When we live close to God,
our sight is restored: when we use our eyes, they bear witness to his truth.
Pascal’s advice to his friend may seem skeptical, but it is correct, begin with
the folly of faith, and you will attain knowledge. This folly is wisdom; this
folly is the path of truth.
Christianity
and the Crisis of Cultures, 115-6
Reflection – Pascal’s wager may not be entirely familiar to everyone. He
suggested to a skeptical friend that essentially we are throwing the dice on
whether God exists or not. If He does not exist, and we act as if He does we
have risked little, living a good decent religious life and then passing into
non-existence. Meanwhile, if He does exist and we act as if He does not, we
risk everything—eternal damnation for the sake of a few passing pleasures. He
concluded his advice by suggesting his friend essentially ‘fake it until he
makes it’—go through the motions of faith and religious observance, and
eventually as he does so faith will come to swallow up his skepticism.
So yes, Pascal’s wager does seem cynical,
and always has to me. It has also never seemed all that persuasive. If I was a
non-believer I would counter that spending my life—my only life, my few short
years of existence—serving and obeying a non-existent God seems to risk
everything I’ve got with no possibility of return.
Anyhow, the debate around Pascal’s wager and
its legitimacy as an argument for faith has gone on for centuries. Ratzinger is
picking out just the one aspect of it, however, for commendation. Namely, that
as we go through the motions, as we live as if God does exist and act
accordingly, we do come to see the truth of His existence.
The folly of faith leading to the path of
truth: this is a paradox of almost Chestertonian scope. It’s as if we are asked
for directions to some nice ordinary destination—the corner store, say—and
begin by saying, ‘Well, first you have to jump off this cliff, but at the
bottom of the cliff there’s a nice level footpath that takes you straight
there.’
We begin with wild assertions—God is three
and one! Christ is God and man! Christ is risen from the dead! God’s Spirit
dwells in us by faith and the waters of baptism!—and having jumped off those formidable
cliffs, can only then say with courage and conviction that 2+2=4 and that little
boys and girls should keep their promises, and that life is a good thing and
should not be thrown away or destroyed.
This is our Christian claim, and it is
being borne out by experience. The most obvious and banal perceptions of
reality, ‘common sense’, rest upon wild mysticism and divine mystery. As
society increasingly rejects the mysticism and the mystery, common sense has
flown out the window. Already we destroy lives by the million each year,
promises mean nothing to little boys, little girls and (alas!) big boys and
girls either, and I’m sure 2+2=4 is up for the chop next…
Well, I’m not going to rant about the world
and its evils today (sighs of relief from the readership…). It is this strange
conviction that the folly of faith leads to the path of truth that I want to
focus on. That drawing near to God and calling out to God is the pre-condition
for seeing things as they are.
If we allow this, even for the sake of
argument, the implication is that we are all in the position of the man in the
Gospel who is blind and begging at the side of the road. “Jesus, Son of David,
have mercy on me.” This is the human race, you see. We do not see rightly,
until God touches our eyes. We do not know what’s what, until we cry out to God
for mercy. We don’t know that 2+2=4 (symbolically speaking) until we confess
that 1=3 and that death leads to life and that Christ is, in fact, risen from
the dead.
What a lovely reflection! Thank you Father Denis. Doesn't St Augustine say the same sort of thing somewhere? Unless you believe you shall not understand... or something to that effect? Seems that the "act of faith" is the means by which the heart is opened in humility to receive. Which reminds me of today's Gospel: "for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike". Certainly a mystery that something apparently so contrary to reason is in fact it's source.
ReplyDeleteYes, he does - thanks for the comment!
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