Important to question the status quo

The 'hinking Anew' column in today's Irish Times.

By Michael Commane
Two realities are circling in my head this week. One is the resignation of Pope Benedict and the other is a series of lectures on cosmology I am attending.

It so happens that the man giving the cosmology lectures was my teacher in third class in primary school. I can still recall what a great teacher he was. He later went on to study mathematics. He is also a man of faith in the person of Jesus Christ.

Cosmology is made up of two Greek words, cosmos, meaning the universe and logos, meaning knowledge. The lecture series is in Monkstown in Dublin, and it is fascinating to see how different cultures, different people try to give meaning to the world about them, and the similarities of different cultures in trying to make sense of their environment.

Answers have to be meaningful for people or the story loses its appeal. A literal understanding of the Book of Genesis, for example, is not a cosmology that makes sense to many people today. Cosmology is the study of who we are.

Christian cosmology emerges out of Jewish cosmology - a world of biblical revelation.

I’m back thinking of the resignation of Pope Benedict. Because I have lived in Germany and taught German for many years I have always had a healthy respect for Josef Ratzinger and Pope Benedict. The books written by the former ‘Der Spiegel’ journalist Peter Seewald on Benedict greatly impressed me.

It is tempting to approach the topic of faith with a ready-made rule book. But that never gives us the full picture. Listening to these cosmology lectures I can’t help but wonder have we tied our understanding and faith in God to some sort of cosmology of our making. Might that be why so many people today seem unimpressed and uninterested with aspects of ‘traditional religion’?

There are those who say science will give us all the answers. Today there is a pluralism of cosmologies. Christians need to keep grounded in Christ.

In the first reading tomorrow, which is from the Book of Exodus we see how God and Moses engage with each other. But it seems there is an issue about giving a name to God.

Moses answers God: “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ they will ask me: ‘what is his name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM.” (Exodus 3: 13 - 14)

Moses discovers something beyond the material, beyond the here-and-now.

The dominant dispensation today is scientific, it’s about what we can see, hear, name and measure. But Pope Benedict sees the reality of the spiritual at the very heart of life and the cosmos.

Josef Ratzinger in his book ‘Introduction to Christianity’ considers this passage in Exodus and shows how for Christian faith all our cosmological reflections are fulfilled in Christ. He points out that God is not a God of place or a God, who belongs to any one locality but is God of the universe, yet One who invites each of us into a personal relationship. In some ways it is accurate to say there is no name adequate for God.

When all the threads are gathered together, we have to be on our guard not to be a “one-trick pony”, where our vision is so tunnelled that we cannot see outside our own immediate environment.

Jesus always questions the status quo. That is something few of us are comfortable doing.

These are exciting times. Surely it’s the job of the person who is trying to talk about God to use words that make sense in the here-and-now, in this culture, all the time with Christ as our beacon.