Friend of Sinners

We make much in our day of therapy and rehab, and the more practical and scientific ways we might treat someone.  And if you want psychology as your science, upon which you will find recovery – by all means, heal thyself.

We likewise make mockery of the idea that people might be healed by spiritual intervention, or by prayer, or the like.  Very well – some of this, in some way, is deserved.

But I read stories of people who were possessed, like people with autism combined with superpowers, to whom the Lord spoke a word and they were healed.  This would not have been easy to fake, because those possessed had longstanding reputations; nor would it have been easy to pass off if he had not actually healed them.  For one thing, the reputation would not have changed!

This is challenging for the modern mind, perhaps impossible to swallow.  Indeed, some Christians who (ostensibly) accept the Resurrection are also quick to offer anachronistic explanations for exorcisms.  Sure, a man could rise from the dead – they say – but let’s not have any talk of demons being expelled!

Let us set this aside.  In addition to exorcism, Jesus encountered sinners and forgave them.  What did this lead to?

Before we observe the consequences of forgiveness, consider again the modern approach.  I’m not aware of anyone who thinks that human beings are perfect – certainly not morally perfect – and yet there is a strange tendency to discard the weight of moral guilt.  It is almost seen as illegitimate, unhelpful, problematic.

I will say that, when I know I have done or said something wrong (or failed to do something good), I am not satisfied by someone saying, “Ah, don’t worry about it.  Everyone does that!”  Moreover, when I recognize my fault and apologize, I am not satisfied with, “No, no need to apologize!”

No, I want to apologize, I am compelled to apologize.  I have done something which fractures reality, which breaks with the Good, which objectively harms somebody (or fails to do good for them).  That break is real, it represents something lost.  It cannot be dismissed as nothing.

This act or word – anything that is morally wrong – is what is meant by sin.  If the word causes you to cringe, just think of it as a vocabulary word, as shorthand for that thing which you acknowledge as real:  Morally wrong acts and words.

So all are sinners – since we are not perfect, and thus prone to committing immoral actions – and some are more conscious of this fact than others.  And some are exceedingly conscious of it, they are stricken and afflicted by it, they cannot recover a moment’s happiness because of the weight of it.

Indeed, we might all be so stricken and heavy-laden, if we were perfectly conscious of our transgressions.  It is one thing to wrong someone and have their forgiveness; it is another to do it over and over again, to hear your own apology ringing hollow after the fifth, the fifteenth, the twenty-fifth time.  It is no less wrong, but we cannot bear all of that guilt, and we cannot continually make a perfect apology for it because we cannot account for the repeated injuries we inflict on the other person.

Mercy

There is no one who has, at last, ceased sinning.  There is no one who, suffering the sins of another, has finally redeemed that sinner by his forgiveness.

But the sinner’s heart, mind, and soul cry out for redemption.  See:

One of the Pharisees asked [Jesus] to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

“A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Here we have not only the contrast – one who is acutely aware of her sins, and another who is ignorant of his own – but the satisfaction of a great human longing which nothing else could satisfy.

I call it a proof from strength because there is no one else powerful enough to do this.  See the reaction – the people at table take for granted that a mere man cannot forgive sins.  We humans are not in the proper role of authority.  We are weak.

But the Lord is strong.  The woman heard of his works, and recognized in him the presence of God.  And she utterly prostrated herself before him, as a sign of her weakness, her inability to save herself from her own sins.  (One can hardly imagine more abject prostration – she weeps, she cleans his feet with her hair, she pours out ointment like she wishes she could pour out her heart and soul).

And does he counsel her?  Does he prescribe psychotropic drugs, does he tell her it was nothing, that she’s doing fine?

No.  And no one else could do what he did next.  The whole world could have stopped spinning, the Universe could have flashed out of existence, and no more power would be required than was exercised.

From a position of power and authority, he simply speaks, and it is done.  He says she is forgiven,* and she is.

The proof is that the sufficiently conscious soul knows what great cost there is in sin, knows how great a fall it is from the perfection that was intended for us, and she can neither bear it nor find any earthly relief from it.  This remains quite true today.  But if this cost can be charged against a soul, there must be some way to pay it.  If it is possible to fall from innocence, to have been there in the first place, then there must be some way to be redeemed.  (Or else there is nothing to fight for, there is nothing to progress toward).

There is only one who could pay the cost and redeem the fallen – and this we call God.

*Some hear this story, and they hear this word – forgiven – and they hear it again.  The first to alert them; the second to overwhelm them.  Some souls are always hearing echoes of the Lord.

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.

