A Family Discussion About Faith

                                                   

Unfortunately, the intellectual superiority that Jesus displays in his exchanges with the Pharisee does not reflect the dynamics that take place today in the debates between atheists and people of faith. They argue about the existence of a Creator, so we shouldn’t be surprised. The theologian Paul Tillich said:

“Anyone who gets into a debate about the existence of God has stacked the cards in favor of the atheist.”

 “Existence” is a word we can comprehend, for it refers to reality, whereas we can’t figure out God. The two words are forced in the same sentence all the time, but they don’t belong together.

My husband, as I see it, is a believer at heart and an atheist intellectually, so he can function as a bridge between our son and I.

“Have you ever heard of the Aeropagite?” he asked to our contemptuous son. He was a mysterious ancient mystic who, in his attempt to define God, made use of what has been known by the philosophical tradition as the ‘ via negativa’. According to him, no attributes as we know them could be true of God, including the attribute of existence. Therefore, in a very mystical sense, God does not even exists. By this he probably meant that human mind cannot grasp anything concerning God, who is above and beyond our cognitive sphere.”

“He certainly is,” I said, “but what people of faith hold on to is the religious experience, which of course cannot be grasped by someone who has never had such an experience. An atheist will talk about faith like a blind man might talk of colors.”

“You are so arrogant!” our son exclaimed. “Religious people always pretend to know something that we nonbelievers don’t know. However, twenty-first century atheists are not as much against religion as they are against belief without evidence, because such beliefs caused the most tragic moments in history. For example, Hitler killed millions of people on the basis of an unjustified belief, namely that the Jews were an inferior race.”

“Evil was at the root of this false belief,” I answered. “No one can deny that in the history of Christianity there have been evil people also, but remember that the Church is a human creation. You can’t condemn Christ for the wrong that was done in his name.”

“I’m not blaming religion only,” our son replied, “but belief itself. I’m interested in truth and therefore in evidence.”

“Then what is your opinion about Communism in Soviet Russia and China?” his father retorted. “This
ideology was as dangerous as a belief and produced massive violence against innocent people. We can only
conclude that violent impulses are deeply rooted in human beings, just like their need to believe in something,
it doesn’t matter if it is a religion or an ideology. Both can be used to do either evil or good. If dogmas,
along with rational doctrines, can be used to arm people, then there is no claim that it should be responsible
for the evil of this world. Evil always finds a way to manifest itself.

Message To My Son

Jesus is the one teacher who tells us very little about what to do to achieve the kingdom. He abolished rules and didn’t leave behind a step by step road to enlightenment, but he said one thing that can bring us all the way to God: Believe in me. The difference between eastern religions and Christianity was evident to C.S. Lewis:

“We have not got to try to climb into spiritual life by our own efforts…If we only lay ourselves open to the one Man in whom it was fully present…He will do it for us".                                                                                                    

From the moment I met Jesus, all I had to do was “ride the wave”. But waves lift you up and then let you down. It’s not so easy to ride them, especially when there is no coast in sight. The religious sense must be nourished, keeping in mind that we are not feeding an illusion but something that was given to us by grace. I must look after my faith like I looked after my son when he was a child. I wanted to relate to him, so I also become like a child and we had a wonderful time together.

When you were a child, you used to get mad at me if I assumed that you couldn’t understand certain things because you were too young. You thought that children were smart, sometimes smarter than the adults, but now you have changed your mind.

“Jesus said that only those who are like children will enter the kingdom of heaven,” you said. “In fact, in order to believe one has to shut down his logical thought. Actually, one has to stop thinking!”

Maybe, if you try, you’ll be able to recall the way you were just a few years ago and realize that there is no reason to despise that little boy. In his naivete, he was aware of the deepest aspects of reality.

I’m looking at you picture. You were eleven years old, learning your first English words. Look at those eyes! Your gaze was as sharp as a razor. It’s not like that anymore; you are a grown up now. Maybe you have lost something in the process. Try to remember, try really hard.    

                         

                                   

Perspectives From Another World

 

By now you have certainly guessed that my son is playing a big role in my writing. I want to put my thoughts on paper to better defend my new born faith. I have said that I fell in love with Jesus because the religious experience is very similar to the experience of falling in love. When I said that to Andrea I got this in response:

“That’s disgusting! If you want to be a moron, go ahead!”

 I never fully understood where the “disgusting” part came from. When I’m in the mood for flattering myself I think he was jealous. When I’m not, I concentrate on the “moron” and Andrea’s deep contempt for the dissolution of my intelligence in religious tales. But later he found out that even the famous atheists he admires so much have stressed the similarities between falling in love for a real person and for a supra-natural being. The two mental states have in common feelings of exaltation and euphoria, of warmth and mutual understanding. 

