“Are you Catholic?” I asked.

“No, but my mom thought I’d get a better education there.”

We ended up talking about — of all things — the Ave Maria.

“We had to pray that several times a day,” she explained, rattling it off with the fluidity of a cradle Catholic.

I let her hear what it sounded like in Polish. We spoke some more, and then she left.

Second, in RCIA this evening, a guest speaker was talking about his conversion to Catholicism. Toward the end of the talk, he began telling of a friend (a former lawyer) who wanted to, in his words, “put the Bible on trial.” He spoke for some moments about this, and the whole time, from beginning to end, he looked directly at me.

Coincidence, I’m sure. Still, eerie.

Finally, the closing comment from the priest: “If you have any questions, perhaps you want to get a little deeper into things than we do here,” he explained, “Feel free to call any time.” Not a big deal, and certainly not even a coincidence: I’ve mentioned to him previously that I’d like to talk to him.

Still, to have all three happen in one day.

Coincidence.What are the odds? Apparently one hundred percent, and even writing about this makes me feel goofy, like the folks who see God’s hand in every little trivial thing that happens.

Still, that direct eye contact spooked me.

The name makes me shudder for other reasons, though. There are current, cultural associations that disturb me. I think of wildly dancing Pentecostals; of prosperity-gospel-preaching mega-church pastors who use the name to get rich by assuring their pastorate that they too can get rich in Jesus; of individuals that have such a poor understanding of Christianity that they become easy targets for people like Bill Maher. If I were to say, “I’m a Christian” (something I’m still not willing to say at this point), I would be associated with such people.

That’s a nice example of  the evasive nature of passive voice. “I would be associated with such people.” Who would do such associating? Friends. Neighbors. Coworkers. Family. Strangers.

Yet isn’t that me getting in my own way, tripping over my own ego? Of course it is.

In making an intellectual and emotional change from non-belief to, well, to non-non-belief at this moment, I’m making enormous changes in my worldview and whole life, and that stings the ego.

The whole process is pretty much thumb presses and Chinese water torture for the ego, admitting I might have been wrong in all my vitriolic attacks on belief and faith and wondering where I might end up when the whole process is over — if it ever is.

The new atheists emphasize the primacy of evidence, John Haught points out in God and the New Atheists: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. He traces this back to Jacques Monod’s declaration that “it is morally wrong to accept any claims that cannot be verified in principle by ‘objective’ knowledge” (5). This, of course, means scientifically provable knowledge.

This assumption has become a staple of late 20th-century atheism, and I came to think that way without even realizing when or where. More importantly, I accepted that suggestion without any critical examination.

All things must be proved by science. Such is the rallying cry of the new atheists, and I would have proudly carried that banner myself. However, that statement is not itself provable by science.

Here Monod was much more honest than the new atheists. He admitted that an exception must be made for the postulate of objectivity. The ethic of knowledge is itself an “arbitrary” choice, not a claim for which there could ever be sufficient scientific evidence. Faith, it seems, makes an opening wide enough for atheism too. (5)

The suggestion that atheists live lives of faith was nothing new to me. What was new was how convincingly this form of the argument hangs together.

Previously, I’d heard only bargain-basement arguments: “When an atheists puts on brakes in his car, he has faith that they will work.” A weak argument at best: this “faith” is based on previous experience. We can take the car apart and determine why pressing the brake pedal will result in a stopped car.

Haught’s argument gets at the underlying premise of it all.

One more step forward…

And there’s the rub.

John Paul II writes,

Christ wants to awaken human hearts. He wants them to respond to the word of the Father, but he wants this in full respect for human dignity. In the very search for faith an implicit faith is already present, and therefore the necessary condition for salvation is already satisfied. (193)

I’ve read that a dozen times, and it brings a smile each time. It’s not that I’m thinking, “I’m searching, so I’m home free!” Rather, there’s been this sense, this ineffable feeling, that this working on faith is itself a kind of faith.

The old adage about longest journeys and first steps isn’t merely an empty cliche. In picking up my foot, I have to have a certain kind of — dare I say it? — faith that it will land on solid ground. I take this for granted daily, but only because it has been confirmed again and again. And because I constantly and unconsciously check my environment countless times as I walk to make sure I am on firm ground. Yet infants don’t have that experience, and each step is an adventure.

This surely is what Paul had in mind when he wrote of “mere babes in Christ.”

The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. [...] There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the Apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need. (Acts 4:32, 34, 35)

Conservatives descry “redistribution of wealth,” but on the surface, this certainly appears to be an apt description what’s going on here. Many commentators have noted the sharing involved in the early church, and this sounds positively communistic.