– Philippians 4:13

While we have folded some Christianity into this treatise on the existence of God, the principles and conclusions so far do not specify Christianity as the true religion.  Certainly, Judaism and Islam are responsible for a great deal of thought on God, and it is in that ecumenical spirit that I am writing.  God lives; we will sort out the details later.

Here you may choose to read “Christ” as a placeholder for God, in this spirit.  Or you might embrace the challenge, reflect on the mystery of God incarnate, and see what follows.

Now, clear as a light in darkness, we have the martyrs.  When Catholics celebrate their memory at Mass, the priest and deacon wear red, and I sometimes wonder if my brothers and sisters see those garments and feel for their pulse, if they recognize them as soaked in the blood of men and women who faced down blades and flames and did not break.

Children even, tortured and fed to lions, who would not disown the Lord.  (Indeed, in our own day they are beheaded).

This is not sane, this betrays human nature as we see it in our neighbors and ourselves.  People thinking about their electric bill don’t often worry about losing their lives in the circuses.  Perhaps they would die for something (maybe).  But think on it:  To die for a god?  To die for an abstraction, for someone not seen, for someone who (in the case of Christ) died many years ago?

This is not to be confused with “martyrs” who slay others and die in the process.  They are advancing their cause in a human way, and they believe they will be rewarded in a human way, even if abundantly.  No Christian martyr has died expecting a harem of virgins.

No, the Christian martyrs do not instigate their deaths, and they do not take innocent lives down with them.  Rather, they refuse to lie, they refuse to betray, they refuse to do with their bodies what everyone else believes will honor a false god.  They love the Lord their God with all their strength, and they give all.

I was in Rome for the beatification of two boys, 9 and 11 years old, who taught Sunday school to their friends in a tribe in Africa.  But some other members discovered this, and dragged them out in the middle of the night, and demanded that they renounce their faith and stop teaching.

They would not do this.

See – this may include heart, soul, and mind, but it is fundamentally an act of strength.  This strikes to the core of our corporeal nature, to fight or flight, to our inevitable starvation if we are not fed and our death if we are not protected.  Our strength is our breath and our life.

And these two boys would not breathe a word against the Lord.  They were murdered for it.

But we have a better word.  They were martyred for it, which means they made death a footstool toward life.  If their faith is true, they cannot know any greater glory than they do now.

And we have a greater strength than anything our bodies can provide.

Strength

This final dimension of our being is most moving to me in the context of Christ’s commandment, and the most odd to me in the context of this treatise.  Can there be a proof for the existence of God from the realm of our bodies?

In fact, I think so.  First, in that our bodies represent and make manifest that part of us which is God-like, or made in the image of God.  Second, in that we are weak, and He is strong.

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

-Genesis 1:26

Imagine you want to tell a story.  Not just any story, but an adventure, in a world you would want to live in, and with characters who – as much as possible – really seem alive, really seem to be making their own choices.

Observe:  This is an act of the imagination.  As such, these characters do not really exist outside of your mind.  And yet they truly do exist in your mind, in the world you are creating for them.

The story will not have any interest for you, or any potential reader, if it is about the fibers of a carpet, or oxygen atoms that have been scattered and separated by exactly half of the Earth’s circumference.  For there to be any sustained interest; for you to have any real purpose in telling it; for there to be any intrinsic value as a story at all, the characters must be like you.

Consider:  How is it that these characters may be made in your image?

You might say, for example, that you could make them look like you, or like your friends and family.  Yet, though you have a body in this world, your body does not move anything in the world you are creating.  

You cannot lift the least thing with your fingers.  You cannot take a single step, or speak a single word with your voice.  And yet you are all-powerful.

The power is in your will.  That world, existing as it does in your mind, does not respond at all to your body.  Rather, it is by your will that anything can be accomplished, and your will can execute only that which it knows.  What you know is delivered to you through your intellect.

See, then, that this is true before you have even examined it:  Your characters also possess intellect and will.  There is a set of things they know, and there is the set of actions they take with respect to what they know.  Their power, of course, depends on their body, on their ability to manipulate the environment you created.

Therefore, though they have bodies in the context of your story and you do not, they are nevertheless made in your image.  It is likewise with us and God.

What is the proof here?  Come, friend – let’s put this together, like building a tower out of stones.

In your story, your characters have something like will and intellect.  Though it is not exactly like your will, and your intellect, it is analogous.  We may fairly say that a character in your story is making his own decisions, even if he really isn’t by our standards.  We may say he knows something, even if he doesn’t know it the way you do.

And if we happened upon a story, and wondered whether it had written itself – wouldn’t the next person out think us mad?  Is there any real notion, anything at all, which suggests to you that a story could tell itself?

Let us observe, then:  The derivative proceeds from the original.  Your will precedes the the will of your characters, not just in time but in kind:  It is obvious that you created them, and not the other way around.  But what we are saying here is that their will could never have been manifested unless your will preceded theirs!

Likewise, your characters can know something about the world they inhabit, but you know more.  In fact, you know all.  Therefore, where there is incomplete knowledge of the world, somewhere there is greater knowledge.  The lesser knowledge proceeds from the greater knowledge.

Now set the story aside.  

Here, in this world, you have a will.  You make choices, and all of us seem to admit about ourselves that we sometimes make poor choices.  Moreover, there is a question of whether we have free will at all, or if all things are determined.

Now, think of this:  If everything is perfectly determined, so that you have no free will, this is much the same situation as the characters in your story, no?  Don’t they think they have free will, at least the appearance of free will, even if they really don’t?

Hold that in your mind, and further consider:  If we do have free will, but still entertain doubts, then surely there is a greater, purer experience of free will than ours.  There must be some level of consciousness (think of the aliens!) which recognizes, with greater confidence, their own free will.  In fact, think of me!

Put the turret on the tower:  In either case, whether we have true free will or not, there is a higher level of consciousness which has greater and truer free will.  This is proven by the fact that you have greater free will than your characters.   Could they possibly have greater free will than you?

And so, until we reach complete free will, the perfection of free will, we have not reached the end.  In this way, that we have bodies, and that we control our bodies as if we were not perfectly identical with them, or at least as though there was more to us than simply our bodies – in this way, our bodies testify to a Maker.  They pivot and point to a greater will, on which our own will is modeled.

And I start with the difficult one.  What of intellect?

This is yet clearer in the context of your story – after all, which character knows more about her world than you do?  Which character knows better what will happen next, or what has already happened in the history of her world, than the author?

Whereas, with the will, we see that the author and the character might both be totally determined, it is impossible that any character should know as much as the author – unless he were one with the author.

This is not typically the case, and so we can advance the point:  Your knowledge and mine are obviously incomplete.  We do not know all that there is to know about the world.

But if we know anything, this would suggest there is someone who knows more.  Indeed, it is proverbial that there is always someone who knows more than any given person.

This, too, is a regression that must end.  In other words, if we always have someone who knows more than the next person, then we must have an infinite number of persons (and an infinite amount of knowledge) or a perfect knower (with perfect knowledge).  Since an infinite regression is absurd, it is more rational to accept a perfect knower, one who knows everything that can be known.

And this we call God.

Movers and motion

If you have been following closely, or if you are sensitive to italics, you likely noticed a new word:  Mover.

As you might have guessed, St. Thomas did not use this word exactly the way we do (of course, speaking Latin, he would not have used “mover” at all).  What is meant here is, yes, physical motion – locomotion – and still more.

What St. Thomas meant was any kind of change.  This could be a change in physical location (I move a table) and change in accidents (I paint the table blue).  This could even be change in development (an apple ripens; a child grows).  In each case, the object in question moves from potency to act.

See again:  The rock, to be moved from one position to another, requires a mover.  But even if its physical location does not change, the rock still requires a mover to go from gray to blue.

The sun acts on an apple and causes a chemical reaction; the sun is the mover.  The child is fed, sparking chemical reactions within his body, and he grows.

One could probably use “changer” to be more precise, in contemporary English, but deference to St. Thomas seems preferable here.

Regresses which must be finite

Hold fast, my friend, and struggle with me.  Let us reduce the potential of our understanding to actuality.

Consider again the rock – unpainted, speckled, oblong.  Four ounces.

Now, you have a stick in your hand, and you take the stick and move the rock – not a strike, like a golf club, but push…like a hockey stick.  Make it a hockey stick.

What the hell, make it a puck instead of a rock.

As any Canadian worth his syrup knows, a puck does not move itself.  No, the puck depends on the stick for its movement.

What about the stick?  Can it move itself?

No, we shall need hands.  But the hands – can they move the stick, all by themselves?

(You must imagine, here, severed hands.  Hands actually existing “by themselves,” apart from a body.  Can those hands do anything?)

No, we shall need arms, with tendons and bones and muscles.  And even those are motionless until electrical signals from the brain cause them to contract just so.

And whence come the electrical signals?  Well, from the firing of synapses in the brain, which are themselves triggered by…

You get the idea.  This chain continues back, possibly a long way.  Could it continue forever, into oblivion?

