The idea proposed was that somehow theology can make 2+2=5 because it has to do with God and the real life of people. Now Twitter is not a good forum for the extensive discussion of philosophy and I confess that the dear Father’s meaning is far from clear to me. However on the feast of the Epiphany it is helpful to address something that he could be understood as saying.
For those who yearn for a simple life, Father’s tweet might (even if unfairly) be taken to support an attitude that rejects any attempt at accurate thinking, a desire to reject the straitjacket of logic and mathematics, and a yearning for faith based on feelings and emotion, leaving to one side the supposedly harsh and unmerciful contraints of principle. In matters of religion, such an approach holds out the chimera of liberation from that terrible scourge called doctrine or dogma.
I address this topic on the feast of the Epiphany because the Magi, the men who have gone down in history as wise, may represent for us precisely the approach of science, of mathematics, of logic, to God who has been made incarnate for us.
There are countless movements in thought in the history of culture with the general title of “religion” which have attempted to reject dogma. They are doomed to failure in this because the very rejection of dogmatic truth is itself a dogma which may be disputed as such. More important is the delusion that somehow the discarding of doctrine in religion is a liberation. In fact it is an incarceration. Our Lord Himself shot a bolt right to the beating heart of the matter when he promised that those who continued in His word, his logos or wisdom, would know the truth “and the truth shall set you free.” (Jn 8.32)
The Magi offered their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, acknowledging Christ as King and God and sacrifice. In today’s collect, we pray that we who now know Him through faith may come to contemplate the sight of His glory. It really matters whether He is in fact King and God and sacrifice. We would be praying for something quite paltry if He were just a man, a fine teacher, a good example. The principle of non-contradiction is vital for us because Jesus cannot be Saviour and non-Saviour at the same time; He cannot be the way, the truth and the life and at the same time just another prophet.
The Magi in their search for the truth represent the ages of Christian civilisation which liberated so many, particularly women, by the establishment of Christian marriage, which put the calendar right, which invented the clock, which founded colleges, universities, and the modern hospital, whose care for the poor protected them from the ravages of landowners until the reformation closed all the monasteries.
The Magi represent particularly the pioneers who established the scientific method, rejecting the fatalism of Islamic thought and purifying the best of the classical philosophers, providing the foundation of the natural sciences, technology and medicine that we benefit from today. They did so because they believed in a God who is wisdom and truth, a wisdom and truth that was made incarnate in Jesus Christ whom they, and we, adore.
Let us celebrate the Epiphany by bowing down before the infant Christ and acknowledging Him as the sovereign Lord of our minds and hearts – not to take away our reason but as the very creator and foundation of that wonderful gift of reason which He implanted in our soul as a reflection of His own eternal wisdom. Let us thrill to those glorious words of St John with which we finish Mass
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh.