’twill the storm withstand,
For ’tis well secured by the Saviour’s hand;
And the cables, passed from His heart to mine,
Can defy that blast, thro’ strength divine.

Refrain

It will surely hold in the Straits of Fear—
When the breakers have told that the reef is near;
Though the tempest rave and the wild winds blow,
Not an angry wave shall our bark o’erflow.

Refrain

It will firmly hold in the Floods of Death—
When the waters cold chill our latest breath,
On the rising tide it can never fail,
While our hopes abide within the Veil.

Refrain

When our eyes behold through the gath’ring night
The city of gold, our harbour bright,
We shall anchor fast by the heav’nly shore,
With the storms all past forevermore.

Refrain

(Words by P J Owens, 1882)

Yearning

Recently I found myself in a discussion about that peculiar emotion known as 'yearning'. Someone said that yearning does not by itself prove that the thing yearned for exists. Someone else said that if a thing existed, we might yearn for it. For me, I've come to realise that sometimes we take our yearnings and we make a mental image of what it is that we yearn for.

One of the well-known, and to my mind somewhat spurious, arguments for the existence of God is that there seems to be a yearning for something higher and better than us. That is why, the argument goes, we invent gods. It's a ridiculous argument, because it's possible to yearn for stuff no one else has ever yearned for, and it's possible to have a yearning you cannot describe, and it's possible to claim that you have a yearning and never describe it the same way. And these are just three reasons why it's a ridiculous argument.

It's also possible to claim that when you meet something that satisfies you, you might realise that it is the object of your indescribable yearnings. Well, that's like saying you have no statement of hypothesis, you gather some experimental data, and amazingly the data supports the hypothesis that you didn't state.

Frankly, I believe that you can yearn for God, but I don't think it is proof of His existence. In fact, as I have argued elsewhere, the main reason why you shouldn't indulge in arguments aimed at proof or disproof of God's existence is that God actually cannot objectively prove His existence within the strictures that He has created for himself.

I've expounded on this elsewhere. Briefly, one problem is that if God exists, it wouldn't be possible to have an objective proof related to him; another problem is that a comprehensive proof of His existence would render free will (as we conceive of it) and meaningful faith impossible; a third problem is that it isn't possible to prove the extent of the superset from the subset without common rules that bind both. There are even more problems than that.

Nevertheless, I will honestly say that for me, belief in God gives me a meaningful existence. Some will say that's very sad, and some will say that's very good. For me, it's just very true. I don't really feel yearning, what I feel is impatience to complete the examination that is this life, and move on to the postdoctoral stage.

Tidal Forces

The Sea is always receding. It was Matthew Arnold who moaned about the Sea of Faith that once was full and isn't anymore. But I've realised that it's not a closed system. The tide is moving out, as it always is. But other things are coming in, and faith is always there.

It's literally true that humans need faith in order to believe in anything. In fact, the harder the forces of reason push, the more logic tells us faith should thrive.

Why?

It's simple. Faith is belief in the absence of sufficient evidence. Since the level of evidence required is getting more stringent, it is harder to obtain 'sufficient' evidence. The evidentiary requirements for discovering a new element, for example, were never met when establishing the nature of 'ancient' elements such as iron and tin. In fact, quite a lot of things we have come to believe based on past evidence would no longer meet modern standards.

This means that the number of things justified by modern standards of evidence is actually falling. The tide is going out, but that's because the Sea of Reason is drying up, trying desperately to reduce itself to Grand Unified Theories and suchlike.

A Need to Believe

People need to believe that order can be glimpsed in the chaos of events, begins one infamous question discussed elsewhere in this blog. At a time like this, with a pandemic starting and the concurrent panic setting in, it's a pretty relevant statement.

Already, I've got people telling me it is a sign of the end, of the apocalypse, of anthropogenic catastrophe. Meanwhile, people track disease vectors, do the biochemistry and virology, figure out solutions. Other people blame high pig-farming density, leading to a faster rate of viral mutation. Everyone has become slightly hypochondriac; then again, maybe they're really ill.

It's easier to believe that things are knowable and hence controllable or predictable. If I were to assert that this is really all random, and that viruses only appear to spread by obvious means such as respiratory droplets (e.g. sneezing and coughing in crowded places) but actually are spread by random and unpredictable plague daemons, then I'd be pilloried as some sort of heretic by most people. Which is odd, of course, because science admits no religion and hence no heresies.

