|
|
|||
| There
are but two answers to the question of whether hope is valid during this
season when we reassert our hope. The first was expressed by Shakespeare's
Macbeth -- "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and
signifying nothing." The alternative was expressed by Jesuit Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin -- "There is something afoot in the universe, something that
looks like gestation and birth." There is either purpose and goodness in our world, or our existence is absurd. To assert the existence of God is to express hope. To deny that there is an overwhelming Presence at the root of things is to deny hope. In the first case, this "joyous season" makes perfect sense. In the opposite case, Christmas is nothing but a cruel deception. |
||||
|
The atheist side of the debate has become more vocal recently, perhaps because of the decline of the evangelical political movement. The atheist argues that if there were a good and just God he would not permit the terrible evil in the world. It is an argument that is hard to refute. Patently much evil goes on. Moreover, the atheists argue, we embrace hope because we are deceiving ourselves. We believe in goodness because we so very much want there to be goodness even if the evidence points in the opposite direction. Hope is not the result of belief in God but has been genetically conditioned. Those who hope are more likely not to give up on life and more likely to have children. Those who wisely despair see no reason to continue the species. |
Keep in touch... |
|||
 |
The argument for hope is equally strong. Why in fact is there good, if there is no underlying principle of good? Why do love, dedication, generosity, loyalty, beauty, affection persist? If there is love -- in all its many and diverse manifestations -- might there not be Love? I am not trying to "prove"
the existence of God. Rather I am appealing to the poetic and narrative
dimension of the human personality, that aspect of humanity that is
re-enacted every year when the days get shorter and the nights grow longer.
Our story of hope, a story of gestation and birth, is a better story than
the pessimistic story of the atheists.
|
 A Stupid, Unjust, And Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007 Father Greeley calls to task those who justified, planned and executed the war and reminds us that God weeps at the destruction of war, whether lives lost are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs.’  Order
Book Read
ReviewsRead
the IntroductionLarger
Image of CoverPress
Release |
||
|
Read Father Greeley's latest
Articles: |
||||
