No Opposition

AS I LOOK at the newspapers week by week, I am fascinated by the odd bits of scientific information they contain. Recently, I learned that camels developed humps to store fat in very cold regions, not (as is usually said) to store water in very hot regions. On the other hand, the old story that cows lie down when rain is coming seems to have truth in it. In dry weather they stand in order to lose heat more easily, but when it is going to rain the air temperature drops, and the cows lie down to conserve heat.

Saint Anthony would have been fascinated by animal and weather lore such as this. His writings are full of examples taken from the natural world. He had read many of the books of natural history current in his time, and saw in the wonders of nature the hand of the Creator. One of the greatest scientists of all time was the Greek Aristotle, who lived 384-322 BC. A keen and accurate observer, he catalogued a vast number of living species, and his work (together with that of other classical writers such as Pliny and Solinus) survived into the Middle Ages. Every monastic library would have contained copies of one or other of these writers.

It is a great mistake to suppose that medieval scholars knew little or nothing of science. As well as natural history, they inherited from the Greeks information about astronomy, and several Franciscan writers (such as St. Bonaventure and Roger Bacon) were interested in the properties of light and other physical phenomena. They were hampered mainly by the lack of accurate scientific instruments which had yet to be invented.

 

Joy in creation

 

Saint Anthony was not himself a scientist, but he respected and made use of the scientific knowledge that was available to him, even when it came from pagan writers who knew nothing of the Bible or of Christ. He believed that the God of Nature and the God of Scripture are one and the same, that while revelation may go further than reason alone, reason and revelation can never be in conflict. Any apparent contradictions rest on misunderstandings, either of the scope of science or the meaning of Scripture.

One element of Franciscan spirituality is a joy in creation. Francis called upon Brother Sun and Sister Moon to praise God with him. Living creatures were his friends and companions. He felt, in the depths of his soul, that “the heavens are telling the glory of God,” and that it is by God’s grace that “springs gush forth in the valleys... they give drink to every beast of the field… by them the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.”

Anthony was far more of an intellectual than Francis, but he shared the same delight in God’s goodness. The Cathar heretics disparaged creation, saying that material things are somehow evil, simply from being material. Anthony, like Francis, fought this idea strenuously. His great work on the Gospels begins with the story of creation, when God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Mankind’s vocation is to work in the Lord’s vineyard, tending it and bringing it to fruition.

 

Stewards of creation

 

Other items I have come across recently in the press include an investigation of how rats communicate, and how a species of hornet that prays on native bees and wasps is threatening crop production, and how the spread of foreign pests upsets the balance of nature in various places. This is a reminder that, from a human point of view, mankind is only a very small part of the complex web of nature, and of our responsibility to care for it and maintain its harmony. We are gardeners, who must judiciously weed and control pests.

As the Psalmist looked at the heavens, the beautiful harmony of sun and stars, he mused, “What is man that thou art mindful of him?... Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands... all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea.”

Pope Francis, in some of his first addresses, has reminded us of our responsibility for our environment. When we look at mankind, rather than at the heavens, we often see disharmony, even rebellion against the ordinances of the Creator, selfishness and exploitation of the world and of our brothers and sisters. What is man, Lord, that thou art mindful of him?

 

Awareness of the Cross

 

The second great element of Franciscan spirituality is an awareness of the Cross. Despite our weakness and our sheer sinfulness, God loves us so much that He has sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, the Word of God in human form, not only to share our life, but to share in our suffering and our death, to let Himself be victimised and rejected as one of the poorest of the poor. Francis and Anthony understood this, and (again as Pope Francis has reminded us) without the Cross we cannot be disciples; without the Cross the Church would just be “a pious NGO”.

Science and religion, reason and revelation, Creation and the Cross are not opposed. The second in each pair supplements and deepens the first. Only the second in each pair can offer any understanding of the mystery of human sin, of the callousness and cruelty with which human beings so often treat each other. Sin is irrational; but God seeks to save us from its consequences. We need to understand Hell, not as a place where sinners are rejected by an angry God, but as a place where God is rejected by angry sinners. The Cross is the great demonstration of God’s desire to save us from this, His desire to reconcile us to Himself, and the lengths to which he goes to do so.

 

God’s mercy

 

I read that a new radio telescope in the Chilean desert can show the state of the universe 12 billion years ago. I read too that the Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 has travelled 11 billion miles, and is now entering a new region of deep space at the furthest edge of the solar system. Such vast numbers cause the mind to boggle: but (as St Paul reminds us) vaster far is “the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love, which surpasses knowledge.

In one of his Sermons, St. Anthony writes that “in the restoration of the converted sinner ... there is the depth of divine mercy. O depth of divine clemency, that human intelligence cannot fathom, because his mercies are countless!” He goes on, “By God’s mercy I am what I am, without it I am nothing. O Lord, if you take away your mercy, I fall into eternal misery. Your mercy is the pillar of heaven and earth, and if you take it away they all collapse. But, as Jeremiah says, it is by the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed – the many mercies, many indeed!” (Sermons II, 446)