Faith without Empiricism
Of course empiricism is a threat to Christianity. Christianity makes certain claims about the world that are concrete and verifiable. I submit that these claims, the interesting ones, are not metaphysical but historical. It is no threat to Christianity that we cannot put original sin into a petri dish for further study, nor that, urban legends notwithstanding, the soul has defied our efforts to measure it.
Original sin is in some sense a metaphor or a shorthand for the knowledge we have that we do not measure up, that we know a better version of ourselves than we ever were, that late at night we sometimes have saudade of the selves we can never be.
The soul is in some sense a metaphor, or a shorthand, for the perception that we continue to be ourselves even though by now every cell in our bodies has been replaced four or five times, even though we have new obligations, new relationships, new experiences. That thing that remains, whatever it is, the thing that once tasted basil and now tastes vanilla and yet is the same thing.
And more than metaphor, these things are mysteries and miracles: particularly the persistence of the soul. The persistence of the soul is built into the resurrection of the body, but I know, and the first Christians knew, that the body dies, and is eaten upon by worms and plants. The persistence of the soul, and the resurrection of the body are miracles, and by definition I cannot give you a coherent metaphysics that includes miracles.
No, the miracles are safe with me. The danger to Christianity is in the facts. That on a date certain there was born a man, Pontius Pilate. That an innocent man was put to death outside Jerusalem. If, for instance, there were never any such place as Jerusalem, that would do more to harm Christianity than if you could not measure the soul. That God became man is a doctrine; that unto us a child was born is a fact.
I think we want it both ways: we want empiricism when the facts are with us, and doctrine when they are not. We want to say, “these are the facts” on the one hand, and “it doesn’t matter the facts: this is what I believe” on the other. But the doctrine is subject to a second-order empiricism as well. Whether I believe something is a fact: it is something about which predictions can be made. It is something about which psychology can speak.
To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist. — Cardinal Suhard
We should be terrified of the predictions that can be made about us when we claim that we believe the doctrines. We should be terrified when we say, in the safety of our houses, that we believe God became man and walked the earth, that He never owned property, that He ate with prostitutes and walked among the lepers. That when He lived as a man, He was a man worthy of emulation. We should take care to consider the last time that we ate with prostitutes or walked with lepers.
If you say, “I believe that the lives of children are stolen away by hungry demons,” then, when your child becomes sick, we will expect you to sacrifice a chicken to appease the demons. The fact of your belief is testable, even though the substance of your belief is not.
We should be terrified that the data on us will show that we do not, in fact, believe what we claim to believe.
gauche
13 Jun 10