Well, imagine this all taking place in a story.  A character is playing in a hockey game, and he handles a puck.  As he does, you break from the story and consider – in a manner surpassing all philosophical zeal – this chain of motion in the story.

Does it have a beginning?  If you trace all of the movers back far enough – the stick acting on the puck, the hands acting on the stick, the tendons and muscles acting on the hand, etc. – does it ever come to an end?

Of course, it must.  It the whole sequence did not have a definite beginning, that means it would never have happened.  We need a first, unmoved mover, in order to avoid the infinite regress.

Consider:  If a chandelier was hung by a chain, one link supporting the other, it must necessarily end in a ceiling.  This “end” is not optional.  If it was only more links, all the way up, we would have a chandelier in freefall, not one suspended in the air.

Consider again, a freight train.  You pull up to some railroad tracks, and you see cargo cars rolling by, but the whole train seems to extend forever in both directions.  Even though you cannot see the beginning or the end of the train, you automatically assume there is an engine pulling the train along.  If there wasn’t, the train would not be in motion right now.

In our story, everything is moved by the author.  She is the “first mover,” the one who acts, thereby causing all kinds of potentialities to be actualized.  Nothing (within the story) acts on her, and so she is, in that sense, an “Unmoved Mover.”

If she ceased to act – if she just stopped writing the story, at the moment before the puck was pushed – the puck would never move.  The hands would never move, the tendons would never move, the electrical signals would never move…

And in reality?  Where does our real hockey player, handling his real puck, derive his ability to act at all?  What set all of this in motion?

There must be an Unmoved Mover, which makes it possible for the table to move, or the rock to be painted blue, or the apple to ripen, or the child to grow.

And this we call God, says St. Thomas.  

God, in reality, is the Unmoved Mover, and without Him, nothing at all would be in motion.

The First Mover

Find yourself a comfortable chair.

St. Thomas, you recall, said that God is being itself.  This would be greater than Zeus; it would even be greater than the author, relative to her story (the author, after all, eventually dies).  But can it be true?  Is there any way of demonstrating “being itself”?

Now, I am not Thomas; I am hardly a Thomist.  What follows is elementary and therefore incomplete.  Still, taste and see, and maybe you will also wish to pursue the genius of St. Thomas at length.

Act and Potency

St. Thomas followed in the tradition of Aristotle, who believed that all knowledge began with the senses.  From observation, one could apprehend universals, which tell us the ideal pattern which forms each kind of thing in reality.  Following the rules of logic, one could contemplate the world and come to conclusions about the nature of things.  (Does this sound similar to the scientific enterprise?  It is not a coincidence).

One of Aristotle’s observations was that all things are combinations of act and potency, and St. Thomas agreed.  First, what does this mean?

By act, we mean what a thing is “right now.”  Take the example of a rock – pick one up if you can.  The rock I’m looking at is grayish, lightly speckled, a bit like an oblong golf ball.  Let’s say it weighs 4 oz.

Those properties I’ve listed – grayish, oblong, 4 oz in weight – are properties that this rock has actualized.  You can think of act as what a thing actually is, right in front of you.

By potency, we mean the way a thing could potentially be.  My rock, for example, could be painted blue.  It could be sharpened, or smashed to bits.  These are potencies of the rock.  It is within the nature of a rock to take on these various properties, but the rock does not manifest them at this moment.  (If they are potential, then they are not actual right now).

Now, Thomas said all things are combinations of act and potency.  We have seen this in the rock – actually gray, potentially blue – and no matter how many potencies are actualized, there remain some other potencies which cannot be actualized at the same time.  The rock cannot be completely gray and completely blue at the same time (nevermind completely green, yellow, mauve…).

Reducing potency to act

The transition from potency to act is called a reduction – i.e. The potency of a thing is reduced to act.  The actually gray rock may be reduced to a blue rock.  One supposes it may be reduced again, back to being a gray rock.

If my approach is accommodating, our thoughts will be of one accord.  To this point, we have simply taken an everyday object – a rock – and tried to grasp the underlying reality behind it.  Behold, metaphysics at work.

This differs from science, in the sense that science would continue to explore the accidents of the rock – what minerals is it composed of?  How old is it?  If it has any practical uses, what uses are those?

But God is not an object of scientific inquiry.  He has no mass, no color or odor.  He is utterly beyond all of that, just as an author is beyond the “physics” of her story.  If we are to consider such a claim, then we must study whatever is “behind” physics, whatever is outside the scope of science, but nevertheless real.

