Centuries Old Truths
A month ago I wrote a posting ("Mystery and Creationism") in which I suggested that Christian fundamentalists who feel that their religion is imcompatible with science should take the advice of the late Pope and ascribe the incomprehensibility to mystery, since mystery is theologically acceptable.
In that piece, I quoted someone quoting Pope John Paul II as saying
Truth cannot contradict truth.
which I took to be a perspicacious aphorism that tidily addressed the problem.
Anyway, yesterday I was reading Brian Silver's The Ascent of Science at lunch, when I came upon the following. Let me tell you, the surprise almost caused me to snort a taco through my nose!
For Bacon, reason and common sense were irrelevant to religion: "The more absurd an dincredible any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God in believing it; and so much the more noble the victory of faith." Galileo likewise sidestepped the question: "Both the Holy Scriptures and nature originate in the Divine Word . . . .[T]wo truths can never contradict one another."*
Oh dear, whatever are we to make of this! Was the late pope cribbing from Galileo, stealing profound thoughts from the guy whom they so famously persecuted? Did Paul V, when he visited with Galileo, make a note of this penetrating insight of Galileo's and pass it along through generations of the papacy? Did JPII, once he had finally absolved Galilleo of heresy feel it was finally safe to plagiarize? Did he, when writing his "apology" over the mistreatment come across this metaphysical position and decide to resurrect it?
So now I have to look further. It seems that the attribution to John Paul II is from a speech he gave, "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth", to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 October 1996.# As his theme he took the relationship of the Church to Science over the question of evolution:
I am pleased with the first theme you have chosen, that of the origins of life and evolution, an essential subject which deeply interests the Church, since revelation, for its part, contains teaching concerning the nature and origins of man. How do the conclusions reached by the various scientific disciplines coincide with those contained in the message of revelation?
And, in fact, in the next sentence he gives us an earlier attribution
And if, at first sight, there are apparent contradictions, in what direction do we look for their solution? We know, in fact, that truth cannot contradict truth (cf. Leo XIII, encyclical Providentissimus Deus).
Sure enough, here is paragraph 23 from the "summary" section of that very encyclical**
23. In order that all these endeavours and exertions [related to the study of the Scriptures, which is the topic of the encyclical] may really prove advantageous to the cause of the Bible, let scholars keep steadfastly to the principles which We have in this Letter laid down. Let them loyally hold that God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, is also the Author of the Scriptures – and that therefore nothing can be proved either by physical science or archaeology which can really contradict the Scriptures. If, then, apparent contradiction be met with, every effort should be made to remove it. Judicious theologians and commentators should be consulted as to what is the true or most probable meaning of the passage in discussion, and the hostile arguments should be carefully weighed. Even if the difficulty is after all not cleared up and the discrepancy seems to remain, the contest must not be abandoned; truth cannot contradict truth, and we may be sure that some mistake has been made either in the interpretation of the sacred words, or in the polemical discussion itself; and if no such mistake can be detected, we must then suspend judgment for the time being.
This could, of course, be easily misread by anxious fundamentalists to imply that science must be kept from making statements that apparently contradict the Bible, but that's not what it means, and that is not the tradition of the Church in its hermeneutics, either.
Rather, the self-assured response begins with the assertion that "truth cannot contradict truth", and moves on from there to examine any apparent contradictions. That is, the Church accepts scientific truth, just as it believes in the revealed truth of the Bible and asserts that if the two appear to contradict each other, the most likely explanation is that the human mind that sees the apparent contradiction has fallen short in its understanding.
This appears to be where my path stops for now in tracing the connection back from John Paul II to Galileo. At least, I'm stopping here for a break.
———-
*Brian L. Silver, The Ascent of Science (Solomon Press, New York, 1998) p. 25.
#It is in this speech that JPII says there is no conflict between Church teachings and evolution. Although the current Pope Benedict XVI would try to obfuscate the matter, JPII is pretty clear:
Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical [Humani Generis, 1950, by John Paul II's predecessor Pius XII] , new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [….] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.
My own aside after reading the speech: his carefully crafted metaphysical arguments, built on theological ideas developed over centuries of thought, make modern-day fundamentalists look terribly naive and rather childlike in their antipathy towards evolutionary ideas.
** Providentissimus Deus: "Given at St. Peter's, at Rome, the 18th day of November, 1893, the eighteenth year of Our Pontificate: Leo XII."
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on Wednesday, 12 October 2005 at 20.06
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"Christian fundamentalists who feel that their religion is imcompatible with science should take the advice of the late Pope and ascribe the incomprehensibility to mystery, since mystery is theologically acceptable."
Since you seem to be addressing yourself to Protestants, they could reply to you by saying that anything that comes from the Pope is a popish plot. Not all Protestants would say that, of course, but you are addressing yourself to most extreme wing of the faith – the fundamentalists. I realize you are merely offering a thought for consideration, and do not seriously expect to be taken up into theological debate, but if you were, then I'm sure you'd also realize how pointless it can be to talk these issues over with fundamentalists.
In some sense, people turn to fundamentalism when their faith is weak. It is so weak, that they can not attempt any reconciliation of the truths of their faith with the truths of their reason. It is so weak that they can not allow for any of the stories of their faith be treated as metaphor, lest that diminish the certainty they are trying to cling to. Alcoholics must go sober and never drink again; they can not afford to drink moderately, lest that turn again into heavy drinking, and in a similar way, fundamentalists need to forego metaphor, so great is their doubt in their faith that they fear with the slightest slip all will be lost.
There is a reason, I think, why fundamentalism tends to concentrate in the lower-middle-class and working-class, and that is because for these people, the sense that one slip and all be lost has a reality for them in their lived economic experience.
There are, of course, many wise and interesting Christians in this world who could take you up on this exchange and engage in a conversation of some hours, every bit of it interesting, discussing the theological implications of mystery as it relates to science. But none of those people will be fundamentalists. Anyone capable of a deep, rich, flexible theology will be incapable of fundamentalism.