Where Earth and Heaven Meet
I have never been a good
Catholic Faith defender and I really marvel at how some people are able to
defend the faith and prove the existence of God in a very logical and organized
manner. I have never been a very outspoken person. I am more of an introvert
and I tend to stutter when my mouth cannot catch up what my mind wants to say.
That is why I find easier to write. I can say I ‘speak better’ when I write.
But there was once this event in my life in which I really wanted to defend the
existence of God but found myself incapable of expressing myself both in the
spoken and the written word because of a language barrier. I was in Rome, Italy
then.
Being the infermiere (nurse)
of my former Franciscan community in the Casa Mariana: Santa Maria di Nazareth in
Boccea, Rome, it was my duty to attend to health needs of my fellow friars. It
was during summer in July 2011, my tenth month stay in Italy, when an American
friar, Fra. Ephrem who was a 40 year old second year philosophy seminarian was
admitted in the hospital to undergo surgery. I was then assigned to accompany
and look after him during the day at the hospital. After he was operated, he
was allowed to convalesce in the male ward where there were also two other
patients with him. His Italian, though tainted with an American accent, was
already good since he had been staying in Italy for already three years. He
casually conversed with the other patients and the nurses and was not ashamed
of evangelizing even in his weakened state.
Even though Italy is a
predominantly Catholic country, the people there are generally nominal and do
not practice their faith. Aversion for religion and those people who stand for
it is quite common. So it was quite surprising that there was this female nurse
who attended judiciously to Fra. Ephrem’s needs. The other nurses were not as
kind to him. The three of us would casually converse. (I would often just say
“si” (yes) or “no” since I wasn’t confident with my Italian yet.) Eventually,
their conversation came upon the topic of God. Surprisingly, the nurse did not
believe in God. She said that God was no longer significant in her life. She
said animatedly: “Pregavo a Dio, pregavo a Gesù, pregavo alla Madonna. Ma non
mi aiutano! Dov’é Dio nella presenza della sofferenza e del male? Non credo che
Dio esiste.”[1]
She concluded that she could
no longer believe in the existence of God because if he existed, there should
be no suffering. This she saw not only in the sufferings she and her family
went through but also through her patients, especially when she worked as a
volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in
Somalia, Africa and South America. She added that she could still do good deeds
without the need of a God who did not alleviate the sufferings of people whom He
is supposed to love.
It was truly a startler for me
to hear someone so openly unbelieving and defiant towards God. I had friends
who claim to be atheists, but they were more like agnostics to be exact. Never
had I heard anyone talk the way she did. But I became more appalled with the
responses of my fellow friar. He started out like a ‘fire and brimstone’
preacher, talking about theological thingamajigs—about Christ suffering, about
Our Lady who stood at the foot of the Cross and about how our Lord was truly
one with our sufferings. But she was not convinced. She doubted the existence
of Christ, that he was probably just a fictional character created by the
apostles. She criticized the Church for her extravagance and that if she was
truly a “Church of the Poor”, she should have helped the poor already. She was
clearly scandalized also of the clergy living extravagantly. But my fellow
friar continued his charade of highfalutin theological and philosophical
language. Internally, I was opposing what he was saying. Not that he was wrong—he
was theoretically right. But for me his tactic was rather inappropriate for the
situation. Here was a woman who denied the existence of God because of the
presence of suffering and evil in the world. She was also a woman of science
and believed that all the answers to the questions about the world could be
answered by it. In a way, she could be classified as an emotional atheist. In
this vein, I truly felt that a theological-apologetic-in-the-pulpit approach
could not open her up to the belief of the existence of a loving God. Fra.
Ephrem was, as it were, preaching from the heavens to woman who was still
wading in the mundane ebbs of life on earth.
While they were debating, I
felt that the nurse was closing in on herself, not allowing the ideas of my
fellow friar take root in her heart. Their words were weighty. Truly, they were
both intelligent but it was clear that neither of them was getting to the
other. I just sat there, listening to them debate. There were things that I
wanted to say, not only to the nurse, but even to Fra. Ephrem. But then I felt
my own sheer inadequacy. I knew I could not yet fully express myself in
Italian. I wanted so much to speak, maybe enlighten her on how science itself
is insufficient to prove that God does not exist and how, ironically, science
will tell us that God really exists. I would have met her at her level, and
probably, little by little, bring her to the heights of understanding.