What governs the reality of a rock?  In short, the interplay of potency and act governs the reality of a rock.  (Notice, we are not assuming either the existence or the non-existence of God – we are not “begging the question” either way).

This is important because Thomas now gives us a rule, a law of metaphysics:  Nothing can reduce its own potency to act.  In other words, something independent of an object must act on it, thereby reducing the potentiality to an actuality.

In order for the gray rock to be reduced to a blue one, a mover is needed.  The gray rock does not paint itself blue.  A paintbrush could, and it acts on the rock and causes the transition from potency (potential to be a blue rock) to act (actually a blue rock).

This is no arbitrary rule, of course, but one borne out by reality, like a law of nature, like gravity.  Another example:  A newspaper is potentially hot, but it does not set itself on fire.  In order for this potency (potential to be hot) to be actualized (actually hot), we must light a match, or something similar.

The Moral Argument

Here is one that I have loosely tied into the proof of the soul, but which really presents itself as a logical proof.

1. If God does not exist, then there are no objective moral values and duties.
2. There are objective moral values and duties.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Let us begin with premise 2, since it gives us a base for discussing premise 1.

2.  There are objective moral values and duties.

There was a paper written entitled, “Is Rape Wrong on Andromeda?”  The Andromeda Galaxy, of course, is neighbor to the Milky Way, though still hopelessly far away given our current technology.

The point of the question, of course, is to challenge the idea of objective morality.  The question itself is neutral, not leading one way or another.  It is so provocative though!  While the modern mind leans toward saying that morality is relative, the very same mind finds rape to be reprehensible.  It can scarcely think of a context in which rape is a moral good, in and of itself.

To answer the question is to address Premise 2.  So, which is it?  Is rape wrong, everywhere?  Or is your distaste for rape just that – a subjective dislike, a scruple – which, perhaps, not everyone will share?

For that matter, what about theft or murder?  Genocide?  Child sexual abuse?

If you want to deny the premise, then you are, by definition, ruling out all moral judgments of every kind.  You may never chastise or praise my moral actions, nor anyone else’s, anywhere, ever.

But I think we understand the world better when we say rape is wrong, full stop.  I think we should never say that “Genocide is just their way; if you don’t like it, don’t do it!”  And these are just the negatives.

I think – and I suspect that you agree – that Premise 2 is unquestionably true.

1.  If God does not exist, then there are no objective moral values and duties.

This is where the resistance mounts.  See the word “God” in the sentence, and hear the heels digging in.  The militant atheist is already committed to his conclusion, and so there is absolutely no way he will accept Premise 1.

Could you accept it?  Not just on its face, but if there are good reasons for thinking it true?  If you can resist the resistance, and if you will be open to this premise, we can have a look.

What are we really saying here?

First, if objective morality exists, it either exists on its own or has a source.  In the first case, this is exactly what Plato suggested – that there was some Good which was the form of all things, and this Good is the thing we are referring to when we say something is morally good or evil.

Indeed, certain atheist philosophers have regarded this as being the case, since they did not admit a God.  

But there are obstacles to this.  Consider:  The Good seems to be inert.  That is, it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t react to anything, and it doesn’t cause anything.  It just exists as a model, after which things are patterned.  If that’s the case, then we still need something which caused the Universe to exist in the first place (and thus things which we call “good” and “evil”).  In other words, perhaps the Good exists, but we still need a First Cause.

At worst, if the Good is not identical to the First Cause (ie God), then it is either co-eternal with Him, or it was created by Him.  If it was co-eternal with him, we still have a God who exists and creates according to the Good.  If it was created by Him, we still have a God that exists – and moreover, who creates and defines the Good.

So much for the Good, qua the Good.  What we have in Christianity in particular is the notion that God is the Good.  He is both First Cause and the source of all good things.  Indeed, the Good is co-eternal with God because the Good is God.

This would satisfy our investigation, at any rate.  A God who is the Good would certainly give us a ground for objective morality; about this, there is no dispute.  The question behind this premise really is, is there anything else which could be the ground of objective morality?  If not, we must admit that Premise 1 is probably true.

3.  Therefore, God exists.

At any rate, if Premise 1 and Premise 2 are more probably true than not, then the conclusion follows.  And again, as with the Kalam Cosmological Argument, we cannot claim (or demand) absolute certainty.  It just isn’t possible.  

However, there is one more argument I would like to share with you, which really does approach logical certainty.  It will take more time, more background, and more effort, but the result is – to my mind – truly astonishing.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Let us start with something simple and strong.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

What do you make of this?  Let us walk through it.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Another way of saying this is, “Nothing comes from nothing.”  If I asked you to imagine “nothing” – actually nothing, not one thing – you would seek to do this by emptying your mind.

