By DONALD DeMARCO
An amateur theologian and an amateur plumber have something in common. They know a few things, but should enlist the services of a professional when their problems are more than they can handle.
I have a friend who is a self-styled theologian. He has never had a theological problem with suffering. He contends that suffering can strengthen character, elicit loving care from others, and serve a redemptive purpose. Christ is the ultimate role model for all who suffer because He showed how Good Friday can lead to Easter. So far, so good.
But my friend feels that he still has a strong argument for atheism. Although he believes that “all this suffering in the world” does not repudiate the existence of God, “all this stupidity in the world” does. After all, sayeth my friend, Christ was not stupid and stupidity never accomplished anything.
Furthermore, the amount of stupidity in the world, according to his calculus, is utterly staggering. He was fond of buttressing his argument by quoting his rock icon Frank Zappa who once remarked that “there is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has longer shelf life.”
Case closed!
Socrates encountered a self-styled theologian in Plato’s dialogue, Euthyphro. After an extended conversation, the Gadfly of Athens could not convince Euthyphro that God is good not because some say He is good, but because He is good in Himself. Euthyphro insisted that something is what it is because he says it is.
His view was later reiterated by crooner Dean Martin: “You’re nobody till somebody loves you.”
Euthyphro was too involved in himself to take a peek at reality. He was too much caught up in his status as a soothsayer. He was a “know-it-all” who was completely lacking in self-knowledge. Socrates encountered many such individuals who could not see beyond their own noses. Yet, despite these experiences, his belief in God was never shaken.
The Greek word logos was adapted by John the Evangelist to describe God as “The Word”:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
John describes the Incarnation of Christ when he tells us that “the Word was made flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The term logos (verbum in Latin) also means “reason.”
Christ, therefore, is a model of reason. In imitating Him in this regard, we think and behave in a reasonable way and, in so doing, avoid being stupid.
Einstein, who did believe in God, though not exactly the God of Abraham and Isaac, once stated that “the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” The great physicist must have been fond of this notion, for he offered it to us in the form of a variation: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
For the misguided liberal, genius is far too confining. God decreed in Genesis that there are two sexes, male and female. Pope St. John Paul II developed his massive “Theology of the Body” around this point.
At an international conference on women, feminists were arguing that there are at least five genders. But this number, in retrospect, was rather tame. A recent New York City ruling states that there are 31. Not to be outdone, Facebook claims that there are 58. Others, jumping on the bandwagon, assert that there are at least 63 genders.
Stupidity, as Einstein recognizes, is boundless, and therein, perhaps, lies its appeal. What havoc do we reap, however, if we systematically urge children to believe that they can choose from a catalogue of more than 60 genders for themselves!
If we are less foolish and more reasonable, we become more God-like. We are, after all, rational creatures. By utilizing reason in our daily life, we express our gratitude to the gift that God gave us.
Widespread stupidity is not an argument against the existence of God. It is an indication that we should be more reasonable so that, by being imitators of the Word, it is easier for us to affirm God’s existence. Stupidity may be pervasive, but it is not incurable.
Stupidity that is hardened and persistent, nonetheless, is a serious problem. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. noted that “nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Scripture warns us that “when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!” (Matt. 6:23).
Christ is not only the Word Incarnate, but the Light. The presence of stupidity does not mean the absence of God.
Pope Leo XIII clearly recognized the values of both the light of natural reason and the light that is provided on a supernatural level. In his encyclical Aeterni Patris, on Christian philosophy, he offers us the following statement that is a source of clarification as well as encouragement:
“For, not in vain did God set the light of reason in the human mind; and so far is the superadded light of faith from extinguishing or lessening the power of the intelligence that it completes it rather, and by adding to its strength renders it capable of greater things.”
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum.
(He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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