The Hitchhiker’s Question

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, earthman Arthur Dent and his three friends, after many comic adventures, find their way to the Planet Magrathea. There, they learn that in the distant past a race of “hyperintelligent, pan-dimensional beings” created a supercomputer named Deep Thought to determine the answer to the “Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” After having worked on the answer for 7.5 million years, Deep Thought has determined the answer to be 42. It is an answer which makes absolutely no sense because no one remembers what the “Ultimate Question” was in the first place. Was it the question I was told in my first college philosophy course the early Greek philosophers asked: “What is the world made of –– water? fire? ether? or tiny indivisible pieces of matter called atoms?” Was it one or all four of the fundamental philosophical questions: “Where did I come from? Who am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going?” Or maybe as everyone who has ever looked up and wondered at a full moon has asked, “What does it all mean?” For the ancient Hebrew sages and prophets and for the Christian apostles, saints and early church fathers  the ultimate question was and is: “Where is God to be found, where is God to be seen, how is experiential knowledge of God gained and the presence of God realized?” For them, as well as contemporary Christian mystics and contemplatives, to desire God is the greatest of passions, to seek God the greatest of adventures, to find God the greatest of all discoveries. That, as I understand it, is the essence of classical Christian spirituality.

A Working Definition
The following working definition of classical Christianity is a fairly standard one among theologians and historians and at least initially offers no major surprises.

By classical Christianity is meant the central Christian tradition as commonly understood by most believers, in most places, and on which there has generally been substantial consensus now for over two millennia; and, which has been received and celebrated by the vastly different cultures of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, including Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants, as well as many who would also identify themselves as liberal or evangelical.

While there is nothing startling in this brief definition, there are for most people who have never read or studied patristics, that is the writings of the early church fathers, numerous surprises. For example, the Bible itself says nothing about the doctrine of inerrancy, and the generation of Christian leaders (the church fathers) following the Apostles and those who composed the New Testament, clearly did not embrace the notion of inerrancy. In fact, in reading patristics, say from Ignatius of Antioch (35 C. E.-108 C. E.) to Augustine of Hippo (354 C. E. – 430 C. E.) the notion of an inerrant text is not only absent but explicitly disregarded.

One of the amazing things for me personally in reading the patristic writings and historical theology up to the present, is how what any number of modern writers characterize as “traditional” is often actually less than two-hundred-years-old and therefore not really part of the ancient tradition at all; while what they describe as “emerging Christianity” is often already there in the patristics. It can be said, then, that classical Christianity is traditional Christianity; however, in saying this it is absolutely necessary to understand that tradition is not in any way synonymous with conservatism, or resistance to change as a kind of blind rigidity. Tradition is that which has been discovered, or received by one generation and faithfully passed on to another.

How Do We Know Anything?
The disciples of Jesus, students of his teaching and life and heart, were filled with questions: “What,” they asked, “can this mean?” “How should we pray?” “How can this be?” “What is the meaning of this teaching?” “What is the single most important precept to live by?” “What is the one necessary thing?” “How can we know Jesus is the messiah?” “How can anyone possibly be born a second time?” It seems to me that the great haunting question of all philosophy and theology is how do we know anything? How do we know what we know, and how do we know it with any certainty or confidence? How do we know there is a good and gracious God who is ever present to us and for us, how do we know that the God who created the cosmos cares about our little life, how do we know Jesus is the Christ and resurrected Lord of Life, and how do we know our life is meaningful when lived in love for God and others? All human thinking is riddled with finitude and filled with ambiguity, uncertainty, and contingency. And, we are frequently blinded by our own idiosyncrasies and deluded by conflicting desires, obsessions and compulsions. We long to know where we can find a secure hand hold, a solid footing. But, how is it possible to be sure we know what we think we know? These are perennial questions of epistemology, but in certain crucial times, especially amid sorrow, illness, and death, our usual rational explanations become stretched to their limit. These crucial moments make it especially difficult to answer the question and. . . ‘Life constantly undoes our theories of knowing”’

Christian knowing has often been caricatured as “blind faith,” meaning that it is completely disconnected from real evidence and rationality. In one episode of “All in the Family,”  Archie Bunker replied to religiously naïve Edith’s assertion, “You just gotta have faith!” that, “Faith ain’t nothin’ but believin’ what no one in his right mind would believe otherwise!” And it has to be admitted that when one listens to some of the utter nonsense of modern American fundamentalism, Archie’s brutal assessment of faith seems pretty accurate. It just boggles the mind, for example, to think that any marginally reasonable person living in the twenty-first century could believe that the world was created in six literal days –– or even that the Bible says such a thing. Perhaps a clarification of terms might be helpful at this point, particularly in regard to the meaning of the words “faith” and “reason.”

