Forensic Faith: Believing and Seeing

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio

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. 

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.

 

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.

 

New Testament Word & Image: Romans 5:1-8 & Salvador Dali



Salvador Dali, Christ of Saint John of the Cross

Romans 5:1-8

  

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;  and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.









Salvador Dali, Corpus Hypercubus





For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Two Sides of Faith



Mary and Martha, Annette Everett

Luke 10:38-42

Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.  And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" exclaimed Jan Brady. Such was the rallying cry of middle children and kids of all types that felt snubbed of their due attention. The Brady Bunch had locked on to a silent majority that needed to scream out its concerns. Jan Brady represented kids worldwide who possessed nothing special except their braces. Kids who tended to fade into the wood paneling in the den and shag carpeting. Kids whose presence in the family could easily be replaced with a lava lamp. Now I am not a middle child (I'm the baby) nor am I a child of the 70's (80's baby) but I learned about both of these demographic groups by studying massive amounts of Brady Bunch reruns throughout my youth. My summer morning ritual consisted of the following: wake up, watch cartoons, watch Brady Bunch reruns, go play basketball, buy a Sprite, go play Nintendo. From my research of all things Brady I have come to understand the nuance of sibling conflict. I also know that evil tiki necklaces in Hawaii will ruin your surfing and make you susceptible to tarantulas in "To be continued" episodes. It also leads me to see a little of that sibling rivalry at work in the family of Mary. Martha and Lazarus. They seem to have been Jesus' favorite family to visit. Consider it: they were a multi member family that all chose to follow Jesus. They chose to follow Jesus one unit. As I read more and more it appears that the clash between Mary and Martha pictured in Luke 10 is less about the differences in siblings and more about the differences in faith.

There are two side to faith: one traditional and one progressive. Mary may have seemed to just be sitting and listening but in her sitting she was doing something revolutionary. If you have ever seen the movie Yentl with Barbara Streisand then you know the taboo of a Jewish girl studying under rabbis in 20th century Poland. Mary was in 1st century Palestine... you do the math. Men and women were segregated in worship in Jesus' time and throughout much of Christian and Jewish history. By accepting Mary as a student Jesus was showing that faith goes beyond religious traditions. Faith (in its conservative and liberal formulations) is about extended the barriers of access to God. But maybe this story of Mary and Martha is about something more...

There are two side to faith. one contemplative and one active. Mary sat, listened and contemplated Jesus' words while Martha literally served the Lord. A few months ago I visited my favorite used bookstore in West Los Angeles and discovered a book that would eventually lead me to write this blog. The title of the book is The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture. Now most of the art that I refer to in this blog is not featured in this book, but the book reminded me of the marriage of the Christian Scripture and Christian Art that was a staple of Western Civilization for so long. Under the entry of "Mary and Martha of Bethany" this reference book cites that Mary and Martha became types of the active and contemplative lives. In Faith there are those, like Thomas Merton, who have spent a life of contemplation of God and his works and those, like Mother Theresa, who have spent a life of service acting out God's works. Both are models of God's grace in the life of a believer. Neither was perfect in their faith... but one has to remember that faith is not a skill to be attained but is a gift mediated by God. No one is ever perfect in their faith and no one truly exerts the practice of it in one area, be it contemplation or action. So maybe this story of Mary and Martha is about something more...

There are two side to faith. one that focuses on Orthodoxy and one that focuses on Orthopraxis. By "Orthodoxy" I do not mean Eastern, Russian, Oriental Orthodoxy or any other Christian denomination that officially uses the word "Orthodox" in its official name. I mean the wider definition of the word. "Ortho" means "right" or "correct" and "Doxy" means "thinking" or "belief." So by orthodoxy I mean an adherence to accepted norms and theological beliefs. Every Christian group from Catholics to Baptists have their notions of orthodoxy and correct doctrine. It is "thinking what Jesus thought." Orthopraxis is about having the "right action." It is a focus on "doing what Jesus did." It is what Christians like Jim Wallis at Sojourner Magazine term a "Red Letter Christian" (since the words of Christ are usually printed in red in many Bibles). This division between the theological Left and Right can lead to rifts within individual Christian denominations. In the Baptists (the crew that I "rep") it can be seen in voices of conservatism like many in the Southern Baptist Convention versus those on the theological liberal side like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tony Campolo. The problem is that sometimes these waters can get muddied by politics, social issues and current events and the opinions of Jesus never completely fold into either category. Jesus urged us to have a "right heart" that poured out love towards God and man thus motivating our "right thinking" and "right action." Honestly it isn't easy to do this. Both Mary and Martha sincerely saw that what they were doing as the best way to exercise their faith at that moment. I am convinced that this story of Mary and Martha is about something more...

Maybe all of these dichotomies of faith that I have presented are false. maybe all of the barriers that we put up to working harmoniously with our fellow Christians are not what we should focus on. Faith is not split into an even two but it can be dissected into innumerable parts (depending on the time and influences). These parts cannot operate by themselves, but rely on each other...even when it appears that they do opposing functions. This is because the Faith is the Church and the Church is more of an organism than an organization. The Church is the Body of Christ. The thing that Mary possessed that Martha lacked, the thing that "will not be taken from her" is that she was listening to the mind of Christ. There are many parts to the body: some for consuming fuel (food), some for the expelling of spent fuel, some for work and some for rest. The factor that makes every member of the body useful and harmonious is if they have received messages from the mind. If we as members of the body of Christ do not listen to the mind of Christ then we risk working against the overall body. We risk moving from a member to a cancer. Like the Brady Bunch we are a blended family, that doesn't always get along and has room to grow, but "this group is much more than a family" we are God's eyes, hands and feet serving the world.

^"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 
-1 Corinthians 12:12-27, St. Paul