Sermon for the Sunday before Lent. Doubt.

Exodus 24: 12 – end

12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”

13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”

15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Matthew 17

17 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; ² and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. ³ And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. ⁴ Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” ⁶ And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” ⁸ When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

⁹ Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.”

To provide a little light relief while reading through Dame Barbara Cartland's extensive body of work, I have also been reading a selection of Descartes’ philosophical works.

Descartes was a French philosopher writing in the first half of the sixteen hundreds, and he is best known for the little phrase, ‘I think therefore I am.’

It is perhaps a pity ‘I think therefore I am’ has become so well known, it makes him sound as if he is saying he lives to think, in the way an overzealous Vicar might say, ‘I preach therefore I am,’ or a retail junky might say, ‘I shop therefore I am.’

However, Descartes is not saying life is about thinking, he is actually answering a philosophical question, the question ‘what can I know for certain?’

Descartes lived in an age of growing scepticism, traditional understandings were being challenged by a number of developments; the advent of the printing press had brought about a communications revolution, exploration was opening up the world to new ideas and cultures, Islam was challenging Europe as a global power, and science had begun to undermine commonly held assumptions with a series of amazing discoveries.

A communications revolution, globalised trade, multicultural influences, the rise of Islam, the onward march of scientific discovery, does any of this sound familiar? Our present age seems to imagine we invented scepticism, but I think we ought to be more sceptical about our self-perceived originality.

In an age of insidious doubt philosophers began to wonder if we could know anything for sure?

Descartes had an answer, and his answer was ‘I think therefore I am.’

Descartes proposed a witty thought experiment; he asked what if you doubt everything, what if you refuse to accept anything? What is there left?

He argues the thing that is left is you sitting there doubting.

It is not somebody else doubting, it's you,

The fact you are sitting there cogitating must mean you exist.

So here is something you can hold to be true, if you are thinking, even if you are gloomily doubting everything, you must at least accept you exist.

That’s what ‘I think therefore I am’ means.

Descartes is not content with proving that we can know we exist, he is more ambitious than that, he goes on to argue we can know God exists. When I got to that part of the book I was intrigued... if Descartes had a knock down argument for the existence God, why are we still debating atheists all these years later?

Anyway, here is what he says, you doubt because you are an imperfect, limited, mortal being. If you were perfect, and had unlimited knowledge, and were immortal – you would not doubt, you would have certain knowledge.

The fact that you know you are imperfect must mean there is perfection to compare yourself with, and that perfection is God.

It's about contrasts, for example, someone sitting in a dark room only knows it is dark because they have experienced light. If there were no light, you could never understand that you were sitting in a dark room. However, as you know you are in dark room, you must know there is light.

You cannot see a black painting on a black wall, but place it on a white wall – and the black picture appears. In the same way, a picture of doubt, against a backdrop of doubt, would never be perceived, but a picture of doubt against a backdrop of certainty would clearly be apparent.

So knowing you are a doubting, imperfect, limited being, must mean you know there is a faithful, perfect, unlimited being.

Your doubting reveals both your existence as a mortal human being, and the existence of God. That nature which is more perfect than yourself, which enables you by contrast to perceive your own limited nature, is God.

Now to my mind this is fun, Descartes is turning doubt into a virtue, the fact you doubt doesn’t mean there is no God it means that God must exist. Just as if you know you are in the dark, light must exist.

You have to admire Descartes' ambition, and logic - If I doubt then I exist, and if I know that I am a doubter I must be comparing myself with sure and certain truth.

I do not know if Descartes is right, and in a way I’m not really worried, not least because I do not doubt God’s existence. I have always known God, when I first read the bible as a child, especially the four accounts of the life of Jesus, I found a picture in words of the God I already knew.

Some Vicars are able say that they have moments of doubt, and that is helpful to people who likewise doubt, but I cannot honesty say that.

I have tried, after University, when I had been reading widely about atheism, I determined to try saying that I did not believe in God, but when I spoke the words I knew I did not mean them. It felt absurd for me to say I didn’t believe in God, He was there with me in the room.

God is always with us, sometimes by signs He enables us to see that, signs such as the Transfiguration. In the Transfiguration the divine nature of Jesus was revealed to Peter, James, and John, - and through their testimony, it is revealed to us. God, for a moment, showed Peter, James, and John what they could never know by reason alone. The perfection we can not ordinarily see, but that is a greater reality than what we ordinarily see, was revealed by God, not by reason – but by revelation.

Divine light shone in our darkness to show the way.

I do wonder about the value of abstract arguments like Descartes', I wonder because of Christmas. Christianity is about God incarnate, not God in abstract.

The bible doesn’t say God is reason, the bible says God is love. The best argument you can give someone for the existence of God is to love as Christ loved us.

The Word became flesh – not a philosophical treatise.

If people want proof from you that God exists you could explain Descartes’ argument, or you could love them in word and deed just as Christ loves us all.

Amen.