By Michael L. Vono

The Scottish philosopher David Hume once said, “Truth springs from argument amongst friends.” These days in the international city of Rome, Italy, I am finding myself engaging more and more in critical discussions and debates about the theological truths taught in the holy seasons of Christmastide and Epiphany, in which the Church encourages us not only to be observant of our present age and more conscious of living out our faith, but also to be anticipating and preparing spiritually for the coming of God in Christ.

In the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany we focus on two events: We relive time of preparation for the first coming of Christ in celebrating his appearance at Bethlehem, and we reawaken our expectation of Christ’s second coming at the end of time. Reginald Fuller, my favorite New Testament scholar, is keen to say in his commentaries about these holy seasons that the importance of our belief and anticipation that God is, and that God takes action in our world and lives, lies in the fact that human beings cannot produce their own salvation. Looking closely at human history, one clearly sees that the resources for salvation do not ultimately lie within the possibilities of humanity’s genius. They come, mysteriously, from outside our human limitations. Neither the incarnation nor the parousia (end-time) can be thought of as products of human evolution. Christmas and Epiphany then are the realization and acknowledgement that the Incarnation puts the mystery of God’s presence into our human hands. Handling mystery is not easy or unchallenged. Today, and indeed in ages past, scientists and popular best-selling authors are challenging the religious truths held by Christians and others of faith and hope.

For people of religious belief and faith, the wider secular context challenging the Christmas and Epiphany message is represented by two people in particular: the popular pre-eminent scientist presently at Oxford University, Richard Dawkins, who has recently published a book titled The God Delusion, and the author of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown. I identify these two individuals because their publications are currently best sellers in the U.S. and have caused much public debate and confusion within Christian and other religious circles. Common to these publications is the suggestion that humanity has been subject to an intentional conspiracy by those in religious authority who obscure the “truth,” that there “really is no God.” For Dr. Dawkins this is a scientific truth; and for him, because there is no empirical data supporting the reality of God, belief in God is irrational, and has led him to conclude the supreme improbability of the supreme Being.

Nevertheless it is worth remembering that science has its own set of laws and parameters of deduction, logic and beliefs which in fact sometimes do transcend reason. Today scientists acknowledge that parts of quantum physics transcend the laws of reason and logic, and many experiments are undertaken upon a pre-suppositional basis of belief. For example, the splitting of the atom, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, and the quarks and gluons, locked up in protons and neutrons, found in the cold universe, are real by scientific assumption and deduction and not by seeing or the proof of empirical data. You see, even the laws of science demand a bit of faith as we progress in knowledge.

For Dan Brown, who is not an atheist, the conspiracy, also identified as originating from those religious authorities who have wielded power throughout the centuries, literally arises from a mixture of biblical history and literary fiction. Time and time again Mr. Brown has publicly said that The Da Vinci Code is not based on historical or biblical fact but is pure literary fiction, yet his writing intentionally misuses and disregards sacred tradition and religious faith as if they were unhistorical, unreal, untrue and improbable, and also presents fiction as if it were fact. A good story is a good story only if it is a believable story. For most fictional literature the story line may be believable, but the reader is inevitably aware that what he is reading is fiction. In The Da Vinci Code, however, the mix of factual biblical history, uncensored critical false assumptions, and conclusions fostered by doubt leads some people to believe the supreme improbability of the supreme Being, albeit within the genre of literary fiction. So even the genre of literary fiction, when deceptively mixed with biblical history, can distort truth and impede progress in theological knowledge and understanding.

Where does all this leave a believer in this 21st century? Where does this leave the Church? What needs to be acknowledged among people of faith is that religious experience and faith-history also have their own set of laws which transcend empirical knowledge and data, reason and logic. Why would divine knowledge not be as valid as scientific knowledge, since both disciplines adhere to uniquely and necessarily different epistemologies?

Christmas reminds us that faith’s pre-suppositional basis is evidenced in Christian history as well as tradition and that the Incarnation of God in Christ Jesus puts the mystery of God’s presence, the mystery of God’s reality, into our human hands. In other words, it is as valid and true for faith to claim the improbable as it is for science. Nothing that results in human progress is achieved by unanimous consent, and this is true for all the scientific disciplines, including theology, which addresses the mysteries of life, change, death, what is seen and what is unseen. Interestingly, it is evident that even in the sciences there are individuals like Dr. Dawkins who hold extremist views of exclusivity, skewing the universality of uncertainty, of wonder, inquiry and improbability. Christmas reminds all of us that in approaching the unimaginable, the profound uncertainties of birth, this life and reality, we also approach the mystery of what is unseen, the mystery of all Being, the center of all reality and the mystery of eternity.

Humanity is not an end in itself, since if it were there would be no death, but rather our humanity points to the greater reality of becoming and being. Because we are, and have the capacity for mystery and inquiry, we can deduce and have faith in the supreme Being. This proposition is in the end a profound mystery beyond all the knowledge of our human sciences. God is. Christian faith concludes that we are becoming what we are created to be, but are as yet unable to fully comprehend. To those who say that there is no common ground between science and religion, I say with philosopher David Hume, “truth springs from argument amongst friends.” I for one am willing to argue God’s existence.

The Rev. Michael L. Vono is the rector of St. Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome, Italy.

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