Dear Theophilus, 

Last time, when I wrote you, we had looked at the importance of faith in God's existence. Today, in answer to some of the questions that you raised, I want to look at this question a little further.

Remember, we had spoken of reason as a gift and we will now go back to this point. One of the central weaknesses in the position held by rationalists (those who hold that reason rules all), probably the most damaging, is the consideration of the basis of reason. We know that the brain is the organ in our bodies where our thought processes occur. But the brain uses chemical reactions in order to have thoughts and other activities. But these activities are governed by molecular interactions which have no purpose at all. In other words, all our thoughts are the result of random interactions of molecules. Then, if this is so and this is the whole picture as some claim, then we have no basis for saying whether any given thought is true or not - its basis is not in reason but in chance. This is a serious contradiction that those who do not believe that there is a God, do not take under consideration when they express their position.

Another attack hurled at those who believe in God, is their belief in miracles. These are mere superstitious claims made by those who have not been enlightened, is the criticism often heard. When we look at the miracles in the New Testament, we see that they have a certain flavour about them. They don't violate nature as much as is sometimes claimed. They point out the fallenness of nature and how it would look if that fallenness would not be there. There would be no disease, there would be no death. Let me explain a little further with a simple example. The miracle at Cana involves the transformation of water into wine. But this is the same process that occurs in nature, but now it has been speeded up. The rains fall into the ground, are absorbed by the plant which uses them to form glucose which is then fermented to form wine.

Let me give you another example. There is much study carried out on the origins and nature of the universe that we live in. There seems to be a consensus now developing - the universe came into being as a result of what has been called the "big bang", a huge explosion that created the particles that came to form the universe. But what I would like to draw your attention to is the nature of what existed just prior to the big bang. I'd like you to imagine a pencil dot. Now divide this dot into a million pieces; divide each of those little pieces again into a million pieces; keep repeating this until you get a particle that is trillions upon trillions of times smaller than the tiniest atom. From this tiny, tiny piece, the whole universe came into being. If you can accept this, and most scientists do, then the miracle of converting water into wine pales by comparison and I don't see why anyone would have difficulty with miracles.

The other point that I would like to raise with you, and with this I will leave this specific topic, is the question of morality. I find it amusing to see scientists who huff and puff against any kind of religious belief, and yet cling to a code of moral behaviour and become affronted by deception and other acts that they consider wrong. How do they determine what is wrong? If there is no God, then morality becomes an opinion poll - what most people think is right, is thereby made right. The law of the jungle cannot be challenged except for belief in a Being external to humanity. I don't particularly like this argument because it almost seems to imply that the need for a moral code is so strong that we will invent God, even if He doesn't exist, so that we can justify a society that has an accepted code of behaviour.

What we have to keep in mind is that science is only one way of studying the world and commenting on the reality that surrounds us. In our time, the case is constantly put forward that science is the only way of talking about our world and our lives. This is very obviously false because there are important questions on which science is silent - questions of meaning, of ethics and many other areas. That is why we have the arts - they represent another way of dealing with the world.

I would like to point out to you that even in theology there are two different modes of speaking about God. There is what is called the cataphatic way - which makes positive statements about God such as God is just, God is good, and so on. But, we have to be careful at this point because we constantly have to guard against painting a picture of God as simply some very fine and good human being. God is different from people in very profound ways and to underline this point, we have what is called apophatic theology. This is essentially a theology of negation which corrects cataphatic theology. When we say, for example, that God is good, apophatic theology would challenge the statement by questioning what is good and just in general, by making us aware of the limitations of words when they are applied to God. Apophatic theology is a corrective to the over-confidence of cataphatic theology. I wonder if we would not have many fewer atheists if more people were made more aware of apophaticism within our faith?

You are probably despairing at this point and saying to yourself - this is all so complicated. Well, the world that we live in is complicated and in order to be true to ourselves in our search for truth, we must wrestle with these complicated issues. Again, permit me to draw another example for you, this time, from the world of physics. You have probably heard of electrons. These are negatively charged particles which reside in all atoms. We call electrons particles, but they are not really particles. If you were to throw a ball at the floor at a specific angle, it would hit the floor, rebound, and hit the adjacent wall at a certain spot. Suppose that you mark that spot with chalk or some other substance, and then repeat your procedure making sure that you keep the angle and the force with which you throw the ball, exactly the same. What you would see would be that the ball would continually hit the wall at exactly the same spot each time. Suppose that we were to repeat this trial of ours but instead of using a rubber ball, we used electrons. We have what are called electron guns (you have one in your television set) and you fire electrons at a surface and then detected where they would hit a screen after bouncing off the surface. The result you would see would be very different from your experiment with the rubber ball. What you would see would be bands of hits by the electrons followed by bands of no hits and then again, bands of hits, and so on. You would see a pattern of hits and empty spots alternating. This tells us that electrons are not just particles, they are also like waves. So, you say to yourself - what are electrons? Are they particles or waves? The correct answer is that they are both, and you need both concepts for a true description of what electrons are. To say that something behaves as a particle and at the same time, as a wave, points out to us that we cannot make pictures of the most fundamental parts of matter. And if we can't do that with simple particles such as electrons, how much more does this apply to our concepts of God. So, if you say that theology is too complicated you should bear in mind that all of reality is complicated, but that is also what makes it so interesting.

You must keep something in mind when you think about science: it is always changing and therefore, science cannot be a basis for something longlasting. If theology were to be married to science, which is something sometimes advocated by well-meaning people, theology will soon find herself a widow.

Brain knowledge is important and in this letter we have been concentrating on some of the questions that you asked in this area. This knowledge is dealt with in what I had discussed above under the area of cataphatic theology. It is important and cannot be neglected but it has to be balanced out by apophatic theology. But what do we mean by apophatic theology? It is hard to define it but allow me to express it in terms that you will find meaningful and possible to grasp. Apophatic theology is referred to as the theology of union and what this means is a theology not so much of the brain as of the heart. You can learn all the dogmatic definitions and become versed in history and arguments and concepts but this is not enough. For your faith to be living you must practise it - you must do something. And that something is to try to live in love and prayer, caring for others, forgiving others, being charitable and chaste. This is a tall order but if you even set out on this path what you will find is that you will come not only to know about God but you will come to know God - this I promise you. For now, goodbye,

Yours,

Bar-Abbas

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