91
Discontinuous regimes, continuous laws and miracle
We are familiar in many branches of knowledge with the utility of dividing up what we know at root to be a fundamental unity. Levels of behaviour which are always present may only be visible in particular regimes. The laws of nuclear force act all the time and are indispensable in maintaining the stability of matter, yet we are only aware of their operation when we enter a regime of sufficiently high energy where, for instance, nuclear transmutations become possible which are not observable in ordinary circumstances. Nowhere in the world was there a nucleus with atomic number greater than 92 until the specially contrived circumstances brought about at the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley permitted the formation of a series of transuranic elements.
Sometimes such changes of circumstance can produce radically different modes of behaviour. One example, too familiar to surprise us but remarkable nevertheless, is the way in which the slow increase of temperature suddenly produces a discontinuous change from liquid to gas at boiling point. The detailed physics of such phase changes (as they are called) are notoriously difficult to figure out, but certainly the underlying laws of nature do not change at 100 centigrade.
That example of the discontinuous change of behaviour with changing physical regime, coupled with the unbroken regularity of physical law, may be of some small analogical help in thinking how God might be capable of acting in miraculous, radically unexpected, ways, whilst remaining the Christian God of steadfast faithfulness. That is the fundamental theological problem of miracle: how these strange events can be set within a consistent overall pattern of God's reliable activity; how we can accept them without subscribing to a capricious interventionist God, who is a concept of paganism rather than of Christianity. Miracles must be perceptions of a deeper rationality than that which we encounter in the every day, occasions which make visible a more profound level of divine activity. They are transparent moments in which the Kingdom is found to be manifestly present.
Science and Providence, pp. 51.
92
For you love all things that exist
For you love all things that exist,
and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?
You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.
For your immortal spirit is in all things.
Wis. 11:24-26
93
Study as a road to sanctity
The second condition is to take great pains to examine squarely and to contemplate attentively and slowly each school task in which we have failed, seeing how unpleasing and second rate it is, without seeking any excuse or overlooking any mistake or any of our tutor's corrections, trying to get down to the origin of each fault. There is a great temptation to do the opposite, to give a sideways glance at the corrected exercise if it is bad and to hide it forthwith. Most of us do this nearly always. We have to withstand this temptation. Incidentally, moreover, nothing is more necessary for academic success, because, despite all our efforts, we work without making much progress when we refuse to give our attention to the faults we have made and our tutor's corrections.
Above all it is thus that we can acquire the virtue of humility, and that is a far more precious treasure than all academic progress. From this point of view it is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin. Consciousness of sin gives us the feeling that we are evil, and a kind of pride sometimes finds a place in it. When we force ourselves to fix the gaze, not only of our eyes but of our souls, upon a school exercise in which we have failed through sheer stupidity, a sense of our mediocrity is borne in upon us with irresistible evidence. No knowledge is more to be desired. If we can arrive at knowing this truth with all our souls we shall be well established on the right foundation.
If these two conditions are perfectly carried out there is no doubt that school studies are quite as good a road to sanctity as any other.
Weil, Waiting for God, pp 108-109
94
The Christian Faith
The Anglican Tradition, #38, before 397
95
Miracles, fidelity and free will
The concept of regime, of the sensitive relationship of possibility to circumstances, can also help us to understand something of why miracles occur so sparsely and with a seeming fitfulness. If God is consistent he must act in the same way in the same circumstances, but personal matters are so infinitely graded in their characters that what may seem closely similar occasions can in fact be quite different from each other. In one place Swinburne defines a miracle as "a nonrepeatable exception to the operation of nature's laws, brought about by God". Clearly the discontinuous language of "exception" is exactly what we are trying to avoid, and the word "unrepeatable" has about it that air of arbitrariness which we are at pains to reject. It can be saved from that if we interpret it as referring to that subtle complexity of human circumstance which implies that personal events are never repetitions of their predecessors. Every human experience is unique.
Presumably Farmer had something like this in mind when he wrote: "It is part of the essential personal quality of the awareness of miracle that it should be in any one experience comparatively rare." Seldom will the circumstances be just right for the emergence of the unexpected. (That remark is saved from mere tautology by its pointing to the ground that permits miracle to happen.) There remains, of course, the very difficult question of why miracle should be so exceedingly rare, when we consider the multitude of agonizing occasions which might be thought to call for its assistance. People say that they cannot at all believe in a God who acts if he did not do so to stop the Holocaust. If God were a God who simply interferes at will with his creation, the charge against him would be unanswerable. But if his action is self-limited by a consistent respect for the freedom of his creation (so that he works only within the actual openness of its process) and also by his own utter reliability (so that he excludes the shortcuts of magic) it is not clear that he is to be blamed for not overruling the wickedness of humankind.
Science and Providence, pp. 52-53.
96
With you is wisdom, she who knows your works
With you is wisdom, she who knows your works
and was present when you made the world;
she understands what is pleasing in your sight
and what is right according to your commandments.
Send her forth from the holy heavens,
and from the throne of your glory send her,
that she may labor at my side,
and that I may learn what is pleasing to you.
For she knows and understands all things,
and she will guide me wisely in my actions
and guard me with her glory.
Then my works will be acceptable,
and I shall judge your people justly,
and shall be worthy of the throne of my father.
For who can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
Wis. 9:9-13
97
Scripture and the authority of the Church in controversies
Now that the Church hath authority in controversies is a truth which, should it not be granted, it would be impossible for any controversies to be ever ended. I know the Scripture is the rule of faith and the supreme judge of all controversies whatsoever, so that there is no controversy of faith ought to be determined but from the Scriptures. But I know also, that as all controversies of faith are to be determined by the Scripture, so there are no controversies of faith but what are grounded on the Scriptures.
