John 20:19-31
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
What if I told you that Science and Faith aren't opposites. What if I told you that the proclamation of faith often uses elements of the scientific method? It's like me saying that Art is scientific... and I'll say that too in this entry. All of these wild allegations can be seen in today's painting and Scripture reading about St. Thomas' investigation into the veracity of Christ's resurrection.
The Faith Hypothesis
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Science in its most basic/broad definition is knowledge. The Latin word "scientia" translates as such. It is the systematic organization of knowledge into testable forms. It is the documentation of what we know that can be proven. In earnest it is a conversation over the millennia in pursuit of information. data and/or truth. The most popular usage of this term refers to the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, etc.) but their are other sciences such as library science, political science, military science and social science. With each areas entrance into the cannon of knowledge is based upon testing. Knowledge is a Caravaggio painting: starting as images emerging from darkness, slowly illuminated...enabling the viewer to understand the whole picture. Knowledge has always painted itself this way. In the beginning was the Word. The word was God. The word of God became flesh and we saw it, heard it and touched it. Something we could inspect, reason with and investigate. We loved it because it became tangible in the Person and love of Jesus the Christ. Yes, as St. Paul once stated "faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen" but what is the object of our faith? The thing that our faith hopes for is something that will be. The thing that is presently not seen will one day be revealed. You may be thinking, "well the object of our faith is God: who by his non-physical nature cannot be seen." This is true. But if you, like me, believe in the Christian God, then you believe that God has been seen in the person of Jesus Christ. When Christ revealed his risen glory to the Disciples in the upper room it was one of the final acts if God fully revealing Himself to humanity. No longer would God conceal himself in a cloud as He spoke to his prophet, Jesus exposed the face and friendship of God to this last prophetic generation. He breathed on them the presence of the Living God. These Apostles in return would reveal the heart and hand of God through both the establishing of His Church and writing of His Word. The foundation of the Church would be on this teaching/doctrine of the Apostles: the New Testament. The proclamation of this new community based in the foundation of the Apostles (what you may know as preaching) is tested by its trustworthiness to this premise. Preaching as a science. Yes, it is an Art too. That is the intricate dance between homiletics and hermeneutics: sermon delivery and biblical interpretation. In the end authentic homiletics only springs from authentic hermeneutics. The scientifically testable authentication of Christian preaching and practice lies in its fidelity to the testimony of the Apostles...it's adherence to Scripture. Through Scripture the Apostles reveal who Jesus was: what they saw, heard and experienced. And Jesus reveals who God is. So faith is like the hypothesis part of the scientific method... where you form an "If... then" statement. But it is not just a "If God said it then I believe it" mantra that we say in churches. All to often that just equates to "If pastor says it then I believe it... and never question his authority." True faith like a true hypothesis is tested. If not willingly by us then unwillingly by God and by life. Like a hypothesis it is preceded buy a question and followed by a prediction, testing and analysis... that often leaves us with more questions. But like other sciences it is how we gather knowledge. In earnest it is a conversation over the millennia in pursuit of God.
Experiments In Faith
Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Science involves only trusting what we know. What we have personally seen and tested or what the greats in your field have seen and tested before you. You may just trust them because you are floored by their legendary genius, or by the support of the community of learning that supports their conclusions or by being convinced by reading their writings. Caravaggio was a student of the latter type. When formulating an image based on a religious narrative he didn't just go with the conventional imagery of the popular legend. He broke from the traditional depiction of saints and biblical figures that was still popularly practiced by his contemporary colleagues. Caravaggio used a scientific exploration of Scripture to reveal the true depiction of Jesus and the Apostles. It wasn't a study in what their faces looked like as much as what their lives looked like...what their company looked like and what their actions where like. Caravaggio revealed the dirty foot prophets of the poor. Caravaggio's Christ was a friend of sinners and his Apostles were brothers with the least of those amongst us. His use of unwashed street people and prostitutes as models may have been vulgar to the critics but they were beautiful to the artist. They were reminiscent of the actual unwashed street people and prostitutes that God used to model His mercy centuries before. True lights of God that break through the darkness of a humanity that is ignorant of the knowledge of God. They were not fanciful figures floating on a cloud but rather grounded, earthy men that could be touched by the sufferings of the flesh. Caravaggio's Jesus is one that is our great High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. That is the Jesus that St. Thomas came to know. The one whom he touched. Thomas gets a bad rap as the doubter of the Disciples. I would argue that his fault was not in his doubt but rather in his tardiness. If he had arrived earlier in the day he like the other Disciples would have seen Christ willingly reveal his wounds. But alas how we benefit from St. Thomas' perceived doubt. St Thomas revealed the whole truth of the resurrected Lord: one with flesh and blood... one with battle scars. Thomas' investigation of Jesus' wounds was not a rejection of faith but a step in the faith process. One that God had full control of. Being that I have strong Calvinist leanings I believe that it is the Holy Spirit's promptings that leads one to conversion and repentance. It is the same Spirit that develops on in their faith journey. The Holy Spirit does this, like all things, that God might be glorified in the end. Think of how God has been glorified all the more with us knowing that we like Jesus will be bodily resurrected one day... that God has conquered both spiritual and physical death. .. that He can take our once mortal and sinful body and glorify it into something holy and beautiful. These hypotheses that were once formulated by the prophets were later verified by the testing of Thomas.
