Brooklyn, yes Brooklyn, has a saint and he wrote on religion and science.
For those who think the only interesting thing about Brooklyn left when the Dodgers went to Los Angeles, the life and thought of Raphael is a corrective. In December of 1895, Raphael spoke to a group of men on science. His talk came during the height of the Victorian era when robber barons were gilding the age, the sun never set on colonial empires fueled by a pseudo-scientific racism, and Darwin was disturbing the traditional harmony between science and religion.
From Tennyson to Huxley, intellectuals and artists were no longer Christian or like the great Ruskin were leaving the Faith. Raphael, a man of the East brought to the West, a calm and assured voice on the issue. Byzantium had studied religious and secular works to the day Constantinople fell to the Turks. St Raphael was not defensive, but coming from a church that had seen intellectual fads, theories, and ideas come and go for centuries, Raphael was not ready to marry the church to any contemporary view.
He knew what was true. Adding to that truth was harder!
Here is the text of the talk of Raphael of Brooklyn from the Antiochian Orthodox website. I have put his comments in indented type with bolding and my own commentary appears beneath:
Every true mind cannot but rejoice when it encounters education and knowledge. Every peaceful heart, too, cannot but be reverent when it beholds great philanthropic endeavors which are crowned with a crown of goodness. Therefore, truth becomes evident in the ministry of education; and goodness becomes visible in the works of kindness. It is, then, truth and goodness which promote mental success and literary advancement in every place and every age. For this reason, mental success stirs up within us joy and happiness; and literary advancement excites within us poetic words of thanksgiving.
If you are tired of the claims such as “religion is opposed to education,” St Raphael is refreshing. He knows that Christianity demands education because Arabic Christians have never devalued the life of the mind. He stands at the end of a tradition that combined good works with scholarship
Notice that for Raphael eduction was a ministry that made truth evident. The church cannot exist without the calling of the teacher and the teacher’s goal is to know the truth. Yet this search for truth is naturally combined with philanthropy. The one who sees Jesus, the Truth, becomes like him and will love the poor. Truth and kindness combine to produce beauty and beauty will make us happy: we will flourish as humans. Flourishing humans are living out the image of God within and so create great literature. We see Jesus and poetry follows because, what else does a person do when seeing the Beloved?
Raphael lived in an era where true education made a gentleman. He justly would have rejected the idea that truth, kindness, joy, happiness, and poetry could be divided. “Subjects” might be divided up for convenience, but in the life of a person they were reunited. The educated person incarnates his education in his body and soul.
Having said that, I cannot but convey the great joy which I feel in my heart at the founding of this literary gathering, which is composed of Syrian men who have graciously poured out love for the improvement of their own literacy, education, and knowledge. At the same time, they have spread such virtues to the rest of their un-enlightened brethren. Therefore, I cannot but offer great thanks to the founders of this congregation and all of those who have helped and taken part in its establishment. I ask Him who is of true heart and spirit that He may fill the hearts and minds of the founders of this congregation (whether those who make literary offerings or gifts of money) with the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of truth, and the spirit of zeal and vision for the future; that they may spread their literary and visionary knowledge to all of their country’s descendants throughout all of the ages.
No sooner did Arab immigrants come to an area than they began to read and discuss. True Christianity is a religion of a Book and it will breed a love of all wholesome literature. What a beautiful example for us who have so much more wealth! Do we spend our free time discussing great works of art, literature, and science? Do we give money so others may do so?
If not, why not?
Christianity is life, not part of a whole life, but life. As a result, all education and learning flows from it. There are no “secular” or “sacred” subjects. The immigrant community put down roots and pruned out ignorance. They hoped to enlighten themselves and their neighbors. People gave money for this object. Not for these valiant people was the reduction of Christianity to programs or food festivals. They wanted to learn and knew the Church existed, in part, to aid in learning.
A Christian hates darkness and ignorance is the ultimate darkness. Instead, we seek enlightenment, the illumination of truth, in every part of our being.
What I behold in this, your first gathering, is your treasured and righteous intention, throughout all of your discussions and resolutions, “not to believe every spirit,” but “to examine everything and hold onto what is good.” Knowledge cannot be established, even if many attest to its truth and validity, if it is handled with chaos and dissension, doubt and deviance; such limiting factors will soon alienate the knowledgeable and the wise, the poet and the counselor. Nonetheless, today knowledge has been strongly established as truth through the wisdom of our past.
Raphael is not afraid. He knows these men and that they are willing to read anything but not believe everything. They have renewed minds full of grace and truth. The truth will produce more truth or help avoid error and grace will enable them to be a community in the face of tough intellectual work! Grace and truth together will produce knowledge.
What are the enemies of knowledge?
Chaos
A school is a place that requires order to advance. This is not opposed to the “creative chaos” of a good classroom, because there the chaos is only on the surface. The teacher and students are creating and learning in the framework of a class. Liberty is needed because of the amount of structure!
By chaos, I would think the Saint means a moral or intellectual chaos that lacks the discipline or desire to learn. Every discussion, every project, requires discipline. No scientist can run a lab without rules or safety will vanish with progress. In the same way, the moral chaos of the libertine prevents the ordered thinking needed for art, culture, or science.
Dissension
Discussion is not dissension, but a harmony of minds. Examining opposing points of view (or even holding them) need not be dissension. Dissension is the desire to be right against the consensus. The “dissenter” (in this sense) refuses to listen even after he has been shown to be wrong. He enjoys being the juror who votes “not guilty” despite the overwhelming evidence and a consensus amongst the other eleven.
