Blog:Salvation is for the "childlike"? Matthew 11:25

The Trial of Joan of Arc (Joan of Arc series: VI) by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)

At that time Jesus said in reply, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike." (Mt 11:25)

While teaching at a Catholic high school, a colleague tried to convert me. Of a protestant background, but not even baptized, I was one of those enlightened moderns who felt good about God and Jesus but not so much as to be troubled by belief, and certainly not at the expense of "reason." My colleague's argument was that I was over-intellectualizing faith: instead, I should approach God “like a child,” you know, "childlike."

Since my baptism about three years ago, whenever I have encountered this passage from Matthew 11, I am reminded of that conversation and how I have been unable to square it with my experience with Scripture and my own faith.

Until today.

Today, a marvelous, truly wise, truly learned -- and truly childlike -- priest unlocked what has been for years a troubling mystery for me.

The "Two Wings": Faith and Reason

My conversion was and still is an intellectual journey. I was catechized by thoughtful priests, deacons, and catechists who patiently explained even the silliest of questions such as, "Why do you say "Ah-men" instead of "Aay-men"? Or, "How come you Catholics don't capitalize God's personal pronoun, He/Him?" My other catechist was the Sunday Missal and its readings, responses and prayers, which led me – rather adult-like -- into the Liturgy.

I came through RCIA and into the Church intellectually, so then, as yet now, I felt that faith without reason, i.e. "childlike", is not a complete faith.

It was during RCIA that I started this website, as I wanted to track and process all that we were learning. My very first entry here was a futile attempt to interpret and summarize the Catechism. (I learned quickly that with the Catechism no paraphrasing is needed.) Far more useful was my Glossary of Terms, with which I processed definitions, word origins, and concepts, and which now holds several hundred entries that have helped me to sort through my faith.

But most helpful of all St. Pope John Paul II’s “two wings” of faith and reason, the idea that our belief and overall faith is strengthened when bolstered by both faith (belief) and reason (intellect). The concept was earlier and fully expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas, who had explored proofs of God in observation and logic. Aquinas understood, however, that reason alone can neither fully comprehend nor find God, and so we need faith, which the Holy Spirit empowers us into -- both spiritually and intellectually. Aquinas distinguished between the Gifts of the Holy spirit that empower reason and those that empower faith.

Saints Aquinas and John Paul empowered my quest to unite faith with reason -- only not in faith "like a child," but with my intellect as an adult.

So convinced, Matthew 11:25 has remained a mystery to me.

"the wise and the learned"

for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned

Of course in the passage, "the wise and learned" are the priests and scribes of Israel who refused to believe Jesus was the Christ (see footnote to Mt. 11:25). In his prayer to the Father, Jesus contrasts them to the "childlike" who do accept him as the Son of God.

Yet, it wasn't so easy for those believing "children," either. In a rational calculation of the strength of the wind, Peter faltered in belief and, but for Jesus, nearly drowned (Mt 14:30); many if not most of the disciples walked away in reasonable hygienic caution when Jesus offered them "his flesh to eat" (Jn 6:52); Philip rationally calculated that it would take upward a year's salary to buy enough bread to feed all those people (Jn 6:7). On and on until that first, fullest declaration of Jesus as God, by Thomas, who very adult-like had just wanted a little more proof (Jn 20:28).

Clearly Jesus did not mean that the "wise and the learned" cannot know the Father. Instead, he said that the Father had "hidden these things" from them, while leaving it to the Son to reveal him to them:

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." (Mt 11:26-27)

A wise and learned, and very confused man

Without straying into the theological implications of finding, or "un-covering," what God "hides," a look at John 3 and the secret meeting with Nicodemus, we can see how God wants us to "uncover" (un-hide) himself through both reason and belief. Jesus tells Nicodemus, quite literally,

“Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus replies rather "reason"-ably:

“How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?”

Jesus goes on to explain -- using reason -- that,

"What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit."

and

"If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?"

