A year ago the scientific world was thrilled when the existence of the so-called God’s particle was confirmed. It was predicted in 1964 by a British scientist Peter Higgs from the Edinburgh University, but for decades it had remained a purely theoretical concept. The discovery was possible thanks to the construction of a massive and hugely expensive instrument called the Large Hadron Collider. Actually, nobody has seen that particle. And it’s highly unlikely that anybody ever will, due to its size and nature. So the scientists in fact interpreted some phenomena as confirmation of their theories. Their hard evidence is not as hard as perhaps they wish to be.
Humankind has come a long way to develop our modern understanding of the world. The first stage of evolution, seen as a random biological adaptation, was replaced by evolution of mind. Throughout the centuries people have been asking questions and have been looking for answers to them, in order to avoid problems and to exploit their surroundings for their own benefits. Although some details have changed over the centuries, the method is basically the same. People detect some phenomena and construct a theory in order to understand them. Over the ages many theories have looked very plausible, to be completely thrown away on the scrapheap of history due to a new one, describing or explaining the phenomena in a much better or totally different way – just think about Copernicus. Unfortunately for many, many years all the gaps in our understanding were filled by ‘god’. As the science develops, the gaps become smaller and narrower, apparently removing the need for God completely. Rightly so, as ‘god’ shouldn’t be a filler patching up our ignorance.
Today’s gospel tells the story of one of Jesus’ disciples who has a problem accepting the fact of the resurrection. Traditionally that chap has been called ‘Doubting Thomas’, and his attitude has been a negative example. I think that’s not fair, as he wasn’t the only one having a problem with believing. But he seems to be the only one who openly expressed his doubts, and demanded hard evidence. For me he presents the right attitude of a believer: courage in questioning seemingly obvious truths and explanations, and looking for right answers. I’m not afraid of those who do so; I’m really afraid of those who don’t.
A recent survey, published around Easter, revealed that in Scotland the number of people identifying themselves as Christians has fallen. We can see this trend in our church, as there are hardly any children or young people here. There are many different reasons for that, but among them there is a common perception of religious faith as something old-fashioned, holding obsolete, antiquated and redundant concepts and beliefs, offering nothing useful in the particular circumstances of people’s lives. Is this a completely wrong perception? I think that too many Christians are pleased with their own faith, asking no questions about it and hence looking for no answers. The Advent and Lenten meetings gathered worryingly only a handful of people (I’m not complaining, I know that it might have been me putting many off). We need to develop our understanding of our faith not just be able to defend it, but primarily to pass it on to younger generations as something useful and helpful to them. Don’t be pleased with your own faith. Develop it to share it with others. That is your mission.