A discussion group will fail when every man seeks what is right in his own eyes at any cost.
Doubt
Doubt is useless, toxic questioning. There is no reason to think I am a brain in a vat controlled by an evil scientist, but I can consume much time nattering about it. Doubt (in this sense) is revisiting settled questions as a kind of hobby: I know God exists, but let’s pretend He doesn’t!
Wonder is the alternative to doubt. We move from what we have learned to wonder about new things. We ask questions that express what we do not know. We are motivated by wonder and not by grinding doubt.
Doubt produces more doubt. Wonder produces knowledge and is wonderful.
Deviance
The educator wants to establish a community of knowledge and so does not seek his own fame by proposing outlandish views for the sake of novelty. It takes time to establish what is knowledge, what is the truth. The wise of the past and present test any claims to truth and eventually come to see. There is no rush to judgment, but no fear of discussion.
Raphael has put an entire educational program in one paragraph!
Therefore, if you read or hear that [the findings of ] certain of the sciences contradict religion, it behooves you to understand that such sciences have never been originally founded in truth; indeed, true knowledge and true science is the kin of true religion and true faith. So neither true science nor true faith has the ability to contradict the other.
On one hand, true religion is the introduction of what God has revealed to us, with respect to those things that have been termed “the truths of faith and religion.” On the other hand, true science is the introduction of what God has sent to us through His creation and His laws, which have been termed “the laws of nature.” Having said this, is it possible for a true mind to surrender to the notion that what God revealed to us as “the truths of faith and religion” can be contradictory to what He sent to us as “the laws [or regularities] of nature”? Is it possible that the message of God can contradict what He created? Therefore, religious disbelief among the people [on the grounds of a supposed conflict of science and religion] is an indication of the lack of intellectual balance regarding truth; in addition, religious disbelief among scientists is an indication of the lack of intellectual balance regarding true science.
Raphael proposes the unity of Truth. He is not arguing for God and Christianity. He already has established (for himself) the truth of the Gospel. Given this, he knows that when religion and science appear to conflict, then he has misunderstood one or the other. True religion can check philosophical assumptions working into science disguised as “research.”
We see this when someone limits rational explanations to empirical explanations and then says that all he is doing is “science.” Raphael is telling this group to relax. Tensions there will be because we make mistakes about religion and mistakes about science, but these tensions will work out. Too many of us who are not scientists disbelieve Christianity because we have to figure it all out and when we cannot do so, we give up. Too many scientists have it all figured out and they have made science more than what it can be.
Science can never tell us what to do. It can only tell us what is and what will be materially. If science tells us the globe is warming (and it does) and that humans are causing it (which most scientists say is true) and that the results will be X, then it is still up to people to decide if X is what they want and what they wish to do about X. The minute a scientist tells us we should avoid X, he or she has ceased to do “true science” and is now practicing religion without the benefit of clergy.
Science cannot make ethical decisions for us.
In conclusion, my beloved and dear sons, “Do not believe every spirit, but examine everything and hold onto what is good,” hold fast throughout your scientific discussions what has been forgotten by those who have alienated themselves from true science. Be mindful of how some of the famous scientists of our current age established their beliefs after careful examination and great reflection, determining that the notion that science is contrary to religion is a lie. Therefore, in the midst of the multitude of scientific opinions, remember to preserve and protect your religious and literary ties from the attacks of ignorance, darkness, false truths, and other personal pleasures.
Raphael sounds a great deal like Phillip E. Johnson in Reason in the Balance. Johnson points out that some “science” and some “scientists” are smuggling naturalistic philosophy (anti-supernatural) into science. This is not (Raphael’s term) “true science” and so is in tension with “true religion.”
True science does not exclude the Faith. Of course, Raphael is not saying to dogmatically ignore the ideas of those people. Instead, we can read them, think about them, consider them, and not fear them. Raphael encourages us that not all scientists (even in 1895!) see religion and science in tension and they came to this conclusion after much study and thought. He knows what he thinks is the right conclusion, but is encouraging “great reflection” to get to it!
This is liberating.
Mostly, Raphael reminds his listeners to avoid intellectual vices. Opining without knowledge is wicked. I do not attack the standard global warning views because I have not given it deep thought and reflection. When ignorant, I must go with the experts. This is intellectual humility and it is a great good!
Darkness and false truths prevent learning. Intellectual darkness is refusing the Spirit of Truth. It develops elaborate justifications for errors and hides from the truth out of fear. Religious darkness can be motivated by fear just as much as secular darkness. Religious darkness is a false religiosity marked by a refusal to wonder, think, or move forward mentally.
Darkness almost always leads to “personal pleasures” . . . the pursuit of immoderate or selfish happiness in this life. If I will not see the Beloved, I will be satisfied with little loves. If I will not pursue Truth, too often I cling to my errors and hug them to myself as comfort against my self-created mental darkness. We drown out the voice of the Divine Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, by personal peace and affluence.
And so real education will be calm, carry on, and fear nothing. It manifests in charitable deeds and an openness to new ideas that does not lead to the madness of radical doubt. How blessed are these words of Raphael of Brooklyn!
* The following is from the web site: Hand-written in Arabic by St. Raphael of Brooklyn; translated into English by Dr. Sam Cohlmia in 2004.
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