Recognizing Reasonable Reason
So, what is reason? When we talk about reason we may really have what is properly known as “cognition” in mind. “Cognition” is a term that refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge and understanding, or in comprehending something. These processes include pattern recognition, memory, sensory perceptions and imagination. Reason obviously involves all of these cognitive functions but reason itself is usually defined a little more narrowly and specifically as the capacity to consciously make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, apply logic, and to adapt or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. The cognitive functioning of an individual may be at a high level, or it might be extremely low, but what is certain is that to be human, is to perceive and think and reason. And what we think and reason about is absolutely everything –– including thinking itself. That is, we think a lot about thinking and do a good deal of reasoning about reason. And, we spend large amounts of time thinking about faith –– pondering the reasonableness of faith.

Seeing Faith
Faith, according to the New Testament and the early church fathers, is itself a way of looking at things and of seeing with a deep seeing. The English word “faith” comes from the Greek term “pistis.” Like a lot of words you might look up in any dictionary it has several meanings; and, is therefore, translated differently in different biblical passages. For example, depending on the context it may be translated as “belief” or as “faith.” Look at Hebrews 11:6:

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches God must believe that God exists and rewards those who seriously and passionately seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

“Without faith (pistis), it is impossible to please God . . .”  Here at the beginning of verse six the writer uses the word “faith” with most all of its meanings in mind –– intellectual assent that something is true; confidence not only in something or someone’s “factuality” but also in something or someone’s reliability, trustworthiness, and dependability; entrusting ourselves to what or who we find reliable; and, faith as loyalty––faithfulness.

“Anyone who approaches God must believe (pistis) that God exists. . .” Here, in its second occurrence, the word “faith” (pistis) is used in its more limited meaning of intellectual assent. It is a common sense and down to earth assertion requiring no effort to grasp. It is even a little comic to think about seeking or searching for what is not there, for what does not exist. It is rather like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“. . . and rewards those who seriously seek Him.”  With the conjunctive “and” the word “faith” (pistis) is implied rather than actually used a third time. In its final implied use in verse six,  pistis again indicates two or more ideas. First it refers again to intellectual belief (to what one thinks true or in some sense factual) and then again to that which can be trusted, counted upon, depended upon, relied upon. Theologically, it therefore also alludes to the faithfulness or trust worthiness of God; that is, we trust what is trust worthy.

An Ancient Faith Paradigm
In verse eight through twelve Abraham and Sarah are presented as a paradigm for how this works in actual life. Abraham and Sarah become convinced that God has spoken to them. The text doesn’t say whether this was in a dream, or vision, an inner experience, or an audible voice; nor, does it tell us anything about what must have been an intense discussion between Abraham, Sarah, their old father and head of the clan Terah, their nephew Lot and his family who went with them, their uncle Laban who decided to stay in Mesopotamia, and their whole large extended family; or by what logic, what reasoning, Abraham and Sarah concluded they had correctly understood and ought to leave family and friends, their country which at that time was the geographical center of wealth and power, break with their culture, and forsake their thriving business. It does appear that the family discussion went on for some time. But at some point they became convinced that their God –– the God honored by their family, whom they probably called El or Elohim, was inviting them to do something incredibly audacious –– to leave everything, and journey to a distant and unfamiliar land without knowing for sure what would happen (Hebrews 11:8-12). Thomas Cahill therefore writes:

So, “wayyelekh Avram (“Avram went”) –– two of the boldest words in all literature. They signal a complete departure from everything that has gone before in the long evolution of culture and sensibility. Out of Sumer , civilized repository of the predictable, comes a man who does not know where he is going but goes forth into the unknown wilderness under the prompting of his god. Out of Mesopotamia, home of canny, self-serving merchants who use their gods to ensure prosperity and favor, comes a wealthy caravan with no material goal. Out of ancient humanity, which from the dim beginning of its consciousness has read its eternal verities in the stars, comes a party travelling by no known compass. Out of the human race, which knows in its bones that all it strivings must end in death, comes a leader who says he has been given an impossible promise. Out of mortal imagination comes a dream of something new, something better, something yet to happen, something –– in the future.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews concludes that Abraham trusted in his God, and God counted it as righteousness. Indeed, this account of Abraham and Sarah’s trust does not stand alone as a single incident but is part of a continuing and progressive story of total reliance on the goodness and fidelity of God. We are not told how Abraham may have responded had he been queried as to his epistemology –– how he knew that his God existed in the first place. Perhaps he would have replied with some version of the moral argument somewhat like Psalms or Proverbs. Maybe he would have presented some form of the cosmological or teleological argument as in the Epistle to the Romans:

“But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being” (Romans 1:20).