What is not grounded upon the Scriptures I cannot be bound to believe, and by consequence it cannot be a controversy of faith. Hence it is, that as there is scarce an article of our Christian religion but hath been some time controverted, so there is no controversy that ever arose about it but still both parties have pretended to Scripture. As for example, that great controversy betwixt Arius and Athanasius, whether Christ was very God of the same substance with the Father. Arius, he pretended to Scripture in that controversy as well as Athanasius: and so for all other controversies, both sides still make as if the Scripture was for them. Now in such cases the question is, how the question must be decided, whether the Scripture is for the one or for the other side of the controversy.
The Scripture itself cannot decide the controversy, for the controversy is concerning itself: the parties engaged in the controversy cannot decide it, for either of them thinks his own opinion to be grounded upon Scripture. Now how can this question be decided better or otherways, than by the whole Church's exposition of the Scripture, which side of the controversy it is for, and which side it is against? That it is lawful for the Church thus to expound the Scripture is plain. For it is lawful even for every particular person to pass his judgement upon any place of Scripture; otherwise the Bereans would not have been commended for searching the Scriptures to see whether those things which the apostles preached were so or no. And if the particular persons which the Church consisteth of may give the exposition of the Scripture, much more the Church itself that consisteth of those particular persons. And as the exposition that any particular person passeth upon the Scripture is binding to that person so that he is bound to believe and act according to it, so whatsoever exposition of Scripture is made by the Church in general, it is binding to the Church in general.
The Anglican Tradition, #263, 1716
98
Weeds, mustard and yeast
He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.' "
He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
Matth. 13:24-33
99
If you want to live, you have to die
The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to. It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound. The terms are clear: if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death. The world came into being with the signing of the contract. A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A poet says, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/Drives my green age." This is what we know. The rest is gravy.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, pg. 184
100
Judging the meaning of Scripture
Secondly, By Tradition. For since Tradition is necessary to assure us that there were once such men as the apostles who delivered that Christianity and these Scriptures to us which we now embrace, to question the sufficiency of the like tradition, to assure me of the sense of Scripture is virtually to call in question the motives which induce us to believe in such... Note only that I speak here of a "like tradition", to which two things are requisite. First, That it be such as general as that of Scripture. And Secondly, evidenceth itself by reason to have been no forgery (as here it doth, it being morally impossible that the whole Church, in the delivery of Scripture to us, should deceive or be deceived).
For the infallibility of Tradition doth not consist entirely in the delivery of such a doctrine, but in the assurance which it gives my reason that it could not possibly have been embraced upon other terms. The baptism of Infants is at present (as the Communicating of Infants was of old) the tradition of the Church, but this gives no unquestionable assurance of the truth or derivation of these customs from our Lord and His apostles, for haply the Church embraced them upon other motives, - the first from a conceived analogy therein to Circumcision, the second from a mistake of that of the Evangelist, Except you eat my flesh, ....
Thirdly, Reason is herein guided by her proper maxims and cannot rationally admit of anything as the sense of Scripture which is apparently repugnant to them. For seeing it is impossible to yield a rational assent without reason, it must be more impossible to do it against reason. Besides, right reason must be true; and therefore should a revelation be manifestly repugnant unto right reason, it must equally be opposed to truth.
The Anglican Tradition, #244, 1666
101
Roots and branches
If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy,
then the whole batch is holy; and if the root is holy,
then the branches also are holy.
But if some of the branches were broken off,
and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place
to share the rich root of the olive tree,
do not boast over the branches.
If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root,
but the root that supports you.
Rom. 11:16-18
102
Song of the Three
Then the three with one voice praised and glorified and blessed God in the furnace:
"Blessed are you, O Lord, God of our ancestors,
and to be praised and highly exalted forever;
And blessed is your glorious, holy name,
and to be highly praised and highly exalted forever.
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory,
and to be extolled and highly glorified forever.
Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne on the cherubim,
and to be praised and highly exalted forever.
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom,
and to be extolled and highly exalted forever.
Blessed are you in the firmament of heaven,
and to be sung and glorified forever.
"Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you heavens;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you angels of the Lord;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, all you waters above the heavens;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, all you powers of the Lord;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, sun and moon;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, stars of heaven;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
- - * - -
"Bless the Lord, all rain and dew;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, all you winds;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, fire and heat;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, winter cold and summer heat;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, dews and falling snow;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, nights and days;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, light and darkness;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, ice and cold;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, frosts and snows;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, lightnings and clouds;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
"Let the earth bless the Lord;
let it sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, mountains and hills;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
- - * - -
Bless the Lord, all that grows in the ground;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, seas and rivers;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you springs;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you whales and all that swim in the waters;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, all birds of the air;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, all wild animals and cattle;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
"Bless the Lord, all people on earth;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, O Israel;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you priests of the Lord;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, spirits and souls of the righteous;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you who are holy and humble in heart;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
"Bless the Lord, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
For he has rescued us from Hades and saved us from the power of death,
and delivered us from the midst of the burning fiery furnace;
from the midst of the fire he has delivered us.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
All who worship the Lord, bless the God of gods,
sing praise to him and give thanks to him,
for his mercy endures forever."
Az. 28-68
103
It is because it can be loved by us
It is because it can be loved by us, it is because it is beautiful, that the universe is a country. It is our only country here below. This thought is the essence of the wisdom of the Stoics. We have a heavenly country, but in a sense it is too difficult to love, because we do not know it; above all, in a sense, it is too easy to love, because we can imagine it as we please. We run the risk of loving a fiction under this name. If the love of the fiction is strong enough it makes all virtue easy, but at the same time of little value. Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love. It is this country that God has given us to love. He has willed that it should be difficult yet possible to love it.
Weil, Waiting for God, pg. 128.