Signs of God wondrously encouraging

In a previous dialogue column Don Donovan wrote that he found the gift of faith enviable, but not for him. TOM CLOHER* responds

Dear Don

Your three years of examining the architecture of churches around the countryside seems to have made an impact on you. Despite your assurances that you are irreligious, you seem uncommonly committed to proving it. Indifferent people would not bother doing so.


You make some shrewd observations. Describing your Catholic friends of long ago as smug would be pretty accurate. We had some excuse for thinking we were doing reasonably well until the 16th century when the Reformation gave us a much-needed wake-up call.


But then we had a relapse until the remarkable Pope John XXIII finally eradicated the tendency by embracing all Christians, and all religions. So, hopefully, your long-ago friends were pre-1960.


You may be a bit hard on your Baptist friend, though, who said: "When you die, you're going to get a hell of a shock." She did not say: "When you die, you are going to get a shock to be in hell."


And I would have to say that you have had a different experience from mine relative to Jewish friends. I find them committed to their own tradition but respectful of other traditions, getting on with their own agenda and expecting others to do the same.


You are also correct to declare that belief in God and an afterlife is contentious. It cannot be proved like a geometric theorem. God is not a product of reason, but neither is God a figment of the imagination. Faith is a legitimate exercise of the will.


There are signs, however, that some find wondrously encouraging - the newborn child, that tiny bundle so close to perfection; the splendour and efficiency of the Earth, our common home. For some of us it is hard to believe that these are the products of human genius, or of sheer chance.


Nor is belief in God and an afterlife as freakish as you are inclined to make it sound. Figures estimated to the year 2000 (See website religioustolerance.org) indicate that there are two billion Christians, 1.2 billion Muslims and 786 million Hindus, all of whom believe just that. Not that you're without company. There are 211 million atheists listed and 925 million who answer to no religion.


In the end, though, it's hardly a numbers game, is it? The outcome will not depend on how many believe in God and how many do not. For those alive to ponder the issue, the ultimate reality is yet to be. Surprises may be in store. If there is no hereafter, no one will be capable of surprise, but if there is ...


And if there is, will non-believers get the boot? Not at all, not from the welcoming, forgiving, generous God that I believe in.


In the meantime, we're probably best served by maintaining a healthy respect for each other. On this score, Don, you could have saved us the reference to predatory bishops and uncharitable nuns.

There's no doubting that some exist as publicity of late has revealed. They are no credit to anyone, themselves least of all, but they must be exceptionally rare. I have never met one. Have you? Normally our bishops and nuns are signs of God and mean a lot to us.


Thanks again, Don. for having the energy and the enterprise to raise some fundamental issues for public discussion.

* Tom Cloher is a parishioner of St Ignatius parish, St Heliers.