The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time
I was most pleased to learn today at Mass that we celebrated the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.
For those of you who forget the story, "And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And the trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
"And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized."
You would have to understand with what hatred and contempt I once held Christians and all forms of supernaturalism and spiritualism, what a loathsome and degrading superstition I held them all to be, to understand why the conversion of Saul, zealous enemy of the Church, has such penetrating personal meaning for me. I was once a petty little Saul, trying my best to shoot the arrows of scorn and doubt into the breast of every St. Stephen I chanced across. I noticed then, and recollect now with shame, how uniformly and unfailingly polite, courteous, and even-tempered was every Christian I interrogated and debated, no matter how base my own manners were, or haughty my demeanor. I noticed it, but I did not deduce anything from it. In other words, they acted in the same spirit as Ananias.
One reason the ancient Catholic Church appealsto me, is this texture the feast days and fast days give to time. Having a day set aside to contemplate the conversion of Saul of Tarsis to Saint Paul is instructive.
Looking at the tale, one can see why I do not think a rational argument can talk even a reasonable person into the faith that is the human response to divine grace. If so, it is no argument against faith to say that no rational argument can talk one into it. Indeed, a wag might joke that any Church one can be talked into is a Church one can be talked out of: a scientist is supposed, by his profession, to have no personal attachment to his theories–indeed it would be a scandal if a scientist fall so in love with his theory that he scorned contrary empirical evidence. For those non-empirical matters, especially matters that claim the whole man, body and soul, and not merely his detached reason only, however, the ground is different.
No bride would want a man whose love for her was merely rational, for then some other woman might give him a reason to depart and divorce. Far better for a man to court his beloved for mystical and irrational reasons, and swear an unbreakable vow, and prove himself to be a better man even than King Henry VIII of England. What women would not be impressed by a man more faithful than a King? That bride of Christ we call the Church is no different. A man will love his bride for a thousand different trifling reasons, all irrational, some shallow, some profound: he loves the gesture she uses to tuck her hair behind her ear, or the way she sends him marching off to war without a tear. But if she wore her hair a different way, he would love that instead, or if she wept at parting, he would count the tears as precious as crystal.
If you stood before a creature as cold and rational as a Houyhnhnm, no doubt you could give the pragmatic reasons, relating to child-rearing and the economy of households, that buttress the marriage custom, and in so doing, you would tell your creature nothing of what true love truly is. The Houyhnhnm would no doubt cock a horse-ear to hear you say instead that yours was a match made in heaven, and your bride was the sunrise and birdsong, the silvery moon and nightengale to you. All in all, these words would be truer and closer the heart of things than a dull recital of the biological-economics of family structures, but the Houyhnhnm would think you a Yahoo for saying it.
There is unfortunately no articulated theory known to me of the epistemology of meaning. The Houyhnhnm’s life, devote of eroticism, passion, agape, romance and love, not to mention domestic spats, is irrational precisely because the loveless life is robbed of the meaning a healthy married life knows. It is irrational in the sense of being false-to-fact: the concepts and symbols in the horsey brain do not correspond to reality. Once he falls in love (supposing an equine Cupid somehow able to work a bow and arrow with his hoofs) all that was dark will be clear, and the seemingly unrelated or unaccounted-for facts will placed in a pattern, in a context, that makes sense.
The faith of the Christians makes sense of life, even if it is a life pregnant with mystery and magic. The faith of the atheists makes senseless things that otherwise should make sense. There is no sense in showing respect for the bodies of the dead, and many an atheist grows tongue-tied when you ask him to explain why cannibalism is wrong, or, more likely, he gleefully arguing that cannibalism is not wrong, nor does he notice how far astern from the island of common sense his ship of words has sailed, once the anchor cable snaps. (You may use a different word, if you like, but it is an act of faith to assert, despite all contrary evidence, that all reports of miracles and near-death experiences, prophetic dreams and ghostly visions are caused by madness, fraud, and extra-subhuman gullibility.)
As far as I know, no philosopher has put forward the argument that any view of the world which increases the meaningful content of life, and makes what would otherwise be senseless or meaningless pregnant with meaning, can be assumed true on that basis alone. I frankly see nothing unscientific or irrational about this idea, nor does it seem far from such concepts as parsimony or Occam’s Razor, which, after all, are procedures seeking elegance of explanation based on something other than observation.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
