MIRACLES IN PLAIN SIGHT

JULY 10, 2009

Our modern, secular culture has been heavily influenced by science, and by the practical exercise of reason. In this culture, it is often thought that the peoples who lived in pre-modern times were more credulous and gullible than people are today.

While we exercise logic and critical judgment, and look for the natural explanation of things, it is thought, the peoples of the past were naive, and looked for supernatural explanations. So, for example, while we explain seasonal and other changes in the weather according to scientific principles, they believed the action of unseen gods caused them.  Associated with this view is the idea that eventually science will "solve" all the mysteries of the universe, and do so without the need of introducing notions of the intervention of a deity or other spiritual powers.  In blunt terms, it is thought that past people believed what they did because they did not know any better, while we do.

This contrast is greatly overdrawn!  First, our own age is not free of superstitious beliefs and practices, as evidenced, for example, in astrology, in the conviction that good luck is attached to certain things like lucky charms or the number 7, while bad luck is attached to others, like the number 13, black cats, stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, walking under ladders, or breaking mirrors. Faddish beliefs in the power of crystals and pyramids are other examples, to name just a few.

On the other hand, the ancients weren't without science, and considering the lack of time and tools they had to develop a body of stable, reliable knowledge of the workings of nature, the ingeniousness of their discoveries and breakthroughs were quite spectacular. Advancing slowly from a starting point of complete ignorance, they in time learned how to grow food, how to develop implements of work and (unfortunately) of war, how to build great cities and weave textiles, how to read and predict the weather in general ways, and on and on.

Even with all our advanced meteorological instruments, it is not unheard of for today's forecasters to consult the Old Farmers' Almanacs. Similarly, in spite of our advanced medicine and pharmacology, the medical wisdom of the ancients continues to manifest itself in various ways, such as in the beneficial use of herbs to treat all sorts of ailments.

In their own ways, advancing as quickly as circumstances allowed, they developed the first technologies of recording and thus preserving the cumulative knowledge they acquired. Gradually they developed the infrastructures of transportation and communication that made possible the exchange of ideas and practical knowledge that enabled them to accelerate the pace of progress. We stand on their shoulders, and are able to make progress today only by building on the knowledge they acquired.

Even when they practiced what strikes modern people as superstition, they were really undertaking scientific explorations, using the limited knowledge they possessed, to find out what was real and what was not, what powers were latent in natural things, and how they could be harnessed for human betterment. Alchemy, for example, was primitive chemical science, not superstition, seeking to discover how base metals could be used, if at all, to prolong human life and cure disease.

The modern equivalent of alchemy has been going on under our noses in various forms, and no one blinks at it. A respectable number of responsible scientists, for example have been hard at work trying to beat the growing problem of the depletion of nonrenewable energy sources by figuring out how to derive safe, cheap energy out of such simple natural elements as water.

And rather than abandon efforts to understand the extraordinary natural and psychic phenomena the ancients attributed to supernatural causes, many modern universities have introduced faculties and programs of study to explore them. Among the phenomena that are studied are clairvoyance, poltergeists, out‑of‑body experiences, astral projection, near‑death experiences, apparitions, remote seeing, and psycho kinesis. The ancients had their shamans, but we have our "ghost busters"!

What we consider extraordinary and miraculous today may differ from what the ancients did, but that does not alter the fact that today, as in antiquity, we are enveloped in mystery and know it. Even when our science has enabled us to describe things in great detail and with great precision, their mystery remains. Why there should be a universe at all is a mystery. Life itself remains an astounding miracle, whether in the case of the tiniest crawling thing or a newborn baby. Awareness of things we consider extraordinary may help jerk us out of sleepwalking through our days, but the very fact that the sun arose this morning and that we are given this day should be enough to keep us humble in the face of mystery, and grateful to the God who made it all for us, and who made us for himself.

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 09-Jun-2010 10:44 sitemap