What’s the difference? On the face of it, the voluntary nature is the most obvious. There’s no indication that anyone commanded these believers to surrender their relative wealth. Further, there’s no indication that the Apostles used guilt as a motivator. This is in clear contrast with what many televangelists have done throughout the years.

The Gospel

Knowing and knowledge appear twice in the same week. Perhaps that’s intentional?

The Gospel reading for today was the story of Nicodemus. In the midst of this story I’d heard so many times growing up, something new: “[W]e speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.” It’s interesting that Jesus presents a dichotomy: “what we know” is not necessarily “what we have seen.” Reliance only on the latter to inform the former is the materialism I’ve embraced for so many years. They’re not necessarily the same, and to insist that they are identical is limiting.

It all calls to mind, once again, the division William James makes about those who seek truth versus those who avoid error. In being a strict materialist, I felt I was avoiding all error because I was relying on my senses or others’ senses. Yet in relying on others, I’m essentially relying on their testimony. Granted, with many matters (particularly science), I can verify what others testify by observing things in question for myself. But in reality that only represents a small fraction of knowledge available.

This is essentially what I’m wrestling with: can I trust the testimony of the authors of scripture? I don’t yet have an answer for that

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that  you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

That is I: show me the nail marks. Give me proof. But it’s more than that, because I’ve always been able to explain away everything like a good materialist.

This proof mentality is a direct result of my religious upbringing, because everything not only could but should be proved. Never mind that the proving was little more than proof-texting, ripping verses completely out of context to back up a Victorian-era pet conspiracy theory. But believing doesn’t require that kind of proof. I’m growing strangely comfortable with that.

When the film Dogma was released, I remember seeing protest letters proudly displayed in the art house theater were I watched it. Catholics were angry and offended. I scoffed at their hypersensitivity, and even now, I have no major issues with a film that mocks this or that religion. We’re all adults. Still, there is one element of the film that lingered in my mind, and oddly enough, it’s framing how I view proof and certainty. Rufus, the thirteenth apostle, asks the main protagonist, Bethany, about the certainty of her newly-found religious belief. “I have a pretty good idea,” replied Bethany, and Rufus smiles approvingly.

A “pretty good idea” works well for me right now.

Part of it is that I’m still not sure where that chip will land (to continue the cliche/metaphor). I can say with some assurance now that I am no longer a strong atheist — one who declares, “I know there is no God!” — but I waver between weak atheism/agnosticism and some kind of Jello-belief: wiggly and strangely pretty, but not really certain.

What does one say to one’s aunt when her daughter, at age forty-five, has died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack?

I’ve found myself in both those positions in the span of three short days. Those are the moments that language shows its inadequacy and faith is strained.

An atheist has a simple answer: it’s nature. There’s no need to justify why it could happen because, outside the normal laws of nature (and their impact on clogged arteries and premature babies), there is no why. It simply happens.

It’s something I’ve always found comforting about atheism.

Where does that leave me?

With work to do.

I met someone or something. I felt giddy. The newness wore off quickly. And now I have to ask myself whether or not it was infatuation or something more serious.

I’ve felt infatuation before. I’ve often confused it with love. I once proposed to a woman I was infatuated with, only to realize months later that there was no trust in the relationship. We broke a few months after I had that realization. It was something more than the thrill being gone, or even simply tarnished. It was a question of trust. Which is a question of faith.

And now I find myself wondering whether or not there’s trust in what I experienced. Whether there’s faith.

Then along comes Mr. Rodriguez, carrying words of the great twentieth-century apologist, C. S. Lewis:

Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable. But when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods where they get off, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. (Christ Rodriguez)

The right words at just the right time.

Who would have thought?

Give me some time — I hope to have an answer.

As I look over the last ten years, all I see is doubt: a great arc that went from hatred to fascination to calm acceptance. And now — to what? I’m still trying to figure it out.

The mid-1990s weren’t a time of doubt for me; they were a time of violent, aggressive anger toward all things religious. All that was religious was bad; there was nothing about religion that had any redeeming features. I hated religion with such unnrational wildness that even to go near a church set my jaw in such a tight bite that it seems entirely possible I could have damaged my teeth.

At some point, religion began to fascinate. As I explained it to a professor who eventually served as a grad-school-application reference, it was like watching a vast ball from a soundproof chamber: I could see the motions; I sensed the harmony; I suspected there was something going on that I wasn’t aware of.

I began graduate studies in the philosophy of religion at Boston University in 1999. I was definitely an agnostic, but religion fascinated me. I dropped out at the end of my first year. There were many reasons why, but chief among them was a feeling of impracticality. “Castles in the sky,” I recently told someone.

That’s a positive thing, though.

And that’s the irony: I was completely emotional in my attacks on religion. Of the two of us, religion wasn’t showing itself to be an irrational dolt; I was.