Of course these feelings are emotionally fulfilling, and once attained them one will be reluctant to let them go. Religion can certainly be consoling: If we have a problem, it provides hope. If we are living a difficult moment, it gives meaning to our suffering. And it’s beautiful to think that we are somehow eternal. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that we believe to keep our peace of mind, in fact other trials may arise when we surrender to God.

 
 I’ve never been afraid of dying. I’ve always been OK with the idea that my Self could be over when my 
body gives up. We are such an infinitesimal part of the universe, so limited by our human boundaries. But there have been moments when I’ve had a perception of a hidden reality, and those moments made me who I am today, a believer in the afterlife.
I’m not ashamed of linking my faith with this vague perception of another dimension, because if Jesus is alive, as I feel he is, he inhabits a dimension that is not our own. I also have a feeling that my father, who passed away a few years ago, is still there for me, watching me from another world. He felt deeply his role of parent, not as one who must function as a teacher of morals, but as one who is responsible for the well being of his children. His tendency to rule our lives, at least from a practical point of view, could become really overwhelming. I suspect that he would have a hard time leaving us on our own, even now that he’s not among us anymore. I bet he wouldn’t rest in peace until he knew that we were safe. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was watching over me, trying to put me on the right track.      

But I know that it was Jesus who showed me the way. Only when I found my faith I realized that I was wasting my life .

The Humanity of Jesus

My religious "awakening" has little to do with buying into a belief system, but has everything to do with Jesus. I love everything about him, even his bursts of anger, because they make him so deeply human.

In A World Waiting To Be Born Dr. Scott Peck writes that he became a Christian after twenty years of dabbling with Zen Buddhism. He maintains that, without this training, he couldn’t have accepted the paradoxes of Christianity. Like me, he read the gospels for the first time in the second half of his life and that was it. Here is how he describes the effect they had on him:

"I was absolutely thunderstruck by the extraordinary reality of the man I found in the Gospels. I discovered a man who was almost continually frustrated. His frustration leaps out of virtually every page…I also discovered a man who was frequently sad and sometimes depressed, frequently anxious and scared. A man who was prejudiced on one occasion, although he was able to overcome that prejudice and transcend it in healing love. A man who was terribly, terribly lonely, yet often desperately needed to be alone. I discovered a man so incredibly real that no one could have made him up. “

No one would have made him so human, if the purpose was to turn him into God. The evangelists were doing their best to report accurately what they were told, even though they did not always understand it. Those who let the gospels speak to their heart will literally “meet” Jesus, this man who had so little peace of mind but so much wisdom, and will fall in love with him. Christianity is all about falling in love with Jesus, and for the atheist this is both despicable and inexplicable. I can accept the latter, in fact it’s difficult to explain in rational terms the reasons of faith, but I don’t see why it should be despicable. Love is what makes the world a better place, it’s an innovating force. Political leaders have been loved for their ideas, so why not a religious figure? A person who is capable of falling in love with an abstraction (which will be perceived as real in time) is a person capable of a higher level of spirituality, who can see beyond the material world. Religion is not about believing in the supernatural, it’s about experiencing something pure, transcendent, above our everyday concerns. Among Christians one can meet people who take life seriously, who let go of their shields and are open to one another.

I realize now that I’ve never taken my life seriously, rather I’ve lived as if I was playing Russian Roulette. Fun, that’s all I wanted. I never asked myself if I was being the person I really wanted to be, if I was living up to my potential. It was the encounter with Jesus that saved me from my stupidity.

GRACE

                                              

Encountering Jesus is like listening to a beautiful song. The melody grows on us little by little and soon we can’t get it out of our head. It becomes the sound-track of our best moments. It evokes our deepest emotions and a longing that sometimes is painful because the object of our desire is elusive. But other times the music is joyful and then we sing at the top of our lungs. I listened intently, trying to discern every instrument and chord, and a shift in my consciousness took place. I didn’t look for it or take steps to make it happen. I believe that it came from something external because I did not recognize it at first. Let me give you an example.

You are sitting in your living-room watching TV. A friend, someone you knew when you were young, comes in and sits next to you. You haven’t seen her in decades, so you don’t know how to relate to her. You are polite, surprised to see her but quite indifferent to her presence. After a few words you go back to your TV program. She talks once in a while, trying to catch your attention. At first you listen just to be kind, but little by little she involves you in the conversation. You ask her questions, but she doesn’t respond to your curiosity. You feel that she wants you to find the answers on your own. You are confused but you act on her suggestion. Soon enough the room is filled with enthusiasm. You are literally on fire but you don’t know why. Slowly but steadily, you start seeing things more clearly. By the end of the day you trust her completely. You know that she came to help you and that she’ll be there for you, whatever the future holds.

This is what happened to me over a period of months. That woman, the friend of my youth, was not a person or a voice in my head, but was a presence nonetheless. I depicted her as a woman because she was “grace”. My shift of consciousness came by grace, but of why she came to me I have no idea, Thank God she gave me a try.