The work continues, the journey to the pearl of great price proceeds beyond the diversions of visions, communications and gnostic speculations intriguing as all these are, and none without some substance of truth. Yet at their most impressive they are merely commentaries of the way, culled from those who have proceeded further and who may well, in the life beyond death, have learned to jettison much of the teaching as merely compendious and of little real help. We may in this respect remember the Rich Young Man who approached Jesus, asking what he had to do in order to attain eternal life. He had followed the moral code of the Ten Commandments but still had not attained the inner rest that is the criterion of truly spiritual illumination. His heart remained restless, being only too aware that the pearl was at present outside his grasp, despite all his good intentions. Jesus told him to sell his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, and then he should follow him, but the renunciation demanded was too great for the young man, who left in sorrow.
This episode is usually taken as a rebuke against wealth; it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. But the matter is less simple than this. Money is important: did not St Paul make a collection from his various gentile churches to help the mother congregation at Jerusalem? Clearly Jesus divined in this particular instance that the person was too dependent on material things, and that until he had left them behind him, there was no possibility of his entering the gate of life. He could just as easily have been a scholar intoxicated with his great learning, an artist enamoured with his talent or an athlete wedded to his physical prowess. In each instance, the person would devote himself sedulously to the cultivation of his private riches, and in the process of self-development, he would shut himself off from the world's greater need; yet his very proficiency, if properly directed, could in one way or another add its quota to serving the world. To what we are attached becomes our prison; what we possess in our own soul is our domain of freedom. It is in this spirit that the first Beatitude finds its full expression: blessed are the poor in spirit (those who know their need of God), for the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Matthew 5.3). It should be noted that this is not a promise of future bliss, but a statement of present reality. To know one's need of God is to be in the divine courtyard. When one knocks at the door in resolute conviction, one is admitted. But the entrance to the kingdom is less immediately satisfying than one might have expected. Indeed, every expectation has to be surrendered before the fullness of God's grace is vouchsafed one. And all this is an aspect of the darkness of faith. The harder one seeks for assurances the less satisfied does one become. All this is pertinent to the dilemma of the Rich Young Man who was told that God alone is good and that the things of the world are vain in the face of the divine reality.
The early assurance that God is real, the spiritual path the only one that counts, that there is a deeper meaning to each event in our lives, that the highest values are the surest guides to a fulfilled life, is gradually dulled as we tread in the way of common existence. All those around us are led by the concerns of immediate survival and the diversions from work that serve as enjoyments. Entertainments would be a sounder description. We speak about people enjoying themselves, when they can indulge in some special pleasure, but in fact such activity is really an escape from the self into a world of fantasy and diversion, not necessarily bad in itself but essentially trivial and inconsequential. To enjoy oneself ought to mean precisely that: to revel in one's own being and marvel at the creativity of God as made manifest in one's own mind and body. We have already considered the amazed delight of the biblical writer who marvels at the creation of humanity in Psalm 8. This is the joy in oneself that is the true measure of glorified humanity. Yet we lose contact with our own divine humanity in the cut and thrust of mundane existence. The pearl is eased out of sight by the things around us, rather like the seed being choked by the thistles, the vision being clouded over by worldly cares and the false glamour of wealth.
Wealth in this context has once more a wider spectrum than mere material riches. It is the complacent assumption of the worldly-wise that a surface view of life, in which matter is the only landmark, is the total of reality. To them spiritual aspirations are vain, pathetic attempts to escape from the facts of life, its transience and the finality of death; spiritual ideas are conjured up by the imagination to make existence more tolerable. So they would tell us, and, of course, like so many dogmatic statements with provocative overtones, these contain sufficient truth to make the seeker flinch. A faith that cannot face destructive criticism is like a house built on sand. Only an honest agnosticism can provide the rock on which a house may safely stand and confront the hostile elements around it. We see "through a glass darkly", glimpsing only puzzling reflections in a mirror, as St Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13.12, but in the fullness of time we shall see face to face. As we grope, so we attain the courage to go on. It is faith that leads us on to the clearer vision of truth, but while we are alive in the flesh, the clarity of vision will remain imperfect. In the famous definition of Hebrews 11.1, faith gives substance to our hopes and makes us certain of realities that we do not see. But the certainty can mislead us as well as guide us to truth. A blind faith can easily degenerate into credulity on the one hand and fanaticism on the other. Of course, a totally submissive faith is sometimes essential in a time of crisis when we cannot do other than trust in those around us and leave ourselves completely open to the divine providence. Thus a patient has perforce to trust in the skill of his surgeon or dentist when he abdicates his judgement to their control, whether in normal consciousness or under general anaesthesia. But the control is only temporary, and when it is relaxed, the individual's free will is restored.
