God is
Fr. IRENEUSZ SKUBIŚ
There were very shocking words: ‘There is no God’ on the cover of some weekly. There was also an article of some physicist who wrote it as a great authority, naturally a non-believer, claiming in the name of science that the world and life were created self-righting, taking into account the laws of physics, e.g. gravity. The fact of exposing such words on the cover is very meaningful. Atheists are striking again. They are using scientists who speak in matters beyond their cognitive abilities. And since the exposed words provoke we would like to express our opinion on them. Well, it is not proper for any paper to expose such matters because the paper as if forces readers to believe in the reality that belongs to a certain man or his environment. Where you like it or not, throughout centuries billions of people have confessed their faith in the existence of the Highest Being, Someone Who establishes a certain order and harmony in the universe. You cannot imagine a watch without precise inner elements or very many other things, constructed by man, e.g. cars, computers, which work thanks to very complicated mechanisms and programmes, similarly you must realise that the whole universe (macro- and microcosmos) did not originate by itself and that its existence has a definite aim. Therefore, the existence of the whole world of astronomy: stars, planets, including our Earth, is deliberate. And we, believers, are thankful to God, who called himself, ‘I Am who I Am’ (Exodus 3:14), for this cosmic order, which is unimaginable, which man finds difficult to name and describe. Verifying the existence or non-existence of God is not a matter reserved only for scientists but lies in the sphere of studies of philosophers and thinkers, and we can qualify it as wisdom widely understood and not only and exclusively as knowledge.
One should realise that we look at the amazing precision of the created world, including man, human organism, created by God. This extraordinary order is expressed, for example, in the very structure of man and his organs. Today we speak about computers, their unusual abilities, and it is true that every man is an extraordinary quantity of ‘computers’ and ‘programmes’! The human brain exceeds the abilities of many instruments. The structure of the heart, lungs, all human systems, thanks to which man lives and which constitute him. are a great ‘factory’, functioning in a very precise and accurate way. Like Mickiewicz wrote the Grand Master – God (There is Master who […] stringed all elements’) ordered and set all things wisely. Here the science about God – theology can help us. In our case it is the Christian theology that introduces us to the existence of God and his personal life, which Jesus Christ revealed to us. And we are passing from the great thoughts of metaphysics to our human reality ordered from the side of the Christian theology. We will look at many events and matters people experience from this point of view. However, it does not mean that one should not pose questions and neglect scientific experiments.
Let us remember the important encyclical of John Paul II ‘Fides et ratio’ – Faith and reason. We read in the introduction to the encyclical that ‘Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.’ Faith and reason should compliment each other – as the Holy Father writes - so that reason would not become proud and faith would not take wrong and harmful forms. Faith gives sense to man’s existence, shows its causes and purpose, and reason makes it mature.
We have just had the 42nd anniversary of the death of Saint Father Pio, the Franciscan stigmatic, who throughout his life was connected with Christ suffering on the cross. He is some sign for our times. If people only wanted to see God’s action in social and individual life…
And God acts through people, through various phenomena that we witness and through miracles that we see. We do not understand and will not understand everything but for example, the fact that specialists are involved in the process of confirming miracles and they cannot find any explanation of certain phenomena, only recognising them as extraterrestrial activities.
In our lives there are so many signs that speak about God’s reasonable and loving actions. That’s why, on the occasion of such iconoclastic advertisements in the press we, believers and the so-called non-believers, should wake up our faith and gratitude towards Lord God, the Creator of all things, and stimulate it again and again since as philosophers say, ‘Conservatio mundi est continua creatio’ – the conservation of the world is continuous creation. This will be our answer to the actions of the enemies of any religion. The existence of God is inscribed in our inner being and hunger for God and desire to get to know him as close as possible is everyone’s desire. Only some people deceive themselves, being driven by pride, mammon or simply perversity.
"Niedziela" 40/2010