If I had talked, I would have
began with the most widely accepted scientific theory of creation, that is, the
Big Bang Theory. Applying the First and Second Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, I
could have adequately shown that the Big Bang itself needed a Cause in order
for it to exist and a Mover that would allow it to blow up. The Big Bang could
not have “blown up” on its own. It surely needed a Spark that would ignite it. From
this, I would proceed to the Third Way or the Argument from Possibility and
Necessity. I would simply tell her, what was there before there was the Big
Bang? Surely, the Big Bang did not just come into being by itself. If
there was nothing, then how could something come out of nothing? There must
surely be a being that was not contigent, that was absolutely necessary in
order that other things would come into being. Therefore, there must be a being
that exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from
another being, but rather causes them. This would be God.
Then I would proceed to the
Fourth Way or the Argument of Gradation of Being that there is a gradation to
be found in things: some are better or worse than others. We all thought at
first that the our sun was the largest star only to learn later on that it is
just only a middle-size star. There are larger stars and smaller stars than our
sun. So far, we have discovered that the our sun is the only star that supports
life on a planet. But then there may be other stars which might be better than
the sun in supporting life. Through this, we arrive at the notion of a “perfect
life supporting” star. From this and other more similar examples, we arrive at
the notion of perfection. There must be something which is to all beings the
cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection and this would be
God. Then, with the Fifth Way or the Argument from Design, I would emphasize
how even out of the “chaos” of the Big Bang, everything came into order and
what we have now is the universe and our own solar system. Surely, all the
particles that came out of the Big Bang could not have just come together to form
planets and stars and galaxies by mere chance? Surely, there must be something,
or someone who could have put all of these into the exact order and design.
This intelligent being should exist by whom all natural things are directed to
their end; this would be God.
Then turning towards her
disbelief in a God, I would simply ask her what caused her disbelief and let
her open up about it. I would not condemn her. I would sympathize with her. At
this point, intellectualization would not have worked. I would have shown to
her, basing on what she would share about her experience with God, that even in
the most depressing moments of her life, there was still a God of compassion. I
would point out the mystery of suffering, how there will never be the perfect explanation
for the presence of suffering and evil in the world. But even in the midst of
evil, good still comes out. Evil can never totally supplant goodness in man and
in creation however marred it would be. And slowly, I would point out to her
that we have a God who has chosen to suffer just like us, a God revealed in
Jesus Christ our Savior who died on the Cross. I don’t believe that she would
believe in the existence of God right away. I would have to allow what was said
to sink in to her, let her digest it, and allow her moments of silence to take
it all in.
But if I had actually said all
of these, would I have been successful? Going back to what really happened, I
realized how much secularized Europe is. Even in the City of Rome where the
Pope just lives a few blocks away, many people do not believe in the authority
of the Church to proclaim the truth. Churches are not full on Sundays, except
for St. Peter’s Basilica. But we might ask: are the people here for the Mass? Or
are they just here to tour around and to see the Pope, not as their Holy
Father, but just as an international personage? The Catholic Church in the West
seems to have lost in touch with her sheep. She has had so many enemies, most
especially, atheistic philosophers who have worked to make her fall.
Today’s world is a world that
has forgotten about heaven. Our world has become narrowsighted that all it sees
is itself. It has closed upon itself and even rejects outrightly the things of
the spirit and transcendental. We, who are supposed to remind man of his
transcendental nature, need to meet him at the level where he stands. Heaven
must come down to the earth just like the Son of God who chose to become man to
become truly our Emmanuel. It is only when we put ourselves in a humble stance
can we be able to bring others with us. Fishing for men from the clouds is
truly difficult, not only literally but even metaphorically. We must put our
feet first on solid ground and approach the unbelieving man by being men
ourselves in search of the truth. Together, we would be more effective in
bringing him along in this journey to the truth. It is only when heaven and
earth meet will man truly see God and see himself as a creature created in the
image and likeness of God.
[1]
“I prayed to God, I prayed to Jesus, I prayed to Our Lady. But they did not
help me! Where was God in the presence of suffering and evil? I do not believe
that God exists.”
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