Impeccable logic -- and entirely nonsensical to the reasoned mind of Nicodemus (or us without hindsight).

Jesus continues his literal explanation,

"The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

thus bringing us to the logical conclusion that reason cannot know him, only faith:

"Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

Here at night, in a dark room, and in a secret meeting, Jesus next lays it all down upon poor Nicodemus, the incomprehensible meaning of it all,

"But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God." (Jn 3:21)

Going back to Matthew 11, in his prayer to the Father, Jesus says,

"no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." (Mt 11:26-27)

Why Nicodemus? Wasn't he among the "wise and the learned"? John tells us later that Nicodemus does come to believe, and fully:

Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds. (Jn 19:39)

So "the wise and the learned" can discover God. They just have use both wings of faith and reason, and wrap their minds around belief: that is, not to let the limits of reason impede the mysterious, as did, eventually, Nicodemus.

From the "mouths of babes"

Matthew, CHAPTER 21 | USCCB

On Palm Sunday, as the "children outside the Temple sang, "Hosanna to the Son of David," the pharisees, "the wise and the learned," were "indignant," writes Matthew (Mt 21:15).

Jesus says to them,

“Do you hear what they are saying? Yes; and have you never read the text, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nurslings you have brought forth praise’?” (Mt 21:16)

Jesus, as he so often did with "the wise and the learned," sent them back to their own Scripture (aka, go read it again, smarty), in this case to Psalm 8:2-3:

O LORD, our Lord,

how awesome is your name through all the earth!

I will sing of your majesty above the heavens

with the mouths of babes and infants.

Even the "babes and infants" cry out the Lord's majesty! Of course they do -- they look upon the world in wonder and, to use one of my favorite terms from Scripture, "amazement."

"Babes and infants" have little capacity for reason. They do depend, entirely, upon their mother and father, as should children. So we have another clue in this aspect.

They are also entirely innocent. I see from the experts that in Matthew 11, the Greek taken in English as “to the childlike” can also be seen as “to the innocent,” which fits the context just as well as a contrast to “the wise and the learned.”

But that’s not the point. Intellect that is humble is childlike. Intellect that yearns to find God is childlike. Intellect that submits to the Father is both childlike and innocent. Intellect that accepts belief is like the child who adores and obeys his (the) Father.

Child of the Father

Before now, every time my dog would show me his simple, pure love, love that is unreasoned and unconditional, I would stumble over my intellect’s obstructions to pure faith. Why can't I be like that? But I'm not his father, he is not my child. He is a dog and doesn't have reason.

So here we have it:

"Childlike” our priest explained, is to have a parent – the Father. Childlike is to respect, recognize, obey, love, and need the Father. A "childlike" faith is humble, honest, and yearning for the Father. Such faith may be that of a child -- pure, unquestioning love for one's protector, but it is not in replacement of the intellect.

When Satan tempted Adam and Eve to "be like God", he was tempting them to no longer be God's children. Salvation, then, is the return to childhood with the Father. God doesn't owe us that inheritance, but he wants us to ask for it back. As our Deacon taught the other day, St. Thomas called it "congruent merit" that we merit but do not deserve salvation, for which we become worthy only through and by Christ. In Matthew 11, Jesus isn't telling us to be simpletons, he's telling us, rather plainly, now that I can see it (scales falling from the eyes), that we must accept and act like we have a (the) Father.

Confirmation bias

If we encounter a mystery without amazement, we have seen nothing. In the various Wikipedia entries on the Saints, our collected "wise and learned" authors fall back upon supposedly neutral denials of "some type of premonition", "which are believed to have occurred in", and "witnesses who believed they had seen a miracle." Worse, in the face of plain, first-hand historical accounts, which somehow suffice as clear evidence for secular histories, such witnesses are "not accepted by all authorities."

We often wonder that we ourselves would never have been skeptical like the pharisees, or had we been there ourselves, we'd be entirely free of doubt. Doubtful.

