Saturday 15 June 2002

Pic of the day: There goes the neighborhood. Don't try this at home, kids. (Yes, another day with Prince of Egypt.)

Faith and miracles

Continuing on the same topic as yesterday, I came to think that the first time I watched Prince of Egypt I may have listened to the Norwegian translation. It is not quite word for word, especially the songs. (After all, they have to be singable too.) The most notable difference, at least to me, is in the theme song When you believe. While the English version timidly suggests "There can be miracles, when you believe", the Norwegian version brashly declares: "Miracles are created because you believe". This may be closer to what Jesus claimed (moving trees and mountains) – not that the movie is about Jesus, anyway, but Moses – but it may also have been conductive to those other thoughts that I remembered, about the spiritual or divine energy. I don't know, just a thought.

It can be kinda disturbing to read in the gospels how Jesus repeatedly says to people that it is their faith that has saved them. (Healed them, most often.) One place the narrator says outright that Jesus did not do many wonders in that town because of their lack of faith. But wasn't Jesus, like, the Messiah or something? Surely he would have enough faith himself to do whatever needed to be done? Why would he use other people's faith?

I can offhand think of two explanations for this, one Taoist and one Christian. The Taoist version is that Jesus was simply an opener to other people's spiritual energy, which was their very own. Like a midwife, he helped them bring the miracles into the world, but they were not really his miracles. He may not even have been all that powerful, but he had the wisdom to be in the right place at the right time and do the right thing. Wisdom is considered more praiseworthy than miracles anyway, in that school of thought.

The Christian version will say that Jesus at this point already was acting as an agent of God. As such, he held his Father's respect for personal freedom. (Remember, God placed the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, symbolic of His choice to give humans freedom even if it could cause their ruin. Freedom above everything, even salvation. Somehow this part of the Genesis myth seems to be hushed down these days, strangely enough.) So even if Jesus could channel unlimited quantities of divine energy, he would not do so unless people already had chosen to believe. Otherwise he would force unwanted belief, a kind of spiritual rape. So when his opponents demanded a sign, he refused, because what they really wanted was the opposite.

***

Now I've been talking about this all as if was true. As if the Bible was literal truth, not myth. Is that so? Or is it as many people say, that the "real" Jesus (if any) was just a wandering rabbi who healed hysterical people with the placebo effect? Was the "real" Moses (if any) just a charismatic leader who gave the Hebrew tribes a new common identity and purpose? Have these myths only survived up to our days because they are convenient, and perhaps because they give an exaggerated account of the much smaller benefits of faith in real life?

It is certain that faith can do small things. Today's top sport stars know that faith in themselves is essential. After all their training, they need to have faith when they are put to the test. This gives them the edge that makes them winners. But it is just the edge, not the whole blade. If you're a fat and flabby couch potato, you can't just vault onto the racetrack and become world champion just because you have more faith in yourself than the others. It must be faith in a reality, not an illusion, not just a dream.

To be honest, I have seen miracles. Pretty amazing ones, a few times. But even the most remarkable (cancer and arthritis going into remission before medical treatment had begun) are within the bounds of science. They are not outright impossible. I haven't seen people rise from the dead or walk on water or make water into wine or anything like that. But I'm not really sure, deep down, that I would want to. Would I really wish to live in an RPG, as an online friend described the life of a Christian? Isn't it more convenient to live in the well regulated world of science, and only have God help us out when all else fails? (And how does God feel about that attitude? Is He insulted, amused, does He care at all?)

Food for thought, if you take these things seriously. And they certainly are serious enough to have changed world history.