What we do know is that in time whatever intellectual reasons Abraham and Sarah might have initially provided were transcended (not contradicted but transcended) as they lived into lives of profound trust. The Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book is correct, “The essence of all spiritual progress is willingness (faith, trust, self-surrender).” My point is that reason and faith are essentially one thing –– complimentary ways of knowing. In classical Christianity reason, faith, revelation, experience, tradition, feeling, intuition all represent converging lines of wisdom and of knowing the mysterious reality we call God –– “the one in whom we live move and have our very being” (Acts 17:28).

Beyond Reason
We may debate the intellectual merits of God’s existence all we want, and in some ways such intellectual reflection is even necessary. As Thomas Oden noted, “No one can be required to believe absurdities. The mind is God given and has a responsibility to reject falsity. . . . Christian faith opposes anti-intellectual obscurantism as much as it does extreme skepticism.” At the same time classical Christianity insists that beyond this mental or intellectual reflection is living moment by moment and day by day in a conscious connection of trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Augustine Bishop of Hippo, who is thought to be among the last of the classical scholars, experienced three “breakthroughs” which can be found in his Confessions as well as other literary works. These breakthroughs or “conversions” may be thought of as intellectual, moral, and religious. Augustine identified as an intellectual conversion the ability to differentiate between that which can be grasped by the five physical senses and that which can be grasped by the mind or intellect alone. Intellectual conversion results in the awareness that the reality of material things is caused by something that is not physical; and, therefore is a reality that can be grasped only by intelligence. Furthermore, intellectual conversion leads to the two things most worth knowing –– God and soul. However, to live justly requires a second kind of conversion which may be considered as moral. Moral conversion enables us to see, know, feel, and do the good –– to act in a way that is consistent with wisdom as a way of life. The third “conversion,” religious conversion, as Augustine described it, enables us to love God with our entire being. It is religious in the original sense of the meaning of the word “religious” as that which binds the soul to God. “For Augustine such a binding in the Christian religion does not involve a restriction but an expansion of one’s freedom as well as a perfection or completion of the other two conversions.”

The classical Christian thinkers, and their present day heirs, are not inclined to a one workshop, one theory, one method, one way of seeking truth and knowledge. While using logic, employing the techniques of the scientific method, and all the cognitive processes by which we usually define as “reason,” their concept of “reason” is characterized by the principle of congruity or what is sometimes referred to as “comprehensive complementarity.” Following the tenet of congruity or comprehensive complementarity, simply means that the search for knowledge does not depend on any single approach, argument, or method, but rather that an explanation which gathers a great many disparate facts and accounts for them intelligently from multiple ways of knowing is more likely true than one that accounts for fewer facts and is limited to a single methodology.

Remembering the Question Before Continuing
With the Age of Enlightenment it became more and more common for secular philosophers to juxtaposition reason over against faith and revelation. But it is a contrast which often obscures more than it enlightens. More and more psychologists, philosophers, theologians, and scientists embrace what has always been known by saints, sages, mystics and ordinary men and women living every-day life; namely, that the way of knowing anything is multifaceted; and, that “pure reason,” by itself simply does not exist. Indeed, there are ways of knowing, as suggested by the famous humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, that transcend but do not contradict objective reason as scientifically defined. Similarly Thomas Oden observed:

The study of God and delight in knowing God requires a mode of understanding that transcends simply empirical data gathering, logical deduction, or the dutiful organization of scriptural or traditional texts into a coherent sequence. It involve a mode of knowing from the heart. . . Faith’s knowing is distinguishable from objective, testable, scientific knowledge, although not necessarily inimical to it. It is a form of knowing the embraces the practical question of how we choose to live in the presence of this Source and End of all. . .

To all this classical Christianity says, “Yes!” for classical Christianity remembers the primordial question which Stephen Hawking once suggested is, “Why was the universe made?” He said in A Brief History of Time, “We are very close to knowing how the universe was made. But if we knew why we would know the mind of God.” Classical Christianity knows the question is closer, more personal and intimate than what Hawking thought –– knows the question for each of us is: “Why was I made?” And, therefore knows that the answer 42 must equal, in the words of the Catechism, “To know, love, and enjoy God forever.”