Science involves only trusting what we know. What we have personally seen and tested or what the greats in your field have seen and tested before you. You may just trust them because you are floored by their legendary genius, or by the support of the community of learning that supports their conclusions or by being convinced by reading their writings. Caravaggio was a student of the latter type. When formulating an image based on a religious narrative he didn't just go with the conventional imagery of the popular legend. He broke from the traditional depiction of saints and biblical figures that was still popularly practiced by his contemporary colleagues. Caravaggio used a scientific exploration of Scripture to reveal the true depiction of Jesus and the Apostles. It wasn't a study in what their faces looked like as much as what their lives looked like...what their company looked like and what their actions where like. Caravaggio revealed the dirty foot prophets of the poor. Caravaggio's Christ was a friend of sinners and his Apostles were brothers with the least of those amongst us. His use of unwashed street people and prostitutes as models may have been vulgar to the critics but they were beautiful to the artist. They were reminiscent of the actual unwashed street people and prostitutes that God used to model His mercy centuries before. True lights of God that break through the darkness of a humanity that is ignorant of the knowledge of God. They were not fanciful figures floating on a cloud but rather grounded, earthy men that could be touched by the sufferings of the flesh. Caravaggio's Jesus is one that is our great High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. That is the Jesus that St. Thomas came to know. The one whom he touched. Thomas gets a bad rap as the doubter of the Disciples. I would argue that his fault was not in his doubt but rather in his tardiness. If he had arrived earlier in the day he like the other Disciples would have seen Christ willingly reveal his wounds. But alas how we benefit from St. Thomas' perceived doubt. St Thomas revealed the whole truth of the resurrected Lord: one with flesh and blood... one with battle scars. Thomas' investigation of Jesus' wounds was not a rejection of faith but a step in the faith process. One that God had full control of. Being that I have strong Calvinist leanings I believe that it is the Holy Spirit's promptings that leads one to conversion and repentance. It is the same Spirit that develops on in their faith journey. The Holy Spirit does this, like all things, that God might be glorified in the end. Think of how God has been glorified all the more with us knowing that we like Jesus will be bodily resurrected one day... that God has conquered both spiritual and physical death. .. that He can take our once mortal and sinful body and glorify it into something holy and beautiful. These hypotheses that were once formulated by the prophets were later verified by the testing of Thomas.