You may have seen the "dancing bear" video, a short film of a group of people running in circles, passing around a basketball. Especially when told to count how many times the ball has been passed between them, viewers fail to see that amidst the shuffle, a moon-breaking bear dances right through the group. Called "confirmation bias," we tend to see what we assume. I do it all the time.

It is not necessarily harmful, and, in fact, can lead to great insight, such as that of Columbus who saw only an earth that was 8,000 miles around. Had he opened his mind to, say, Eratosthenes, who in 240 BC measured it to near perfect accuracy, he never would have sailed west from Spain. Great insight frequently follows biased vision.

On the other hand, confirmation bias is the stuff of Satan. It keeps us apart. It leads to conflict. It shields us from truth. Not to excuse them, but, as it were, the pharisees were counting blemished sheep and entirely missed the dancing God. As "poor banished children of Eve" with limited reason, our three-fold concupiscence drives our biases: what our flesh desires, what we jealously see around us, and what we think we are over others. When any of those tendencies toward sin feel threatened, they lash us, bind us, take us where ought not to go, knowingly or not.

Sadly, we usually know better. So we get around the "cognitive dissonance" of doing wrong while knowing right through rationalization. Either rationalized or through ignorance, we engage the worst form of confirmation bias when it completely binds us to an entrenched point of view. I use the word "bind" where "blind" would seem to fit. But if you think about it, "blind" can mean not being fooled by our eyes -- or flawed perceptions, which is why blind people develop and exercise perceptions that go unseen by the rest. With or without sight, we see what we want to see, and all the learning and wisdom in the world is but a servant to our biases.

Believing in God like a child Saint

The Archangel Michael first appeared to Saint Joan of Arc when she was thirteen -- no longer a child, but young, indeed. And at sixteen, when she announced her mission, she was certainly young enough to be dismissed by nearly all as mere delusional, annoying child. When the most magnificent Maiden, Jeanne la Pucelle, as she called herself, came to head the French Army she was but seventeen -- legally, in our day, a child.

My edition of the Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, begins with a fascinating observation from the great Hungarian revolutionary, Louis Kosuth,

Consider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen.

As did Jesus, Joan confounded "the wise and the learned" -- anyone, that is, who felt in any way threatened by her, which included, especially the royal retinue clergy and the military leadership.

Joan was calm, reasoned, logical and dogged, outwitting the witted, twisting their logic back upon themselves, and dodging their traps. Sound familiar?

The most famous of Jean's came from the theological trap asked at her heresy trial. From an English translation of the transcript,

On Saturday, February 24th, asked if she knows if she is in God’s grace, she answered: “If I am not, may God put me there, and if I am, may God so keep me."

Her inquisitors had pursued this line of inquiry in order to trap her into admitting that she had gravely sinned, and as to if not why would she need to confess. As to that last, her answer is both clever and logically straightforward:

Asked whether she need confess, since she believed by the revelation of her voices that she will be saved, she answers that she does not know of having committed mortal sin, but if she were in mortal sin, she thinks St. Catherine and St. Margaret would at once abandon her.

Other retorts of equal mental acumen are reported by Twain. One is of an exchange with the Minister of State, La Tremouille, who argued against Joan's insistence that the initial victory at Orleans be followed up lest the English regroup. La Tremouille, angry that she was essentially ordering him around in front of the Court, accused her of discussing matters of state in public, a grave offense:

Joan said, placidly —

"I have to beg your pardon. My trespass came of ignorance. I did not know that matters connected with your department of the government were matters of state." The minister lifted his brows in amused surprise, and said, with a touch of sarcasm —

"I am the King's chief minister, and yet you had the impression that matters connected with my department are not matters of state ? Pray how is that ?"

Joan replied, indifferently —

" Because there is no state." " No state!" "No, sir, there is no state, and no use for a minister. France is shrunk to a couple of acres of ground ; a sheriff's constable could take care of it ; its affairs are not matters of state. The term is too large."