But your mind is still there.  Thinking of nothing at all, not even a mind emptying itself of its contents, may be an impossible task.  It is only possible to think of it “in principle,” imagining by logic a scenario where there is nothing at all, not even a reality (since that would be something).

Try anyway.  Now, can anything come from nothing?

Of course not.  There’s nothing there from which “something” could come, since there’s not anything.

The first premise of this argument, then, says that if anything begins to exist – a human being, a flower, a Universe – it has a cause for its existence.  We’re not saying, yet, that the Universe has a cause.  Only that, if the Universe began to exist (rather than existing for all eternity), then it must have had a cause for its existence.

2. The Universe began to exist.

Ok, that didn’t take long.  Yes, the Universe began to exist – this is the conclusion, the fact arrived at, from the Big Bang Theory and modern science.

Science, to the defense of faith?  It would appear so, but it is only a modern illusion that they were ever enemies.  In other words, this is not surprising to reflective Christians, to historically literate thinkers, and a sufficiently impartial observer would, I think, conclude as much.

If you want to argue the science, take it up with Lemaitre, Eddington, Einstein (who had to admit he was wrong about this), Hawking, Penrose, Vilenkin, Ellis…

Moreover, strictly speaking, science may not be necessary to complete the proof.  Consider infinity.

You’ll forgive me for rehashing this, and as such, we’ll only review one demonstration.  Consider, this moment, beginning at negative infinity and counting up to zero.  You start, “Negative infinity…”  And then what?

Not knowing the next number demonstrates the impossibility of this task.  That is, there is no next number – you can’t do it.  But if the Universe did not have a beginning, there would be an infinity of days stretching back into the past.  If today is Day Zero, then there must be some day, Day Negative Infinity, from which time has counted down to reach today.

But we can’t count down from negative infinity.  It’s not only absurd, it’s impossible.

This can be framed another, similar way.  Imagine you walk along the road and you meet someone saying, “Negative three, negative two, negative one, zero!”

You ask, “What are you doing?”

He responds, “I’ve just finished counting up to zero from negative infinity!”

Now, aside from the difficulties above, think to yourself:  Why didn’t he finish yesterday, or tomorrow?  If infinity truly stretches forever into the past, he should never have reached the number zero!

Reflect on it:  If there’s nowhere in the past to begin, there’s no way to reach today.  It is like you’ve fallen into a deep hole and, before you’ve landed, you try to jump out.  You just can’t – you’re always falling down faster than you’re propelling yourself up, because there’s not anything to push off of.  If the hole is bottomless – analogous to a Universe which is beginningless – then you will never emerge, not by climbing or jumping or anything else.

No, to get out of the hole, there must be a bottom; to get to today, there must have been a beginning.

3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause for its existence.

This is the logically necessary conclusion.  If the premises are true, the conclusion follows.  Now, what could possibly qualify as the cause of the Universe?

Consider that what is meant by “Universe” is all time, matter, space, and energy.  So we need something which is not made of matter, not confined in space, not constrained by energy, and outside of time – since all of these things came into existence at the beginning of the Universe.

And this we call God.

Think on it if you like; for all I know, the only suitable answer here is God.  I will move on from here, but let us set things in a context.

That is, while this argument is persuasive to me, it does not grant me absolute certainty.  Truth be told, this argument is more of a logical shield for my belief than anything.  My faith truly rests on the proof of the soul, on my more-or-less direct experiences of God.

If a logically sound argument points to the existence of God, though, we ought at least to be open to the existence of God.

The atheist-par-resistance will not be content with this talk of the heart and mind.  As to the heart, he assumes a moralistic tone, and we will let him fall on his sword soon.  As to the soul – well, there is no soul, he says, and anyway he certainly does not sense the presence of God.  That is simply a case of people deluding themselves.

No, he thinks logic will settle the matter, and he has home-field advantage.  Indeed, he is even convinced of victory before the contest has begun, and will often beg the question to get the answer he wants.

Instead, let us have someone honestly seeking, genuinely open to the evidence.  Perhaps they can understand how – if not directly – a person might respond to these proofs of the heart and soul.  Perhaps such a person respects those who are taken over by episodes of spiritual ecstasy, or who find peace in beliefs soberly and sublimed recited.  Maybe such a person can’t really tell whether he also experiences these things, or can simply imagine it, and at any rate, none of it goes far enough to give him confidence or change his mind.

This, at least, sounds like a mind at work.  And the mind is where we find some of the most compelling proofs.

