Our western world is so invested in scientific knowledge it often ignores the profound and gets enslaved in the mundane. I give God thanks for scientific knowledge that enhances our understanding in an orderly world view but also recognise the paucity of living that results from a false singular devotion that claims science is the only source of truth. Indeed the poets and artists recognise this in their lifting up of love and hope and faith. These latter named virtues give us power that takes us beyond mere repeatable science to unique experiences that reveal profound truth and deep unrepeatable experience.
Take the Christmas story as an example. We must look beyond only scientific knowledge to fully comprehend what is happening and to grasp the message it proclaims.
Consider Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was engaged when she became pregnant with the baby. Matthew takes great pains to ensure we understand this pregnancy is supernatural. That doesn’t mean science wasn’t involved but it wasn’t all there was involved in the birth. When he says “Before they came together (Mary and Joseph) she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” Joseph is then told by an angel of the Lord in a dream, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Joseph is then told what he should name the child. “He is to be called Jesus which has the meaning: He will save his people from their sins.”
Now while we can not accept this conception with scientific certainty (because it is knowledge not able to be tested by science) there are people who discount believing the story on the premise that science can’t prove it. In fact they use the story as proof the gospel must not be true because it is impossible to believe in the virgin birth. I remember when I was an eight-year-old and visiting my friend’s home. I had been so bold as to ask his father if he believed in Jesus. He replied that he didn’t because the virgin birth was impossible and so he concluded therefore the whole story was false. I asked if he believed in God and he grudgingly admitted that could be true. I then asked if he believed in an omnipotent God – a God who could do anything – why didn’t he believe God, who made all things, couldn’t have miraculously created a baby in a womb without human male assistance. From the merely scientific point of view it is unheard of but from a faith perspective it is merely miraculous and so not surprising the Christ should be born in an extra ordinary way. Professor Esther E. Acolatse of Knox College Toronto in her recent book Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit challenges Bultmann who has sought to use science as the sole criteria for biblical truth and suggests all else should be discarded.
Those committed to mere science as the only source of truth then begin to scrape around for a “plausible” explanation. Jesus never was born some argue, others say his father was Joseph others that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier. All of these have no basis whatever and are merely speculation. The basic report we have is Matthew who records that “Joseph had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”
Merely trying to seek the Christmas truth or to disprove it on the basis of science is like believing in the Grinch that stole Christmas. The Grinch story is of course not in the Bible but there are plenty of substitutes who try to take the glory out of Christmas. She suggests that Bultmann has not understood the idea of providence. She writes: To read my life providentially, which in some extreme cases can slip into fatalism, is not the same as what Scripture describes as faith, that living faith which believes God acts because it knows and has seen that God acts and can thus believe and wait for God to act again (Hebrews 11,Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 5:7). This is why eyewitness reports in the scriptures are believed as a reliable witness.
Those who use false tests to deny history and challenge the truth of Jesus, the saviour, who has for centuries proven able to be the bringer of comfort and joy, need to reconsider the weak basis on which they are missing out on salvation and fullnesss here and in the hereafter. Those who despise the story of the ages also destroy in their hearts the faith, hope and love that the saviour brings.
Happy Christmas to all our readers.
Submitted by Rev. Calvin Brown