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"Believe and do not question" or "Question and do not believe"?


Father Dan Bdulescu

Who has not heard sometime this criticism came from the atheists, agnostics, profane, humanists, secular and free thinkers, be they philosophers, scientists and intellectuals or common people. And when bring those ones the above reproach, and to whom? When they are forced to accept certain dogmatic statements and religious teachings that they can not receive and which seem hostile to their mind and of the world in which they live and whose children feel to be. "Believe and do not question" is combined then with "I'm not dogmatic," "I can not have preconceptions," "Im not obtuse" (in the sense of "narrow", although that angle is the widest...), "I do not want to bear horse blinders on"," narrow minded", and the like. What exactly demand those people? They demand unlimited freedom of research and not accept those "horse blinders" of dogma. It is obvious that people have forgotten why they invented the horse blinders: precisely because the horse to see only the march ahead, being driven by his coachman, and not to be disturbed or frightened by what he could see aside. The horse is led by spurs, bridle and blinders, being subject of his master. The wild horse does not have and do not know these things and can run about anywhere his impulses draw him. He ought to be caught and tamed, trained to serve his master, man. The same goes for our minds, in our natural state, wild, passionate and sinful, in need of these funds, "bridle, spurs and horse blinders" to obey the Master, i.e. God, who leads it to the spiritual pasture, i.e. the Kingdom of heaven. With no divine dogmas, i.e. those landmarks, or "horse blinders", the mind gets disturbed and scared easily, leaving the right track and wandering into the abyss. Such it is with research: it should be done with humility, fear and measure. And then, what shall we do? Believe and do not question, as, apparently, the suppressor Church teaches us to do? In this antithesis, as it was presented by the free thinkers and humanist atheists, it would seem that the Church believes, but not question/searches so, only faith (more or less blind), while the science questions/investigates and does not believe (and even less hopes), but has solid evidence and certainty. So we have the separation of religion by science and faith by research. We will see that this is a new work of the one who divides, the devil, and that it was not the way that in the past, when religion and science were united, and faith and research, but not even today. The Church has also research, but it is a quite different one from the scientific research. But since there is not and there can never be a man devoid of any faith, the scientists too "believe" something, they believe in something, but that "something" is different from the revealed truth, and faith (for them) is heretical. Prejudices, preconceived ideas, there will be plenty of it in the science camp too, no matter how they deny the obvious. Our adversaries say that "believe and do not question" would be find in Scripture. Of course, if we put them to show us the spot they will not find it anywhere, because the form itself is not there, it was taught not at church but came from the Marxist anti-religion courses. However, we find in Scripture passages with this meaning, and even the commandment! - but given in another spirit than that raised by the atheists and free thinkers masons:

2 "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 3:16-17) Here, of course, we do not see the commandment expressed in that way, but that message is: "Believe what I do say and do not question if it is true!" Do not seek to see what effect will have disobedience and transgression, what is the meaning of "thou shalt surely die". You say to the child that he should not stick his fingers in the socket because is a mortal danger, there is no urge that he should test this on his flesh, nor with any cat or chicken! "Those more difficult than you do not question and those stronger than you do not investigate. What you have commanded you, think of these, because you dont need the hidden ones. Do not search over the plenty of your things, because more than human understanding have been shown to you. For too many were deceived by their thoughts, and in the wrong assumption slipped their thoughts." (The wisdom of Jesus Sirach, 3:20-23) "I do not think that should be counted among believers those who dare to discuss such things, because they are not listening to the words: "Those more difficult than you do not question and those stronger than you do not investigate". (Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus) Here we can give a concrete example of hindrance, and even that relied by the "free-thinkers"1 in the field of cosmology/cosmogony, biology and anthropology. Namely, man should not investigate anything about the origins and meaning of the cosmos, and human life! Why? Firstly because they are totally inaccessible to the scientific, but only room for arbitrary speculation and fantasy. Second, for the reason of "believe", i.e., those have already been revealed to man for thousands of years by their Creator, God. He has revealed everything we need, and we can not add anything, much less change. That's exactly what those branches of modern science did, and thus arbitrary speculation and fantasy of the "alternative explanatory models" have reached to be blasphemies and heresies. Models are now atheist, they totally remove God from the "equation" or, in case of the "interdisciplinary" compromise introduce a lethal mixture of divine truth with devastating human errors. Humanity has not agreed to do so, and so does the opposite: question and does not believe, as materialists and atheist free thinkers teach. But we, the believers, "who mystically represent the Cherubim", shall not none of these. For the Church and her saints researched with measure, and so encourages us to do. St. John Chrysostom says: "Let us receive with great gratitude the words of Scripture; do not trespass our measure, nor seek those above us such as it have happened with the enemies of truth, who, wishing to explore everything with their own thoughts, did not think that is impossible to man to know perfectly God's creation... When you hear "He made", do not search for anything more, but look down and believe in what it was said... If Paul, that man so great and so equipped, said that His judgments, i.e. His ordinances and leadership, are impossible to research, and he did not say impossible to understood, but impossible to research, that he allows no research, and the trace of His ways, says he, is impossible to found ...

