Proving what is more real than reality itself - Part I

Another year, another convention. I would personally like to thank all the people who organise events such as these. It can be a thankless task and the organisers have done a wonderful job.

The topic of this year convention - reasonable doubt; is an intriguing convention theme. It presents a relevant subject at the forefront of daily experience, well and good so far. However, we cannot approach this subject as if it is the product of natural human enquiry. In so doing we succumb to a false popular understanding of human psychology. It brings us down to a level where the response we offer is not authentically Orthodox. Simply, rationality is not just an evolutionary attribute of human nature, it is the Word (Logos - or Logic) of God; Jesus Christ.

It is our hope that we (the image of God) in rationality can grow into the likeness of God (rational) by dialogue with the one who is rational (Jesus Christ). We affirm present and real ways to know God knit into human nature itself. The rationalist/materialist definition breaks down what it is to be human. So being human is more than just being a brain and body.

So what do we mean by these terms?

In Protestantism the basis for faith stems from rationalist roots. Many fail to understand that tradition is the basis for faith not rationalism. Atheists simply take this error to a terrible extreme.

All of this is alien to Orthodoxy. The veracity of what we do comes from Apostolic witness and knowing Christ, revealed in worship and the sacramental life. Rationalism within Orthodox experience is to learn from the one Who is Rational, the Word of God, Jesus Christ. In this context rationalism serves as a necessary safeguard from corruptions to the Tradition from outside influences such as superstition and human ingenuity.

A good orthodox scholar (Dr Clark Carlton) has taken time to discuss these issues:

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/carlton/raiders_of_the_lost_tomb
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/carlton/proof_of_the_resurrection
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/carlton/the_culture_of_disbelief
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/carlton/the_culture_of_disbelief_part_2

Make time to listen to these podcasts. They do a good job outlining both the issues and what an Orthodox response looks like.

Our secular societies challenge our Orthodoxy more than any persecution faced to date. The Church which withstood the era of martyrdom is being faced with the secular plague. The challenge we face now is from the push to remove religious thought from human life. The scary end product is that so much of humanity is living with our any religious consciousness. Approaching life without religion means replacing it with something else less wholesome. Pick up any school text book on physics or biology and there will be atheistic ideology being masked as science. Our education system has failed to be areligious, it is subversively anti-religious.

The secular and materialist slant in contemporary society is influencing many areas of human knowledge. For example, anthropology describes man as another creature surviving the evolutionary race. Literature reengineers human experience into little more than subjective matters of personal taste. Compare these thoughts to the creation story in Genesis the cornerstone of which is God's love for man. Likewise the story of salvation demonstrates how human goodness is rediscovered in the person of Jesus Christ. Scripture paints human life as teeming with significance and meaning lost on any reductionist inquirer.

Whether conscious or not our primitive attempts to explain the origin of the universe leads away from a true understanding of human nature. Being human is best described in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ and the witness and testimony of His saints. St Irenaeus wrote "the glory of God is a man fully alive". Lacking this perspective we miss how obvious and imminent God's presence is when we have the right experience.

Our concern is what if we're infected by absorbing the contemporary mindset in place of an Orthodox one. The best practical way to handle this influence is to be better acquainted with the life of the Church and the scriptures in particular. If we are to consume worldly knowledge we risk poisoning. We must be inoculated so we don't become sick afterwards. If we're grounded in tradition, our eyes will be open to the presence of God.

There is so much to be naturally revered in human life. Experience also demonstrates that this can be the basis for the start of a journey towards God. If we accept that God is the creator of the universe then our hearts are more open to repentance. We might look at the beauty of the stars or a scenic valley and being moved by its beauty consider how all this came to be. This natural sense of awe is both very human and essential in discovering God's presence. It also shows that the root of this knowledge is not actually rationalism at all, rather something much deeper is taking place which bypasses the intellect entirely. These things run deep into human consciousness, places where critical intellect cannot go.

There are terrible implications of reducing the universe to the sequence of random causality. We change the mysterious into something coincidental and the only question to ask is how it happened. We can only imagine what the conscience of such a person could become.

For the materialist the only real proof which we have to offer them is our own lives. They cannot find the presence of God in the excavated paleolithic bones they might be surprised when finding His existence in our character as Christians. Each time we don't conform to worldly trends we make a loud statement that perplexes the materialist. If we speak with honesty not deceit, avoid rowdy work functions and don't use foul language we set an abnormal example that people notice. It may move the conscience and we pray and hope, their hearts.

A beautiful response to much of what I have covered above is very eloquently explained by G.K. Chesterton in his book 'the Everlasting Man' which can be found in free audio format here:

http://www.archive.org/details/EverlastingMan

C.S. Lewis tackles the problem of this deconstruction of man in one of his great works - the abolition of man:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm

This will be a continued series in my blog leading up to an Orthodox response to these deep questions. I find that the rational responses which society demands are rather base. Not that we cannot answer, the framework set out fails to approach the heart of the matter.

Borrowed Identity

I posted this old article about Orthodoxy which I had almost forgotten about:

http://www.efmevi.net/issue/1/borrowed-identity

Enjoy!

4 Little Girls (1997)

Spike Lee's brilliant and moving documentary on the Birmingham bombing of the 16th Street baptist Church and the murder of 4 innocent Sunday school children is below.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3302971953362876297

Its hard to make much comment relating to things so moving; what I can say for certain is I am thankful that such lessons in human nature do exist and I hope that God would grant me to draw from them what is beneficial.