Double Blind Trials
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
The rift between certain Christians and the natural sciences is as stark a contrast as the tenebrism employed in Caravaggio's trademark chiaroscuro style. In it we paint a narrative where we spotlight the dramatic battle between the forces of Modernity/Liberalism and Theological Conservatism. We cast characters like Darwin in the shadows playing the villain who attempts to martyr the Creation story of Genesis. This particular exercise has been going on for a century but in itself part of a greater struggle that goes back to the trial Galileo. Likewise there are those in the Scientific community who respond by excommunicating the legions of the faithful to the land of the Luddites. The modern foundation of Natural Science is based upon the notion of a Closed System that excludes the miraculous. Even though I am an advocate of a fairly conservative theology I am not an enemy of this closed system approach. It just helps us understand the subject better if we isolate it our thinking. I also don't believe that Scientists are the only ones having closed systems in their thought. Protestant Fundamentalism was born out of an unbending aversion to scientific modernity (Disclaimer: I am an Evangelical, which can be argued is just a re-branding of Protestant Fundamentalism). I am an advocate of the inerrancy of Scripture but not of the inerrancy of our understanding of Scripture. God's Word does testify to the Truth but do we currently understand what and how it is trying to tell us the truth? If I can borrow a Catholic catch-phrase, "All Truth is God's Truth." It is a paraphrase of St. Augustine's quote: "A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who 'though they knew God did not glorify him as God." It was popularized in a book with the same name by the Evangelical philosopher and professor Arthur F. Holmes. He argued for "Christians to not shy away from the difficult questions that may arise from whatever subject of academic study they choose. With a firm belief that any truth they find can be reconciled with their faith, Holmes challenged educators and Christians in academia to grapple with what they are interested in, noting that a strong faith can handle some turbulence while coming to a better understanding of God's creation." I believe that in the end Scripture and the Natural Sciences both inform the believer, even when their is an apparent conflict. This conflict of allegiances may prove to be a trial for thinking believers but surely it is not the only trial of faith that they will encounter. It also not a trial that the Lord will not equip them for. It may be tedious, troubling and tiresome but as James stated it is the trying/testing of your faith that produces patience. Christian character is not just built by what we believe but by the trial of our beliefs to create a more robust faith. These are the times that God has put us in and He places every man/woman in their age for a reason. We must engage the age and provide faith that can be seen. Knowledge of God that can be touched, heard and interacted with. The Church must provide faith with physicality. We are not the first generation that demanded a sign of the invisible God's existence. Hence the miracles in Scripture are referred to as "signs and wonders." Jesus used physical signs in his age to show God to his listeners. Jesus was the physical sign that showed God. God is not above engaging your doubt with evidence. We didn't just realize post Age of Enlightenment that dead men don't get up. Humanity has always known that. Millennia of testing and human experience told us that. So Jesus engaged the doubt of Thomas. He made Thomas formulate a question about all that he knew, and humanity knew, about life. Thomas tested the physicality of Christ's flesh. The holes in his cartilage: the dried blood in his abdominal wounds. Maybe Thomas was driven to hypothesize, "If Jesus was correct in his assertion about the afterlife then he was right about how I should live this present life." Yes, life always ends in death but Christ revealed the knowledge of eternal life and life more abundantly. Thomas spent the rest of his life teaching others about the knowledge of God that had been revealed to him and he had tested. God in His infinite wisdom decided that the age of Jesus and the Apostles was a good time to reveal the knowledge of Him through signs and wonders. He had done this in a few other eras. What evidence does God use now?
Applied Knowledge
God continues to do miraculously amazing things that defy our current understanding of the universe but He consistently uses humans to reveal His knowledge in un-miraculous ways. The signs that He uses to induce wonder amongst nonbelievers today is through the mercy, forgiveness and love of believers. Alas stories of amazing mercy, forgiveness and love travel slower than stories of amazing miracles... and are dwarfed in speed by the rate at which salacious stories of sin on the part of believers travels. The evidence that God used in the age of scripture can be seen in the paintings of Caravaggio but the evidence that God used throughout the following eras of human history are absent in Caravaggio's life. Caravaggio was a murderer, fugitive, brawler, suspected pedophile, accused whoremonger and recently alleged pimp. Though he testified to the truth of God in paint the personal life of Caravaggio is void of any knowledge of God. Sure he knew God's Word (maybe he even believed it), had been baptized and was consistently employed by churches but true faith is not shown by belief only or association with the faithful. True faith does not stop at a hypothesis about God. It must be tested out in your own life. You must follow the example of Marie Curie and use yourself as an a laboratory: experimenting with the application of God's truth until your life radiates with His mercy and love...and yes, that was a horrible joke at Marie Curie's expense. True faith is illustrated by everyday acts of mercy just like true science is verified by consistent tests and experiments. Both may seem boring and mundane at times but they authenticate true applied knowledge. The evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is a faith that has been proven faithful. It can be see, touched and heard by those around us. When our lives touch their lives they can touch the scarred hands and punctured side of Jesus. We are living epistles. Do they see an explanation of the Gospel in our character? That does not mean that we are perfect and do not currently struggle with sin and/or have a past. We are the street people and prostitutes that God has painted as his dirty foot prophets. We are God's signs and wonders in our age. We can become the forensics behind others' faith. It is by investigating us that they will know that Christ has truly risen.
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