Which, as well as one Romanian intellectual said to us, are neither "free" nor "thinkers"!

3 The Hellenes have lost themselves because they have allowed everything to their mind and they did not want to know that the human mind is weak; they thought about things beyond their power, far exceeded their own borders and fell from their proper dignity... And once you have strayed from the straight path, went to ruin and were rolled in the depths of wickedness... And if someone would say: How can someone be caught up out of the body? I will ask: How is it possible to be caught up in the body? The latter situation is more difficult than the first, if one has to investigate by reason and not to listen to the faith." In the same meaning the saints Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, Blessed Augustine, John of Damascus, Athanasius of Paros and Theophanes the Recluse. Elsewhere, the Fathers call for moderate research: "Thus, although there is no mention of the elements, fire, water and air, imagine that they were all compounded together, and you will find water, air and fire, in the earth... In saying "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," the sacred writer passed over many things in silence, water, air, fire and the results from them, which, all forming in reality the true complement of the world, were, without doubt, made at the same time as the universe. By this silence, history wishes to train the activity or our intelligence, giving it a weak point for starting, to impel it to the discovery of the truth but, as we are told that the earth was invisible, ask yourself what could have covered it Only one supposition remains; that which floated on the surface of the earth was water--the fluid essence which had not yet been confined to its own place But let us return to the examination of the ingenious contrivances of creation... In fact what useful observations will long experience make us discover, if we ask without undue curiosity... Think of all those which my speech has left out, to avoid tediousness, and not to exceed my limits; recognise everywhere the wisdom of God; never cease to wonder, and, through every creature, to glorify the Creator But let us return to the research of creation." St. Gregory of Nyssa speaks in the same way. How should we proceed? What does the Scripture tells us in this regard? "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Proverbs 1:7) For here was taken the famous crede ut intellegas (believe so that you may understand) of Blessed Augustine. He also speaks about his research: "The seat whereof being in the appetite of knowledge, and sight being the sense chiefly used for attaining knowledge, it is in Divine language called "The lust of the eyes"2... but curiosity, for trial's sake, the contrary as well, not for the sake of suffering annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial and knowing them
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1 John 2:16

4 Thus also in the other senses, which it were long to go through... nor care I to know the courses of the stars, nor did my soul ever consult ghosts departed... Notwithstanding, in how many most petty and contemptible things is our curiosity daily tempted, and how often we give way, who can recount? ...Nor was I myself, who found out these things, who went over them all, and laboured to distinguish and to value every thing according to its dignity... Grant thereof a space for our meditations in the hidden things of Thy law, and close it not against us who knock Perfect me, O Lord, and reveal them unto me I would hear and understand, how "In the Beginning Thou madest the heaven and earth."... Permit me, Lord, to seek further. O my hope, let not my purpose be confounded My soul is on fire to know this most intricate enigma. Shut it not up, O Lord my God, good Father; through Christ I beseech Thee, do not shut up these usual, yet hidden things, from my desire, that it be hindered from piercing into them; but let them dawn through Thy enlightening mercy, O Lord. Whom shall I enquire of concerning these things? By Christ I beseech Thee, in His Name, Holy of holies, let no man disturb me." (Confessions) And in the law of grace it is said: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Romans 11:33) We consider that the patristic quotations above are sufficient to clear the problem "believe and do not question." The Holly Fathers draw unquestionably the limits of research, human "question", which comes directly or indirectly from forefathers curiosity, curiosity that does not "killed the cat" as goes the saying, but the whole human race. The opponents of "believe and do not question" are placing themselves without acknowledging on the opposite position: "question and do not believe", claiming that God gave us minds and senses to research and knowledge. But look, if we observe the phenomenon occurred in history, since the parents fall until today, it seems that the two went in the opposite direction: the greater one the lesser the other! The most honest of them, certainly did not know at all the above arguments, and the hardcore ones will not give up even if it would be invoked a hundred other similar arguments, so we let them to God's judgement. Let us see now the urge of the Holy Spirit to explore, to try, to question: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1) "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." (1 Timothy 4:1)