…just like Libertarianism.

Now, before showing why this is so, let us just say that both have their merits as concepts.  The merits, however, are exceedingly superficial.

Libertarianism, for example, is the idea that government should leave people alone to the fullest extent possible.  In fact, a thoroughgoing Libertarian might well say that there ought be no government at all (anarchy).

It is readily abundant to any thinking person that government is a problem humanity has never properly solved.  Moreover, those especially under the government’s thumb at any given time are keen to be out of it.  But the only thing worse than government is no government.

What is government, after all, but concentrated power?  So, fine, eliminate it:  What is left?

Towns?  But what defines the town?  Without a centralizing influence of some kind, and an authority (here is the key) to enforce it, there is no town.  There are just families and individuals living near each other.

Clans, families?  But these are also governed.  (To be fair, I have not heard a Libertarian say that even families should be dissolved in deference to his politics, but I’m sure they’re out there).

So the individual is the basic unit of society, the locus of power which cannot be further dissolved – at least not without degenerative biological consequences.  The idea behind Libertarianism is that individuals may rule themselves, and no one should rule over them.

But is this really possible?  Let us take one example.

It is clear to all that no one is completely self-sufficient.  Leaving aside the vulnerability of childhood, few have the skills to survive completely unaided by another human being, and fewer still want to.  There is a social instinct and need in human beings which must be satisfied for sustained health.  (Remember, we are regarding Libertarianism as optimal, not merely bestowing the possibility of survival).

Some interaction will be required among the individuals in a Libertarian society.  There will be bartering, for example.  Still more, there will be agreements – promises to perform, contracts – which make possible the advancement of human well-being.

Now, as the basic unit of power, I may decide that it is in my interest to make a contract with you, and then break it once you have delivered on your promise.  This is obviously bad for you, and it is also bad – tangibly and in principle – for our society.  But I am a locus of power.  Who can stop me?

And this is only one kind of treachery.  I might also choose – in my own interest, you understand – to harm you for amusement, or to steal all you have, or even to murder you.  Who can stop me?

Someone or something stronger.  And that will likely happen.  But see – if it does, now you either have government, or you have might-makes-right.  The former we are trying to avoid by definition; the latter is functionally the same, though the slope slides toward tyranny.

Now a similar thing happens with Secularism.

First, a note:  Secularism has often been conceived as a compromise among sects of a single religion – usually Christianity – and not as the complete absence of religion in public life.  Indeed, it would be fair to say the Founders of the United States had exactly that frame of mind, particularly when you read men like John Adams.

Certainly, others have conceived of Secularism as the absence of all religion, and among the undiscerning, this seems to provide the same societal goods.  Let us have this, then.

The idea is that the state will not adopt or favor any religion, but will govern in the common interest in a pluralistic society.  The citizens may be adherents of any number of religions, or no religion.  The assumption is that they will all benefit if the state does not show any deference whatsoever to any religion at all.

After all, Christians might not like living in a Hindu society, if the government there enforced Hindu doctrine.  Likewise, Muslims may not appreciate living under Christian rule, and Buddhists might like to be free of Muslim oversight.

A funny thing happens here, though:  Those of no religion win.  They don’t like to admit this, of course, but it’s logically guaranteed.

In a society where Christianity is the official religion, Christians win.

In a society where Hinduism is the official religion, Hindus win.

In a society where no religion is state sponsored, those with no religion win.

The counterpoint is that, somehow, a state with no religion is a state where every religion wins.  I don’t know…how did the Orthodox fare in Stalin’s Russia?

Moreover, when you’re talking about governing in the common interest, you have to appreciate that a perfect consensus is as mythical as …atheism.  (Just as interesting, too.)

And so, whenever you do not have a consensus – say, on whether to go to war with a given country – you are violating the spirit of Secularism.  And notice that you are violating it both ways.

In other words, if you go to war against the will of some – then they no longer perceive that you are governing in the common interest (whether or not they are guided by religious conviction).

And if you don’t go to war, you are also governing against the common interest – whether or not they are guided by religious conviction.

Indeed, as I’ve pointed out before, in the context of Secularism it is better to think of religions as worldviews, and atheism as a worldview, and then it all becomes obvious:  SOME worldview must dominate.

But if you get tired of living in a Secular society, perhaps a Libertarian society will do.  Maybe you can get there on your Hydra.

Found this in a group where I am more observer than participant…

“This political season has created a deeply painful crisis of faith for me. I’ve seen so-called Christian after Christian support the hateful policies of men like Trump and Cruz. I’ve seen my Christian friends, especially (but not exclusively) the white ones, grow more and more bigoted and intolerant. I’ve seen pastors and other faith leaders endorse a man that openly preaches hatred.

