Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Lectionary: 280
My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.

Recently, as I drove to the hospital on a Sunday morning, I heard Christa Tippet being shouted down by a young scientist. He could barely contain his contempt for religion as he expounded his own (religious) belief in science. 

He finds his why in the how of things. The reason things are the way they are is their causes, and cause is the only meaning he recognizes. He thinks it’s wonderful that scientists can understand some things; and that they don’t understand others yet; and there seems no end of mystery in the world of causes and effects.

I had been reading only the day before Pope Benedict’s book, An Introduction to Christianity, and his history of facts. The word comes from the Latin root facere, meaning “to make,” as in facts, factory and manufacture. Facts are things we make. Against the Scholastic equation verum est ens (being is truth) Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) advanced his own formula, verum quia factum. That is to say, all that we can truly know is what we have made. 

Scientists are very good at making and compiling facts, and from them they build theories to create more facts. Although many facts are later disproved by better theories, it’s not unreasonable to hope one’s facts correspond with Truth, as a photo might agree with the face of a loved one.

But to believe in facts, or to put one’s faith in the process of creating them, is to walk on very thin ice. It’s like supposing the photo is your loved one. Some Christians invest heavily in the Shroud of Turin, for instance. It was for centuries revered as a sacred relic of Jesus' burial. In the 19th century a scientific instrument, a camera, revealed something mysterious about it. In the negative a clearer picture appeared. Perhaps it really is Jesus' burial shroud! Millions of tourist/pilgrims flock to see it. But if it’s ever proven that the shroud was woven in the Middle Ages, as seems likely, the faith of some Christians will be shaken.

Our faith is not built on facts, and we have no need to argue the “facts” about God. But, for the time being, we let the atheists shout their scientific facts against the fundamentalists. Both sides agree on a seriously flawed argument: that facts can say anything about the existence of God; and from there, something about God.
The mad scientist on Ms Tippet's show went on to say that, "Life is what you make it." If you're satisfied with what you made of yourself, you should be able to die happily. What more could you expect? Can there be any meaning, purpose or reason to human existence than what I make of it? 

In the same book, Cardinal Ratzinger speaks of the “little way” of Saint Theresa. He attests what priests see every day from our side of the altar; there are many saints in the world today. They are quietly following in the footprints of Jesus, without shouting or making their voices heard in the streets. They remain blissfully unaware of the highfalutin arguments of fact-makers and fact-checkers. They cling to their Shepherd for reassurance and guidance.
The day is rapidly approaching when even the high school dropout will lose faith in verum quia factum. (I've noticed that high school dropout philosophy is generally two centuries behind.) On that day we will celebrate the return of wisdom and the vindication of faith. And the whole world will see that Saint Therese's little way is streaming with sheep, for no one can snatch them from them his hand.