5 We realize immediately that the opponents of "believe and do not question" have replaced that phrase with its reverse "question and do not believe"! Moreover, in their unbelief, they reached also the transgression of the above commandment, because they never try the spirits, but are confined to research of this fallen world, with their human minds, uncleaned by passions, unlit by the Holy Spirit and therefore subject to deception whenever and however, which they take as unquestionable truth. Note that the Fathers did not stop research altogether, because they themselves have done this fully, but they put some limits, that is deciding: "For that, I thought it necessary to write to you what we have learned from divine Scriptures and what was advised by the devout men, and also what we ourselves, through search, found out." (Word of Our Father Ephraim the Syrian) Exactly the same happens with the religious dogmas. They are not narrow and closed truths, for being in the realm of the divine mysteries, they were are and remain eternal, absolute, unchanged, but endless! Yet, the dogmas set some boundaries of these truths, for at they remain Orthodox. Exceeding these boundaries leads to fall into lie, which here is called heresy and leads away from God and His kingdom, and thus to the eternal loss of salvation. The christians who often cite the argument "believe and do not question", rejecting it under the charges of "dogmatism", should take note of the spirit in which they say this: that of the Freemasons characterized by open or hidden atheism and of the humanist free thinkers or ordinary unbelieving atheists, requiring the right of endless research unimpeded by anyone and anything. That is, simply the rights due to God: "For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God". (1 Corinthians 2:10) The one who is not submitted himself to the scriptural and patristic dogma, i.e. the church ones, is Christian only in name, in a dead sociological statistic! The Holy Spirit is contrary to the Masonic world and the humanities. But the scriptural and patristic arguments do not seem in the least convincing to everybody. To those who are not The Holy Fathers speak: "The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy one another... Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider's web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency!... Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that was all was given up to chance... Of what use then are geometry--the calculations of arithmetic--the study of solids and far-famed astronomy, this laborious vanity, if those who pursue them imagine that this visible world is co-eternal with the Creator of all things, with God Himself; "

6 It is the force of these reasons, say the inventors of the fifth kind of body for the genesis of heaven and the stars, which constrained them to reject the system of their predecessors and to have recourse to their own hypothesis. But yet another fine speaker arises and disperses and destroys this theory to give predominance to an idea of his own invention." (St. Basil the Great Hexaimeron) In an attempt to avoid conflict between science and revelation is sometimes preferred the type of an agnostic elegant solution that put you on the shelter from one side and the other. But this compromise is not always and fruitful. Such statements are unsatisfied for both camps, the "fundamentalists", both Christians and scientists, who want a hot or cold confession and not a "lukewarm" one3 (Rev. 3:15-16) Come to an end, we can draw the following conclusion: God through His Church, actually gives us both commandments: and "Believe and do not question", and "Do not believe but question". Of course they are contrary to one another, and therefore will apply in different circumstances. Here is the mystery: the insight is showing where you have one and when the other. But also this was discovered, so that we should not do this thing (to intuit, guess), but possibly in some circumstances everyday, in the current of life. That they are currently understood as they are - that is, totally wrong! - is due, the umpteenth time to the diversion and change of the meaning by we know who. As Father Raphael Noica says, is the meaning of words (terms) is somehow "vampyrized", but here, not only of words but of whole phrases, which come to mean something else than intended by the One who inspired them, i.e. God. So help us God, to twist in such way as to return to the original meaning, then, to do both in the proper place and time, Amen.

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." This tough language belongs to King James Bible of 1611! It may sound shocking to our ears today, "lukewarm" as well as the quote says...

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