Reading:
“At
the most obvious level it [the method of Descartes] has created a prejudice in
favor of doubt over faith. The phrases “blind faith” and
“honest doubt” have become the most common of currency. Both faith
and doubt can be honest or blind, but one does not hear of
“blind doubt” or of “honest faith.” Yet the fashion of thought which
gives priority to doubt over faith in the whole adventure of knowing
is absurd. Both faith and doubt are necessary elements of this
adventure. One does not learn anything except by believing something, and –
conversely – if one doubts everything one learns nothing. On the
other hand, believing everything uncritically is the road to disaster. The
faculty of doubt is essential. But as i have argued,
rational doubt always rests on faith an not visa-versa.”
Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence, p. 24
As I was driving my two daughters to school this morning, I
was asking them about our theme for Tuesdays at the chapel: an event or a book that has changed your
life.
I was most interested in which they would choose. When my 16 year old looked at my 11 year old
and said, “You really haven’t had much of a chance to have your life changed at
age 11!”
Which, of course, is a statement about her particular life,
rather than the age. Because we all know
many young people who have had their lives radically changed by the age of
11…for good and ill.
But, choosing one event of book that has changed your life
is like being told that you must select one of your children (we have
four: 2 boys and 2 girls) to be your
favorite!
But, I will attempt to clear a bit of space for one event
that had impact beyond what I might have expected.
AN UNEXPECTED
QUESTION
As I sat in my Senior Seminar for History finishing
assignments with a sense of obligation and routine to fulfill a graduation
requirement the professor revealed the final paper for assessment. We were to read Maus I and Maus II by Art
Spiegelman and answer this question: “Is
this good history?”
This work was neither a primary source, nor a detached
attempt at recounting historical events from an objective distance. It was not so much written as it was
illustrated by the son, a cartoonist, of a Holocaust survivor. How do you determine the historicity of a
first-hand account? How do you dismiss
one person’s experience of tragedy and suffering?
I had been taught that good history was distant, objective,
primary-source driven, with language analysis and synthesis. Recounting the events, the action, the moves,
places, times and motives to as close to 0 degree of variances as possible was
what good history was about.
AN UNEXPECTED
INFLUENCE
After an idea takes some currency in popular language, it
can have a diminishing return on effective use.
Currently, I would say that the question opened to the door to
post-modern thinking, or questioning might be more accurate. I do not use the term “post-modern” as an
all-encompassing term that may have lost some weight, but as a specific move
from the pursuit of certainty to doubting it’s attainability.
I found myself pushed toward two polarities of thinking:
1.
Certainty – Historicity was about removing the
unknown.
2.
Skepticism – Historicity was about questioning
who gets to write history
This tension forced
faith into action.
FAITH: BETWEEN CERTAINTY AND SKEPTICISM
I had practiced faith most of my life without every calling
it “faith”, or at least not in a religious sense.
I imagined all of life lived in polarity between certainty
and skepticism, but it was human relationships that seemed to thrive, breath
and have the most life when lived in faith.
I could not imagine living all of life seeking certainty
with people. Nor, could I imagine the
experience of happiness or joy living with chronic skepticism of all people.
Faith was already
something very real in my mode of operation on a daily basis.
Faith became a way of life that I named and embraced.
Faith is alive at a place like MIT as well. We do not get far in our learning without
some faith…moving forward without certainty, not paralyzed by chronic
skepticism. We do not go far in our
community or our care to solve problems without living in some sense of faith
with people. I do not know anyone who
lives with full embrace of certainty or in the way of complete skepticism. We cannot live there together.
Even MIT is a place of faith.
Do Not Worry
“Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look
at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than
they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your
life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field
grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even
Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If
that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and
tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of
little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or
‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run
after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But
seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Reading: The Gospel of Matthew 6:19-34
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Timothy Hawkins, Sojourn Collegiate Ministry