Another comes earlier, during the initial investigation into her ordered by the Dauphin (Joan refused to call him King of France until he had been crowned at Rheims, which completed her mission). A "sly Dominican," Twain writes, tested the logic that she needed an army to do God's will.

Then answer me this. If He has willed to deliver France, and is able to do whatsoever He wills, where is the need for men-at-arms?" .... But Joan was not disturbed. There was no note of disquiet in her voice when she answered: "He helps who help themselves. The sons of France will fight the battles, but He will give the victory!"

The Bishop, in Twain's account, mutters,

"By God, the child has said true. He willed that Goliath should be slain, and He sent a child like this to do it!"

The Bishop was amazed not at her childlike argument, but that the argument came from a child -- and as with David, a child would save the nation (!).

It boggles the mind -- pushes us past reason, so let's just be amazed, while learning what we can from Saint Jeanne la Pucelle.

When Jesus revealed himself to the "childlike" he wasn't dumbing-down his divinity. He demands thought and reason of his followers, and then helps them to build a logic of faith (and thus chose St. Paul to argue it!). But, verily, verily, as he might say, reason has its limits, and it is by the Grace of the Father that Jesus reveals himself to those willing to look beyond the limits of their comprehension and simply believe.

What childlike is and is not

I feel so much better now about Matthew 11. Indeed, I believe -- think? -- that in writing his post I have learned much while bolstering my faith. I pray so. So let us here flush out some meaning, so that we can more fully understand.

The simplistic view says,

The wise and the learned	The childlike
worldly	simplistic
educated	ignorant
crafty	unquestioning

Some, yes, but not really, and not in the context of having a (the) Father.

Absolutely, to be childlike we must be dependent, obedient, submissive-- that's the entire point! -- to the Father. For without the Father, we live under the illusions of being:

Without the Father

What we think we are	What we actually are
self-sufficient	self-centered
worldly	mortal
great	idolatrous
independent	orphaned

Now, wise, learned and childlike are not incompatible qualities. But Jesus doesn't care about that - whoever we are, whatever our intellect or station, he wants us to be HOLY. To be holy, we must believe, accept and obey the Father.

, or "the wise and the learned" who do not see themselves governed by a Father.

Let's review:

The wise and the learned	The childlike
distrustful	trusting
insincere	honest
self-justified	pure
deceitful	candid
dismissive	respectful
doubtful	open-minded
tricky, deceptive	cunning without guile
compromised	innocent
closed-minded	curious
complicated	straight-forward
selfish	meek
cynical	amazed
self-sufficient	dependent

Now, wise, learned and childlike are not incompatible qualities. But Jesus doesn't care about that - whoever we are, whatever our intellect or station, he wants us to be HOLY. To be holy, we must believe, accept and obey the Father.

Now let's add to it the Beatitudes, and it all falls in place:

The wise and the learned	The childlike	the Beatitudes
distrustful	trusting	poor in spirit mourning meek hungering and thirsting for righteousness merciful peacemakers the persecuted hated for loving Christ rejoiceful in God
insincere	honest
self-justified	pure
deceitful	candid
dismissive	respectful
doubtful	open-minded
tricky, deceptive	cunning without guile
compromised	innocent
closed-minded	curious
complicated	straight-forward
selfish	meek
cynical	amazed
self-sufficient	dependent

The Lord wants us to reason -- but with faith and not blind in faith. And he warns us against letting our intellect betray our faith. So with all the reason we can muster, Jesus wants us to approach the Father with simple, pure hearts and minds.

It's a conversation we carry on every day, especially every day, when we recite the prayer thaa Jesus taught us simpletons to say in recognition that we have a, the Father:

Our Father, who art in heaven, 
hallowed be thy name; 
thy kingdom come, 
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread, 
and forgive us our trespasses 
as we forgive those who trespass against us, 
and lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

Michael,

July 31, 2024 by Michael

St. Joseph, pray for us!

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