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The Real Mystery
By Ralph T. Mattson, Canton Center
Initially, I was amused by the self-congratulatory little article [The Epitome of All Mysteries, October 19] by Noel E. Ambery where he celebrates being voted Best Religious Writer. One can almost hear him purring. However, the remaining content had me wondering if The Voice should consider revoking the award, given Mr. Ambery's intellectual confusion. But, since it was a matter of votes, and since I have not read any of his other articles, such an idea remains merely a light-hearted dig. Anyone can have a bad day.
Mr. Ambery imagines that he and his supporters have "their feet … planted firmly in the here and now, known as reality—not the fantasy of the wish fulfillment … that is sweeping our nation today."
I would like to ask precisely what kind of wish fulfillment the nation is pursuing. It appears to me that the renewal of interest in God was thrust upon the nation by the events of September 11 and not "by our ecclesiastical establishment," as he proposes. This enormous national response involves two factors. The first is the failure of the temporal "reality" many had trusted up to that horrible day. It provided no emotional, intellectual or spiritual containers large enough to grasp and process the evil that crashed unbidden into their lives. The second was a reaching for the highest, richest concept that mankind has ever encountered, and which resides in the person of God. Only a truth of such monumental wonder and dimension provides the love, wisdom and ultimate ground of security needed in times like these.
But that is of no interest to Mr. Ambery. To return to his article, we note that from the safety of the present moment in the United States, he seems to take pleasure in imagining past times when his articles would have been declared blasphemy, followed by his possible incarceration or death. Then he makes the astounding claim that the reason for his current safety as an atheist writer is the modern accessibility of information. This is ludicrous. As important as it is to be informed, how in the world does a barrage of information bring about and sustain the freedom to express ideas? Only people driven by the passion of wisdom and principle can do that.
If he knew American intellectual history, Mr. Ambery would realize that he needs to thank some very brilliant, God-fearing folk for his present freedoms. The intensity of Christian faith birthed an American culture that valued independence of thought and went on to establish Harvard, Yale and Princeton. That was the primary reason they braved the new world.
In contrast, his like-minded counterparts in the former USSR, atheists all, did not bring about such liberty. Instead, they produced the Gulag. One cannot find anywhere in world history a viable culture established on the premise that there is no God. The former USSR had to parasitically overcome an existing culture to become the thought-coercing nation of the Cold War.
The muddle continues, for Mr. Ambery then states: "If this mythical god were actually in existence, why, He, She or It never prevented the disasters of September 11 is puzzling to anyone of conscience." This gets a bit dicey. On one hand, for him, God does not exist, probably because Mr. Ambery cannot see or touch him. God is not an object that can be measured, and therefore He is a myth. Yet, Mr. Ambery believes in consciousness, which also cannot be objectively measured, but which is absolutely required in order to have a conscience, which he also believes exists. Oh well, who can object to a bit of intellectual schizophrenia?
A classic discussion in psychology is whether the mind uses the brain or the brain is the mind. A thorough-going materialist must, of course, believe in the latter—but generally scientists from the mechanistic camp do not like to go near the subject, because their objective statements about consciousness are rather arid in contrast to their own subjective experience with its judging, intuitive and creative thinking. Added to that is the impossibility of looking at consciousness empirically.
The intellectual difficulties increase, since the word conscience implies morality. But if there is no higher authority, morality merely becomes, in this case, Mr. Ambery's opinion. The men who flew those planes into the World Trade Towers clearly had another opinion than those who were in the airplanes and towers. Whose opinion do we listen to and on what basis? How can we know who is right? This is the kind of relativity represented by too many members of our university faculties. They can look at the collapse of those buildings and with it the agony of thousands of lives and the pain of thousands of families and say, "We need to do a study to find the underlying causes." They have become impotent, academic scarecrows with no hearts—producers of mushy thinking and shapeless education.
Mr. Ambery continues on in his own confusion to make some judgments about the failures of the "faithful" and the "devout" who have failed to ask where God was in all of this. Mr. Ambery does not realize that they have already dealt with such questions. Since he claims to have studied the Bible for many years and "considered it fun," he should be aware of some of their conclusions.
It is strange that anyone could have read the Bible and missed the appropriate mystery to focus upon at this time, and that is the mystery of evil itself. Looking into the abyss of what humans, not God, conceived and brought about on September 11, is to look at mankind's profound spiritual sickness. That painful view should guide our approach to God and the matter of justice and right action. Mr. Ambery has asked the wrong question in his ill-timed, bubblegum article. Clearly, God is not in the dock. We are.
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