The Messenger - August 2008 - Doubt & Faith
By Fr. Gerry O'Hanlon, SJ - 01 August 2008
The Pope’s Intentions: This month the Pope asks us to pray ‘that the human family trust in God’s plan for the world, and come to respect that creation is a divine gift’.
You may remember the tsunami that struck south-east Asia after Christmas, 2004, killing thousands of people. I was in India shortly after that, and was struck by how people there spontaneously turned to God for help in their time of need.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland and elsewhere in the West, there was an outpouring of articles and comment expressing doubt about the existence of God. I was struck by the contrast. We in the West live increasingly in a secular atmosphere where even believers doubt. The Pope’s intention for this month - that we pray for trust in God’s plan for our world - is timely.
We are aware of the reasons for this atmosphere of doubt. Even at the best of times, believers have to face the mystery of evil and un-earned suffering in a world created by a good God. Job, many thousands of years ago, had to face that challenge. But in modern times, with the success of science and technology, the situation seems to be exacerbated. It’s as if many now feel that at last, men and women have grown up and there is no longer any need of the ‘fairy-tale’ belief in a good God that is a comfort to children only.
If only it were as simple as that. Instead we find that even science and technology, while they have indeed brought great progress, also bring great potential for evil. And after the World Wars of the last century, the ongoing threats from nuclear weapons, terrorism, and also from the environmental crisis, we realize that we are still faced, as adults, with the basic question about the meaning of life. This is the question which returns to haunt us, not least in our waking hours at night: What is life about? Is it all a game of chance? Is there any purpose to it?
To this basic question the Christian faith gives a clear answer. The Jews, through their experience of God’s saving action on their behalf, came to believe in the one God who is Lord both of history and of creation. Creation occurs, then, not just at the beginning of the world, but is ongoing: God holds us in being always, and God’s plan (providence) extends to every detail of our lives and to the Big Picture for all of us, including our end.
St Ignatius of Loyola speaks of ‘God working in our world’- and this is the sense that is conveyed by the Book of Genesis and the four following books, telling us of Israel’s Covenant or relationship with God, by the Psalms, the Prophets, the books of Wisdom which trace the signs of God’s presence in creation. A presence which, incidentally, advises us to be stewards of creation in a way that respects our environment and does not exploit it abusively.
All this is confirmed in an astounding way in the New Testament. Now God in Jesus, unimaginably, comes among us to show us that far from being a distant, impassive figure (e.g. Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover) S/He is with us intimately, passionately in love with us, that God in fact not just metaphorically but also literally ‘loves us to death’.
And it is this being with us out of love, this suffering and dying with us, with its climax in the resurrection that allows us to believe and hope that the Kingdom of God, God’s dream of justice and love for our world, is in fact already happening. It will be seen in its full realization at the end of history as we know it. It is a dream which requires our cooperation: St Ambrose says that each of us is the hand of Christ that continues to create and to do good.
This is our faith. It asks us to see the world and our lives in terms of gift, not in terms of stark autonomy. And we, who are created in ‘the image and likeness of God’, are invited with God’s help to develop this gift to that point of ‘fullness of life’ and love when all can, at the end, be returned in gratitude to the divine mystery of love that we call Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This faith-story need not in any way clash with a scientific approach to life, nor indeed with the proper autonomy due to economics, sociology, politics, all the other legitimate and necessary sources of knowledge in our world. There is full allowance for the reality of human knowledge and indeed freedom, evil and suffering, chance and accident - but all now plays out within the ambit of our good and loving God, who is wooing our terrible and beautiful world towards the home that had been prepared for us-
‘...Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.... (Hopkins).
We do not have all the answers in this our time of pilgrimage through our world. But as we rightly search for more knowledge and to make our world a better place, we are also right to do so in the trust that God is at work with us and that we can rely on this. And so we are right to take delight in the birdsong outside our window as God’s gift.
In Mark’s gospel Jesus heals a boy from what we are told is possession by a spirit, from an illness that is probably epilepsy. We in the West, including many of us who are believers, are affected by the spirit of secularism. The words of the boy’s father to Jesus are most apt in our context: ‘Lord, I believe: help my unbelief’ (Mk.9:25).