Fr. J. D. Ousley

After I completed my undergraduate degree and two years of seminary, I was able to spend an additional year studying at the University of London. I participated in a graduate program at King's College; and there, I received my first exposure to what is known as "analytic philosophy of religion."

As the name suggests, this way of thinking uses logic to analyze the concepts of religion. Following the excellent British tutorial system, I put the methods of philosophy to work. I wrote in short essays and then discussed them each week with my tutors.

For me, the results were liberating. They showed me ways to answer philosophical questions like the problem of evil; the study gave me new arguments in favor of religious belief.

So, in the case of the problem of evil, I learned about the "Free Will Defense:" evil must be possible in God's universe in order for human beings to have freedom.

And, as time went by, I also found that my philosophical training helped me to deal with spiritual questions. For example, there was a time in my life when I wondered a great deal about death -- and I wondered whether it was possible for human beings to survive death.

But then I reflected on arguments in favor of immortality that I had come across during my studies in London. Some philosophers claim consciousness can exist apart from the body. Others have pointed to the ability we have to imagine life in another realm of existence. Still others have noted how people have compelling visions of heaven.

Eventually, after a lot of thought about these arguments, I was reassured we do have substantial grounds for believing the Christian promise of eternal life.

Looking back, I see that my studies were an example of how knowledge can help strengthen faith. In today's Gospel, St. John suggests how important it is to know God.

In the second lesson, Jesus offers this prayer to God: "I have made your name known ... Now they know that everything you have given me is from you."

Christ also prays, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Knowledge is a supreme gift. Knowledge of God leads us to eternal life.

Now, of course, the intellectual side of religion can be given too much weight. Knowledge isn't all there is to religion: Christians don't just need to think -- we need to love, and we need to serve.

In the early church though, some Christians put so much stress on knowing that they fell into a heresy called Gnosticism.

The name derived from the Greek word for "knowing;" Gnostics claimed to have discovered very complicated religious truths that were hidden from ordinary Christians.

Some Gnostics taught, for example, that the Christian God was actually inferior to another, secret God who was the true ruler of the universe. The masses were therefore deluded when they worshiped the Christian God. Only the elite few who had been initiated into the mysteries of the cult knew the real truth.

Gnosticism seems still to be with us. Modern descendants of that movement can be found in various cults that claim to have secret knowledge of religious principles.

Scientology conveys its spiritual wisdom only to those who have the time and money to take its courses. The Unification Church has a number of eccentric doctrines surrounding Reverend Moon; these doctrines can only be fathomed by those with the right instruction.

And we could point, as well, to secular form of gnosticism. Think of those academics who scorn religious teaching as the ignorant superstitions of the masses, intellectuals who claim that sociology or psychology or biology are better able than religion to understand human beings.

(It is precisely this kind of skeptical Gnosticism that Christian philosophers [in the British-American tradition] work to combat. Yesterday, by coincidence, there was an article in The New York Times about a conference at Yale last month. At the conference some of those philosophers showed way to refute unbelieving intellectuals on their own terms.)

I happened to attend this conference, and I found it immensely encouraging to hear the philosophers defend the idea of a universe where God was real and present.

Now we should admit that such intellectual defenses of Christianity can themselves appear to be elitist. Most Christians aren't all that interested in doctrinal debates; they're content to go about their lives, saying their prayers and trying to help their neighbors.

And our Anglican tradition has never depended on dogmatic pronouncements of a theological party line from either our bishops or from our seminary professors. We're used to thinking for ourselves -- not following the commands of an elite.

But while we are a religion for everyone with a faith that includes doing as well as thinking -- still in the end, we need spiritual wisdom.

And what an appropriate message this is for Mothers' Day! Often, mothers (along with, of course, fathers) are spiritual guides. They give their children wisdom for living.

Of course, they're not an elite group, everyone has a mother! Yet in the course of bringing up their children, mothers share their deep spiritual knowledge.

And, they often convey that knowledge in subtle ways. A child may be engaged in some risky behavior. While the mother refrains from condemning the child's act, act, her raised eyebrows are enough: her child has second thoughts!

At the same time, mothers realize that her children will have to learn important lessons on their own; mothers can't be guides forever. Like the hard-won lesson about what is "hot" that every young child learns by getting too near a fire or a pan on the stove -- must be acquired by personal experience.

And in this process of learning, as Christ said, God is with us. Like the mother who gives her child freedom to learn but doesn't hesitate to share her opinion about what's right, so the Spirit of God gives us wisdom to deal with those hot pans that we encounter along the way.

"This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God." The opposite of elitism, holy Wisdom comes to everyone.

"Everyone who seeks, finds." Not just intellectuals -- everyone on the Christian way discovers that to know God is eternal life.

And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.