Reason and Faith in the Nativity Scene
Yesterday, many Christians participated in the traditional feast of the Epiphany, a feast celebrating the arrival of the three magi (wise men and/or kings, depending on the tradition) before the child Jesus. Told in the Gospel of Luke, this nativity story of the three kneeling figures offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh unveils a rich teaching about the relationship between faith and reason quite overlooked in the popularized figurine nativity scene. These three magi would have been some of the foremost scholars of the Gentile world, accomplished astronomers and natural philosophers respected for their erudition and intellectual achievements. Furthermore, through their study of natural phenomenon, such as the Star of Bethlehem, these men found their way to God; they used their rational ability to uncover the invisible signs God has written in his visible creation. After enduring the incredulous scoffs and ridicule of their peers when they announced their plan to journey towards this star and find the “King” over which it hung like a celestial crown, these three magi set upon the journey of faith, led by reason and strengthened by fortitude on their quest to discover that which their intellectual knowledge pointed to, what it signified. Despite the attempts of the New Atheists to force upon Christians an unwarranted fundamentalism and opposition to science and reason, it must be remembered that orthodox Christian teaching, especially the teaching of many of the early Church fathers, emphasized the importance of integrated inquiry, a search that utilized both the mode of reason and of faith. In addition to the Scriptures, God was understood to have written another Book, the Book of Creation, a book which Man is able to read through his rational capacities, finding the imprint of the invisible upon the visible.
Furthermore, Thomas Aquinas advocated the view that grace – again, contrary to the assumptions made by many modern atheists – perfects or builds upon nature, rather than overruling, replacing, or destroying nature. Christianity is not a religion that posits a “God of the Gaps,” nor does faith consist of irrational belief about that which has not yet been subjected to rational inquiry. Instead, Aquinas and orthodox Christianity teaches that faith perfects reason and theology; as Pope John Paul II titles a section in his encyclical Fides et Ratio, “Credo ut intellegam” (I believe that I might understand). Faith perfects reason’s ability to know truths about the world, and reason enables humanity to better elucidate the truths of faith. Indeed, this is precisely what the story of the three magi relates: for when the three magi arrive at the court of Herod, they inquire as to where the King shall be born. They humbly rely upon the wisdom of the Jewish religious leaders and the truths contained within their texts, truths of faith, to find that which they are looking for; their rational knowledge got them to Jerusalem, but it was only the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the “shepherd of Israel” shall be born in Bethlehem, which enabled them to finish the journey.
What then can be said about the other followers of the Star, those humble shepherds of Luke’s Gospel? Unlike the heretical Gnostic religions of the Early Church period which emphasized the need for a special knowledge or “gnosis” in order to achieve human fulfillment, unlike the Cathar and Cathar-related heresies of Middle Ages, unlike Neoplatonic philosophy, Orthodox Christianity does not confine the salvific promise of God to those who had achieved an esoteric mastery of mystical or scientific or philosophical knowledge. Just as three scholarly magi found their way to Christ from the academies of the East, so also the humble shepherds of Judea found their way to the Son of God by means of earnest and simple adherence to the promptings of God through his angels.
Whether Gentile or Jew, scholar or shepherd, those who have the eyes to see can notice God’s presence. What then can be said about both the Magi and the Shepherds as regards this vision? I don’t presume to know what it means to have “the eyes to see,” and I offer only the observation that both these groups, Magi and Shepherds, possessed the humility to prostrate themselves before a child. And what is at the heart of humility if not wonder? Thus John Paul II writes in Fides et Ratio,
“Driven by the desire to discover the ultimate truth of existence, human beings seek to acquire those universal elements of knowledge which enable them to understand themselves better and to advance in their own self-realization. These fundamental elements of knowledge spring from the wonder awakened in them by the contemplation of creation: human beings are astonished to discover themselves as part of the world, in a relationship with others like them, all sharing a common destiny. Here begins, then, the journey which will lead them to discover ever new frontiers of knowledge. Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.”