The bottom line is that science is the faith that is most rational in terms of its apparent capacity to predict the course of events in the world around us, past, present and future. It's the predictive capacity that's important. Without that, scientists are merely like children who observe a spattering of paint and see the image of Isaac Newton's death mask in it. But to predict successfully that the next spattering will show Charles Darwin, ah, that is science (or at least, very advanced sorcery).

I've always respected the late Arthur C Clarke as a philosopher of science. Two of his most profound ideas are these: a) sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic; b) intelligence has not been shown to have any survival value. The corollary to the first is of course that sufficiently basic magic should be indistinguishable from science; to the second, that the capacity to analyse, rationalise and predict events will not save us from the final consequences of those events.

The thing is that at some point, we all have faith. The question, "What do you believe is true though you cannot prove it?" drew many wonderful responses from leading scientists and skeptics. It also generated much debate. You will find that most of the deepest underpinnings of modern rationalist thought fall heavily into this category, and the strongest champions of modern rationalism have had no choice (being rational) but to admit it.

The funny thing is that you need faith to believe in reason; you do not need reason to believe in faith. Which is dependent and which is independent? Food for thought, in times like this and at all times.

Adventure

The sense of the word 'adventure' has changed over the years. Originally meaning 'the prospect of something about to happen', it became 'the chance of something happening', and then 'hazarding or risking the future'. It slowly mutated into 'a perilous undertaking' (around 1314!) and then 'a novel or exciting incident' (around 1570!) before becoming what it is today, a literary genre, a detour that brings entertainment to our boring lives.

It's the same thing with the word 'emergency'. Originally meaning 'something rising (from a liquid medium)' and related to 'submerge' (to place below the surface of a liquid) and 'merge' (to blend into a liquid), it became 'something happening in a fluid situation' ('emergent' appears around 1450) and then 'an unforeseen occurrence'. Now it connotes disaster and danger, having blended in our minds with 'urgency'.

But looking forward and backward, as a social historian is wont to do, one sees things sometimes a little differently. Whether or not you believe in the theological claims of Jesus Christ, something emerged about 2000 years ago. Its advent was apparently prophesied, and at the very least it was keenly anticipated. Out of Bethlehem, that phenomenon would come to change the world.

Such change phenomena always have their detractors. But the change they inspire is incontrovertible. The reason that many have come to suspect others of thinking that President-elect Obama is like a messiah is a simple one. He has campaigned on a message of 'change that you can believe in' and 'the audacity of hope'. It is a timeless message, and one that appeals to all kinds of humans. Not all who believe are uncritical, swept up by the audacity of hopeful change. Many see the possibilities of the adventure, and are glad that it has come in their time.

Me, I'm just looking forward to seeing people this December who I've not seen for a while. I wonder what it's like for those who are not coming home, and those who are coming home after their first extended period of being away from home. I wonder about those who have no homes to return too. I wonder as I wander.

In Fide Fiducia

Many years ago, I had the great good fortune (as has been mentioned elsewhere) to spend some time at a great school, at which I learnt many things. The school is a Methodist institution founded at the end of the 19th century. Like many schools of its kind, it is forward-looking and right next to one of the greatest universities in the world. On the school's crest is a wyvern statant (i.e. firmly planted and facing the right of the shield, which is the viewer's left). I left the school with many fond memories and a healthy respect for its motto. To this day, the school keeps in touch by sending me newsletters, and also provides the means by which I can update my CV for the school alumni yearbook.

That school is of course The Leys School, founded in 1875 and found on Trumpington Street in Cambridge, England. I have mentioned it before. Its motto, which is the title of this post, is In Fide Fiducia, which means "In Faith, (there is) Trust", or colloquially perhaps, "In Faith, Believing".

That motto has had a profound influence on me. It reminds me that the establishment of faith is the most important thing in chronological sequence; only if there is faith in something can there be hope in anything, and only if there is hope does the heart begin to believe in love. Of course, I Corinthians 13 says these three abide, but the greatest of them is love. This is true, but it does not change the sequence of human experience.

Difficult Passages

I love this phrase: it characterizes many parts of my life.

The first 'difficult passage' in my life must have been my birth. This, fortunately, leaves me with little sense of guilt because my mother maintains that I was an easy birth (no, not an easy lay; my mother is not a hen) and that I "wanted to come out and look around". She was well pleased, as most people think the first birth is the most difficult. But that, I suppose, was not really that difficult a passage to her; it was a difficult passage to me and I am glad I remember none of it.

My mother, however, delights in telling the story of my midnight birth, at which the doctor delivered me and (as was then traditional) was about to whack me on the bum in order to start my breathing. According to her account, I twisted around, looked him in the eye as if to say, "Nothing doing, buster!" and shocked him into almost dropping me. I am sure there is a lot of exaggeration there, but I'm not sure where.