This rather trite example shows us both the value of faith and its dangers. A situation can arise in which people find themselves under the domination of a demonic master-figure whom they accept as an infallible guide, obeying his commands with the alacrity of willing slaves and being led in the direction of destruction with wanton abandon; our own century has seen too many examples of dictators and demagogues for our comfort, and the same applies in the history of religious faith, including Christianity. The faith in an institution, a theological stance, or even the Bible or the sacraments of the Church can easily supplant the total faith in God by which alone we are saved. There is a terrible irony in all this, for the basis of Christian understanding is a living faith in God as manifested in the ministry of his incarnate Son Jesus Christ, who atoned for the world's sin by his sacrificial death on the cross of human cruelty. The transaction involved in the atonement, basic as it is to Christian doctrine, is seldom adequately explained in terms of dogmatic theology, so that the Father is not made to appear a vengeful potentate who needs in some way to be satisfied or propitiated. Then alone may his wrath by assuaged sufficiently for him to forgive human sinfulness and a new covenant made possible. In fact, it is in the course of life that we begin to grasp inwardly how Christ acted as a substitute - and indeed always acts in this way - so that the immensity of human sin might be taken up by him and presented to the Father for gracious reception and unconditional healing. By Christ we are reconciled to God in love, and our burden of guilt is lifted from us. But the price to be paid, the penance that follows the absolution, is an amendment of life. This amendment means a changed style of living in which we are subject to the divine obedience and no longer the dictates of the flesh. The essential divine commandment is love, and this involves the willingness to give up everything one has to succour even the lowest creature. In this we do not forget that we ourselves are that lowest creature, like the publican in Jesus' Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18.9-14). This love is no sentimental outpouring of ourselves in a moment of guilt for our past misdemeanours. It is a commitment to bring the world to that knowledge of the sacrifice of Christ by enacting it, however inadequately, in our own lives. It is stern and fearsome as well as warm and welcoming: after the warm welcome comes the directive to spiritual living, "There must be no bounds to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds" (Matthew 5.48).
To return to the classical definition of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews, the certainty of realities we do not see that faith guarantees is brought about, not by wishful thinking, but by action. Even when the mirror of life shows only puzzling reflections, we have to proceed onwards as the way opens. It may be a way through a wilderness of banal trivialities of the common round, severe physical disablement, the uncertainties of artistic creativeness, or service in defence of society by armed strength. In all these different paths the end is the same: the slow ascent of the mountain of transfiguration where the full Christ reveals himself. But such a movement and belief are objects of faith, not reason. In the end the human lives in a realm of spiritual values, without which he descends to his physical status as the most intelligent, and therefore potentially the most destructive, of all the animal creation. A good working definition of faith is "the resolution to stand and fall by the noblest hypothesis". This was propounded by Frederic Myers who lived in the nineteenth century and was a scholar, a poet of some distinction, and one of the founding fathers of the Society for Psychical Research. This subject even today evokes the most acrimoniously hostile reactions among many scientists and Christians: the former deny its validity as a discipline, while the latter associate it with workings of demonic agencies. In the instance of Myers, the noble hypothesis was the rectitude of investigating psychical phenomena in the light of truth, an ideal that should inspire all scientific research.
In the Platonic triad of virtues that lead the intellect up to the vision of God there are beauty, truth and goodness (or love in the Christian context). That any of these three great qualities does in fact have such a destination is a matter of pure faith, for in the world it seems so often that the powers of darkness hold sway. Ugliness, deceit and cruelty govern the lives of so many people both as individuals and as members of a tainted society. The prince of lies certainly seems to gain spectacular victories, at least in the short term. Unfortunately this "short term" may embrace the entire span of many people's lives. Indeed, the prevalence of evil, especially its manifest triumph in many situations, is one of the hardest problems for those who believe in divine providence. It may be, as the writer of Psalm 73 declares, that the end of the evil doer is not a pleasant one - for he puts himself out of fellowship with all the world around him -but that the injured and persecuted gain ultimate justice and attain peace is still unproven in terms of a future state of being. We begin to learn, however, that peace is something that has to grow in us now rather than merely be a condition that we may anticipate at the end of our lives, when we enter into a hoped-for greater existence after death. The first type of peace is an experience of reality at the present moment, whereas the second type is a deeply longed-for release that is underlined by faith. Nevertheless it is not unreasonable to project a present experience into the future, whereas the expectation of something quite different from what we now know is an act of faith that borders on a dangerous credulity. As Jesus tells Nicodemus, "In very truth I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, and you reject our testimony" (John 3.11). Experience alone confirms that testimony.
