I’m going to begin with a paragraph from a recent article by the novelist Paul Kingsnorth:
Religion is not, as I once assumed, a set of beliefs to be adhered to, or arguments to be made and defended. It is an experience to be immersed in. The orthopraxy reveals the orthodoxy. Fasting makes no sense until you fast. Praying is meaningless, even embarrassing, until you start to pray… God makes no sense until you start to talk to him. Then, strangely enough, all sorts of other things start to make sense too. It is hard… to explain, and yet it is the simplest thing in the world.1
I lead with this passage because there’s a connection between what Kingsnorth is getting at and the conversion we witnessed in our Gospel reading. But in order to understand the link, I think we need a quick recap of a particular method of epistemology, that of faith seeking understanding.
How many of you remember the term epistemology from your Philosophy 101 classes? It’s the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge. In other words, epistemologists examine the question, “How do we know what we know?” (A pretty important question.)
Augustine of Hippo and Anselm of Canterbury were epistemologists. More importantly, they were THE minds of their times and places. Yet, even the best minds, at some point or another, begin to realize that their knowledge is limited. I mean, just think about it – even if you and I were to spend our entire lives researching and writing, how much learning could we possibly acquire? And even if you had the longest and fastest neurons, and were somehow able to become THE polymath par excellence, there would still be a whole lot of ground you couldn’t cover. What’s worse, there might be some undiscovered knowledge out there — whether rational, empirical, or intuitive — that proves all that you thought you knew wrong.
Thinking about this long enough has caused me to consider giving up the quest for knowledge altogether. I mean, if we’re not going to figure it all out then why bother?
But Augustine did not give up. In an effort to resist cynicism and to take his limitations seriously, he came up with an epistemological method – or better, an epistemological posture — which can be summed up in the phrase, “I believe in order to understand.” This was later expanded by Anselm into the “faith seeking understanding” approach to comprehending not just God but everything.
So what does it mean to “believe in order to understand?” Maybe the best way to come to grasp the idea is to start with what it doesn’t mean. It does not mean to capitulate to blind faith or fideism. Faith seeking understanding acknowledges that absolute certainty is impossible and that most of what we take as given, like the scientific method — or even a reasonable universe — involves a leap of faith at the suppositional level. Put positively, to "believe in order to understand" is a posture of trust that necessarily involves a questioning search for deeper understanding.
Augustine and Anselm’s gift to you and me is that we need not despair in our quest for truth. We need not become nihilists after discovering that the logic upholding our theory of everything is ultimately circular (or tautological.) We’re not promised we’ll figure it all out, but we’re encouraged to take a leap of faith and learn as we go.
In today’s Gospel lesson, we witness Nathanael take such a leap, but not before we meet him as a jaded academic. He’s a man who’s studied the Scriptures — “the Law of Moses and the Prophets” — but who’s begun to think that the Messiah might not be coming after all. His response to Philip, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” has cynicism written all over it. And yet, having said his piece, he proves open enough to accept Philip’s dare to “come and see.” He takes a leap in order to know, and in that encounter not only is his faith restored but he comes to be known.
My friends, I don’t know why you’re here this morning. Whether it’s your first time or you’ve been going to church you’re whole life, I suspect that a good number of you are a whole lot like Nathanael. You’re sitting there and you’re a little jaded – you’re not sure if you buy any of this stuff. And yet, let’s face it, it’s New York City and no one is forcing you to be here. I want to invite you to be a prisoner of hope. I want to encourage you, wherever you’re at, to take the leap. I challenge you to accept the risk – not to throw out your mind or resort to fideism – but to “come and see.”
For if Kingsnorth is right that “God makes no sense until you start to talk to him,” but when you do, “strangely enough, all sorts of other things start to make sense too,” you’ll only find out by walking through that door. More importantly, if Christ is trustworthy, we can be assured that when we take that leap, we’ll “see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”2
This Epiphany, bet the house and catch a glimpse of glory.
https://unherd.com/2023/12/our-godless-era-is-dead/
From the Gospel lesson for the day: John 1:51.