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

** DRAFT **

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."

While teaching at a Catholic high school, a colleague tried to convert me. Not even baptized, I was one of those enlightened moderns who felt good about God and Jesus but not so much to be bothered by belief, and certainly not at the expense of "reason." One of her arguments 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 Matthew 11:25, I am reminded of that conversation, and I have unsuccessfully squared it with my experience with Scripture and my own faith.

Until today.

Today, a marvelous, truly wise, and truly learned Dominican 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 fo "Aay-men"? Or, "How come you Catholics don't capitalize "He" in reference to God? Most helpful was the Sunday Missal, with the readings, responses and prayers, which led me – rather adult-like -- into the Liturgy.  And I came through RCIA and into the Church intellectually.

And so, then as now, I feel that faith without reason, i.e. "childlike", is not a complete faith.

It was in 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, in which I processed definitions, word origins, and concepts, and which now holds several hundred entries that have helped me to sort out my faith.

Most helpful was to learn of St. Pope John Paul’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 did not originate in but was fully expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas who had explored proofs of God in observation and logic. However, Aquinas understood 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 called these the "Gifts of Faith and Reason." John Paul II's "wings" helped me enormously, and empowered my quest to unite faith with reason. Not just faith, like a child, but with my intellect as an adult.

So convinced, Matthew 11:25 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 "the wise and learned" are the priests and scribes of Israel who refused to believe Jesus (see footnote to Mt. 11:25). Jesus here contrasts them to the "childlike" who accepted him as the Christ.

Yet, it wasn't so easy for those "children," either. In a rational calculation of the strength of the wind, Peter faltered his belief and 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 the first, fullest declaration of Jesus as God by Thomas, who very adult-like 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. Jesus concludes his prayer to the Father,

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 11:27),

Thus, Jesus could reveal the Father to "anyone."

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. 

(Note the perfect definition of the word "gracious" attached to the Father's "will" -- the source of all grace!)

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 him (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. So 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."

A night, in a dark room, in a secret meeting, Jesus lays the literal, the allegorical, the moral and the anagogical upon poor Nicodemus,

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

who, we learn later, 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 and wrap their minds around belief... that is, not let the limits of reason impede the mysterious.

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 replies 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.

You have established a bulwark against your foes,

to silence enemy and avenger.

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."

I see that in Matthew 10, the Greek taken in English as “to the childlike” can also be seen as “to the innocent,” which fits 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 believes is like the child who adores and obeys his father.

Jesus rewards the simple, the pure of heart, and he condemns those who let their intellect betray their faith.

> the blind = ancient world metaphor for wise, not fooled by their eyes

> Thomas: "those who believe"

Child of the Father

"Childlike” our Priest explained, is to have a father – the Father. Childlike is to respect, recognized, obey and love 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.

>> every time my dog shows his love for me, unreasoned and unconditional, I stumble upon the intellect’s obstructions to pure faith.

But Jesus wants us to know the Father by believing in the Son. Of course – like the child of a father.

Intellectual purity requires "childlike" honesty.. Think about your latest outrage at hypocrisy -- what? how dare you hold others to what you dno't yourself?

It's not chldlike.

When Satan tempted Adam and Eve to "be like God", he was tempting them to be God -- and no longer his children.

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 delusioned, 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

(I had to look up Alexander of Macedon's age, and, indeed, he took the throne at age 20 and started his invasion of Asia at age 22. -- oh, and Joan had a horse given her by the Duke of Alencon, the King's brother, equal to Alexander's famed Bucephalus.)

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 Bishopry.

Here we can flush out some meaning

> wise and learned = self-interested, doubtful, distrusting, compromised, and insincere

> childlike = trusting, honest, pure, candid and sincere.

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Notes:

The Lord wants us to reason -- but with faith and not to blind our faith.