The spur to faith is the intimation of glory with which we started this account, the pearl seen at a great distance from us in heavenly vision. As the path is trudged in weariness of soul, so the vision is clouded over to the point of extinction by the affairs of the world and the barren disbelief that emanates from our fellows. The great test is to proceed onwards, despite the destructive chorus of disbelief, ridicule and disillusion around us. The unresolved problem of evil triumphing over the will to good, already alluded to, has to be accepted as a fact of life. The arguments inherent in theodicy, the justification of divine providence in the face of evil, have to be both heard with the outer ear and transcended by the inner one. To become engrossed in intellectual speculations only brings us back to the assertive realm of gnosis. It is highly diverting but of limited practical value, since the ways of God are immeasurably higher than those of man. We grope in our suffering and then the veil is momentarily lifted so that we can see in a flash the vast expanse ahead of us, threatening and consoling at the same time. It threatens because of its vastness; consoles because of the divine presence at the heart of all creation. This does not mean that the reasoning faculty is left behind, but rather that it is put in abeyance until sufficient data are available from one's own experience to fashion a new metaphysic. This in turn will certainly be refashioned on more than one occasion as fresh insights come to one.
On one occasion when the teaching of Jesus seemed so outrageous in its claims of personal transcendence that many would-be followers left him, he cast his eyes on his own little flock and asked them whether they too wanted to depart. The reply of Peter is very touching, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Your words are words of eternal life. We have faith, and we know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6.68-69). The faith that Peter proclaimed then, and at parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels, was to be tested almost beyond endurance when the man he called the Holy One of God was divested of all his power and authority, submitting meekly to the process of the civil and religious law governed by vicious, fearful administrators. On one occasion he was to deny knowledge of Jesus on three consecutive occasions, thereby saving his skin but lacerating his inner integrity. And yet, had the skin not been saved, Peter would have died a martyr's death long before the appointed time, since he was to have an extended period of ministry ahead of him. The darkness of faith may lead us into some strange situations and some bizarre encounters with the most unlikely people, but we have to forge our way ahead. The essential saving quality of the cowardly Peter was his persistence; unlike Judas Iscariot, he had the humility to press onwards despite his lacerated soul and tremulous body. His remorse led not to suicide but to a chastening of the soul so that he could understand the weakness of his fellow creatures. It is of interest that Peter's faith in God's providence did not burgeon to full flower for a long time after the pentecostal experience. Thus we read in Galatians 2.11-14 how he and some other Christian leaders refused to eat with gentile converts in the presence of Jewish Christians, an attitude completely at variance with the basic teaching of the faith and his own prior joyful reception of Cornelius and his family into it. It is very hard to walk the steady path of faith when so many temptations beset us: fear of being placed outside the pale, concern for our worldly reputation, a desire not to offend others lest they in turn reject us. In terms of the quest for the pearl of integrity how trivial are all these considerations! We can in this light see even more clearly the temptations in front of the Rich Young Man that barred his entrance to the kingdom of heaven.
The essence of the faith that leads us on the path to God is the capacity to renounce a present assurance for the hard, rugged contours of the future promise. In the instance of Job all outer landmarks of simple identity had to be shed - wealth, reputation, family ties, health - before the futile theological discussion with his friends ended on a note of silent ignorance. Then God showed himself - a presence involved in the whole creation and not only Job's welfare. It could well be that God is available to reveal himself to all of us, but only the radical renunciation of all beloved personal possessions can leave us open and ready to receive the divine guest who is also the eternal host at the heavenly banquet. The essential ingredient of a growing faith is a sturdy undercurrent of doubt. If faith leads us onwards in the visionary journey to the pearl, doubt anchors us firmly on the solid ground where we have to conduct our daily affairs, mixing with various types of people and learning in the school of life with its constant change and disconcerting transience. Perhaps the hardest renunciation on the tortuous road of faith is faith itself. By this I allude to a dogmatic religious conviction that is well anchored in the security of a long tradition. How often is the recent convert absolutely sure of the fundamental principles of his newly found religious faith! He may excel even the leaders of that religious denomination in his punctilious observance and enthusiastic statement of belief. It is for this reason that religious converts - and these include devotees of Marx, Freud and others of an atheistic frame of mind - are frequently difficult to know, let alone willing to debate matters pertaining to their belief. In fact, they are often highly insecure people who need a firm structure of dogma for their emotional support. This in itself is no bad thing in the early stages of a religious pilgrimage, but in due course it is essential for the seeker after truth to come to terms with the less acceptable, more questionable tenets of his new faith, and also the invariable fact that the lives and actions of religious groups tend often lamentably to belie their depth of belief. In other words there is often a wide gulf between orthodoxy and orthopraxis. The type of faith that is open and can give credit to others of different traditions is by far the healthiest. By contrast, an enclosed dogmatic belief system tends to imprison its adherents in a mental structure that permits of little exploration outside its own limits. It induces a feeling of complacent security but allows little growth. It is sad but seemingly inevitable that this type of system claims the largest number of adherents, whereas the open, tolerant way appeals only to the few who can think and decide for themselves. Where there is inner strength, there need be no fear of outside contamination. Where there is inner insecurity, there is the greatest fear of outside subversion. The end of all this can be savage persecution of those who are deemed to be heretics. These always challenge the belief of the masses, who derive strength from dogma rather than from God.