The day Falwell endorsed Trump was the last straw for me. I renounced the faith that day and haven’t considered myself a Christian since. But it hurts me profoundly.

First, let us take this man in the best possible light.  This, to me, means that he was exaggerating when describing certain policies as “hateful,” that his notation of “white” Christians is ideological residue (after all, he also noted this wasn’t categorically true – so why mention it?), and that such word choices as “bigoted,” “hatred,” and “cult” are there for effect.

In other words, this is a rant, an emotive outburst.

Now, let us challenge some of his assumptions.

He refers to the “so-called Christian” who supports Cruz or Trump – but seems not to consider that both of those men are Christians, too.  I submit that this does not even enter his mind, but that he considers the Christianity of these men to be ploys to curry favor with voters.

Just what does it take to be a Christian?  And is this man the arbiter of Christianity?  Interesting that he would, ostensibly, be so much against discrimination, and yet discriminate as to what someone holds as his deep-seated belief.

(See – you never, ever escape the reality of discrimination.  It is a basic fact of the human condition.  You simply choose which forms of discrimination to participate in.)

The climax of his post, of course, is that he renounced Christianity after the political endorsement of a major Christian leader.  His assumption – I have to guess – is that Falwell’s endorsement made any difference at all to his own faith, or to Christianity in general, or to the Truth at all.

Would you renounce arithmetic if a mathematician endorsed Trump?  Would you renounce southern food if Paula Dean endorsed Trump?

Obviously not.  The connection is not tenuous; it is entirely imagined.  I am a Christian, and I could barely recall that Falwell endorsed Trump.  I have not renounced my Christian faith.

But it’s easy to get lost in the political rhetoric.  There’s a reason people can get jobs as pundits – the stuff is highly engrossing.  People watch on with great expectation, in astonishing numbers.

(Enough about Trump being a reality star, and that being disqualifying.  That fact is exactly why he’s so good at this.  He’s been training for it all of his public life.)

Our man does make one reasonably good assumption:  That Christianity is about the transformation of a person’s life by God’s grace.  (Though the ambiguity here confirms that he is not the best arbiter of a Christian’s sincerity).

Christianity is articulated in the Creed, and reduces to this:  The God of all creation came down to earth and was made flesh; He suffered and died for our sins; He rose again to new life, giving us the hope of an eternity in His presence.

Your life may be transformed by accepting this, and inviting God’s grace into your life.  It may also be that you continue to struggle, but your hope will empower you to endure the struggle.  You now believe that God will redeem even the worst of your suffering, and that does change things.

So where does that leave our guest?

He laments that Christianity has devolved into a kind of bludgeon, useful for the fearful, and that there is nothing left which resembles his expectation of the Church.  Indeed, his own act of renunciation, which accomplishes nothing relative to its catalysts, causes him pain, because he really did harbor the hope of Christ in his heart.  He thought that same light, the light of faith, might have had greater effect on the world around him, which he projects onto the world as a whole.

I would begin by telling him to turn off his television, unplug his computer.  But just before he does that, he should look into the persecution of Christians around the world.

American Christianity is not the entirety of Christianity.  It is only one sliver.  This is taken entirely for granted in the new Testament, as St. Paul addresses the Church in each location, and as the same happens in Revelation.  Christians in every time and place are going to have their particular virtues and vices, and the character of one is foolishly projected onto the character of the whole.

Then I would cut to the quick:  Where is your spine, man?

Do you follow the Truth as it is fashionable, as you have sufficient social approval for it?  Are your beliefs so deeply sincere when you are comfortable, then complicated and tenuous when you are distressed?  (This is about as good as we have for a Christian litmus test:  When circumstances become difficult, genuine Christian faith will grow stronger, not weaker).

Or is it only that you are being lumped in with the wrong kind of Christians, who support “hateful policies” and are ever fearful?

What a terrible reason to apostatize.  No, you find your courage and choose from two options.

One, you call yourself a different kind of Christian.  This is the Protestant option.

Two, you renew the Church, by the grace of God.  This is the Catholic option.

But to make an excuse for yourself, to relieve yourself of the burdens of faith because you can’t stomach the association with Christians of differing opinions, vices, and virtues – that is hateful.  That is bigoted, and as is the case with bigotry:  That is cowardly.

Lift yourself up, man.  Force yourself up off the ground, take stock of your surroundings.  God is abounding in mercy, so make a fresh start.

This time, return to Him with all your heart.