The second kind of difficult passage is the familial trait of spending too much time reading and thinking and thus developing a bad case of the piles, those dreadlocks of the annulus with the spiffy Greek label of 'haemorrhoids'. I am not so unfortunate, but I have had moments of near-misses. (Yes, I am conscious, dear reader, that this post so far has been nothing but an exploration of the nether regions and the odd problems that flesh-and-blood is heir to.)

The third kind of difficult passage is the kind of passage you find in a text which leads you to believe that people are selling you a load of codswallop wrapped up in a tender sheath of baloney. I remember the time I came across this passage in the Bible, in which the hosts of heaven are gathered to the left and right of God. God asks for one of them to volunteer to deceive Ahab into going to his death, and they discuss it. Finally, one brave (and unnamed) spirit of the Host volunteers to be a lying spirit in God's service. God says, "You will persuade him, and prevail; go forth and do so."

That's when I realised that the sons of men are not supposed to bear false witness, but God may do what He wants because he is God. We are told to accept both good and evil from him, but there is no darkness in him. Neither is He a man that He should lie: the answer is given in the form of Balaam's question, which is ambiguous to say the least. The point of all this, which I believe most bible scholars miss, is that the lesson of the Book of Job is the most important lesson. God is never constrained. He has no rules that make any sense; who would set rules for God? You either trust human sense and logic (or faith, or wisdom, or whatever) or you accept that He gave you some rules and never set any for HImself.

The first kind of difficult passage gave me life; the third kind gave me a deeper kind of life. The point of all that stuff is that God has never made it easy; in fact, the easier it looks, the tougher it gets. Those people out there who are happy to receive material wealth and call it the blessing of God are right; but they must also realise it is the poorest blessing of God. Those who receive wisdom and power, likewise. The best gift is the gift of being able to accept that God is God, and every man who says more is a liar.

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Yeah, I realise that some people out there will take offence. But what is beyond doubt is that God allows us to be deceived. In fact, in at least two cases, He allows angelic beings to tempt humans into self-delusion or self-deception. Job wins by sheer stubbornness, Ahab loses by the same but in the wrong direction. No, God never lies. But He certainly makes use of deceivers and other villains: Moses the murderer, Jacob the deceiver, Abraham the Machiavellian warlord, the list is a long one. God is not one for the Pharisees much, He is the God of you and me, the painfully and morally 'normal' members of the human race.

Faithlessness

Sometimes I think that faith has lost its meaning in the world. It used to be that faith was about making the daring assertion, in the absence of complete data, that things would turn out right in the long run. It has been supplanted in many places by the deliberate belief that 'things will turn out right for me' or that 'things will turn out the way I want it' or that 'everything will suit my idea of good' or that 'everything that happens is a good thing'. I've seen the phrase, 'people of faith', used to describe people who believe in some codified supernatural concept of any kind.

All these beliefs are not necessarily true, and the more general ones may actually be meaningless in a theological sense – 'theological' here meaning 'derived from arguments logically consistent with the corpus of the individual's beliefs'. Even that one assumes that the individual's beliefs are consistent and not arbitrary, something like economic theory but on steroids.

So from what I can see, a lot of people are lacking in faith without knowing it; some are lacking in faith because they think they have it but haven't. A lot of people do have faith but haven't got round to articulating it clearly for themselves. And some have just 'bought a package' and assume it will be fine.

Me, I think that if those of the Christian persuasion read St Paul's Letter to the Hebrews, it tends to clear things up a bit. It's just like reading Matthew 10 and then thinking about the 'Great Commission'.

Psalm 125: The Audacity Of Faith

Anyone interested in Senator Barack Obama's campaign for the White House in 2008 would probably have read his book, The Audacity of Hope. In it, the Senator speaks about what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy and having to cope with perilous issues such as religious orthodoxy and political expediency. He concludes that in many areas, Americans have no choice but to admit a freer and broader discourse at a personal level – and then elevate this discourse to a higher level without rancour.

This is always going to be hard for some people to take. As I was reading Psalm 125 yesterday, I could see only too easily how an abiding faith might possibly turn into the stubbornness of faith, rather than the audacity of hope.

They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.
For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.
Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.
As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

To me, it has always been of near-paramount interest and wonder that the name 'Israel' means 'he who wrestles (or contends) with God'. To have a nation rooted in an abiding faith that one has been granted the right, as Jacob was, to contend with the Almighty, is to have a unique status indeed. It is a status that needs the countervailing weight of even more graciousness and humility than usual.