It is a moment of great release when we can admit that we do not know the answers to the world's many problems, that even the course of our lives over the next few days is completely hidden from us, that we cannot control the future events in store for us let alone those of our immediate circle of family and friends. This realization is in fact a product of age and experience, and is one of the most delicious fruits of the autumn of life. Then we can grasp the meaning of the celebrated tenth verse of Psalm 46: "be still and know that I am God". This psalm tells us that although terrible cosmic disasters may threaten the world and great wars endanger the very citadel of God's temple, we should have faith in the omnipotence of God and rest in his power. Indeed, in any situation of calamity the most useful helpers are those who can remain calm. Their very presence is balm in its own right, and furthermore their particular skills will be most effectively used in the moment of need. It is an interesting paradox that the person who can call on the name of the Lord in an extremity will be able to act far more usefully than the one who believes that he alone can do anything, and therefore becomes increasingly tense with anxiety. His officiousness is more likely to disturb those around him than assist them in their work.
All this, of course, can easily degenerate into the notorious mystical heresy of quietism, in which the impetus for action is laid at God's door, while we do nothing except in response to the divine initiative. Apart from the abdication of human responsibility, a consequence of the free will given us, that such an attitude would engender, we might all too easily misinterpret the divine command, or worse still be misled by a counterfeit instruction issued by some psychic agency in the intermediate dimension. Quietism is the antithesis of activism, which has already been alluded to, in which we believe that only our own actions can help, and therefore become obsessively involved in good works of various types. Unfortunately our innate egoism intrudes, and soon personal conflict follows as each pursues his own way. The story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11.1-9) is a parable of activism: God is excluded and the work disintegrates in conflict, so that the common language of love that binds all creation together is confused and each group retires to its own stronghold as a separate entity in mistrust of the others.
The true faith is a trust in the love of God, which Christians would see demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In that faith we can rest in the divine providence in prayer, and the strength imparted to us by the Holy Spirit will help to integrate our own gifts for the work ahead, whether it be the routine of the common round or a sudden emergency that could not reasonably have been anticipated. In this frame of mind we can work in collaboration with God in the ceaseless creation of the world. As Psalm 127 reminds us, unless the Lord builds the house, its builders will have toiled in vain. But we have to put the divine plan into concrete form, like Moses on Mount Sinai being told by God to work to the design which he was shown on the mountain. This is true reconciliation of the extremes of quietism and activism. Another way of seeing this is the relationship between good works and faith. St Paul states categorically that we are saved by God's gift of grace and not by our own efforts, so that we have nothing to boast of. St James, on the other hand, reminds us that faith, if it does not lead to action, is in itself a lifeless thing (James 2.17). Faith in fact is proved by action; this is the great difference between faith and belief, which itself is merely a detached mental attitude. But once it takes flesh, it becomes a living faith which may even change the course of history as it did in the apostolic era of Christianity. It is energized by a driving force that will, at least metaphorically, move mountains. This was the work of the prophets of Israel, notably Jeremiah who could no more resist the impulse to speak the truth in God's name to his sinful compatriots than could the fictional Jonah evade his duty by fleeing to the ends of the earth.
Thus Frederic Myers' definition of faith as the resolution to stand and fall by the noblest hypothesis is made possible by the prior infusion of divine grace into us. Then we will stand up to all ridicule, persecution and ostracism even to the point of death, because to betray the truth would be a sin against the Holy Spirit himself. This would be tantamount to committing suicide, as did Judas Iscariot, and while I personally believe that all created things will be brought back to life by the love of God, the punishment in store for those who deny the truth is a severe one: the inability to look themselves in the face. The hardest thing in the world is to forgive ourselves; until we are open to the love of God it is in fact impossible, because our pride excludes us from the greater fellowship of life.