Charlie Finds Love

By Walker Jean Mills

Charlie Finds Love introduces the fruit of the Spirit through the compassionate hearts of children who want to care for an abandoned puppy. It is the prequel to the award-winning children's book, The Good Dog.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781644680384

Book preview

1

A Contemplative Heart

Seek and You Will Find

Matthew 7:7

Although science can bring us nearer to God, through analytical research, it can never fully prove the existence of God. Science deals solely with natural law. The existence of God, on the other hand, deals with natural law and with supernatural law. God’s very essence and existence is beyond the natural laws of the material world. Anything beyond the study of natural law, therefore, requires faith. The Oxford Dictionary defines faith, in general, as a …complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In science, in order to have complete trust or confidence in a belief, an application or outcome, one must adhere to the scientific method. For a belief to be proven in the scientific method, it must be subject to experimentation based on the existing laws of nature. Faith in God, however, is not based on experimentation. It is essentially experiential and demonstrable, in many respects, outside the laws of nature; outside the scope of physics, biology, mathematics, and psychology. Still, using these disciplines, we can better grasp the mysteries surrounding the existence of God that confound the rational mind. We can come close, but in the end, belief in the existence of God will always be the result of experiences built on faith in the supernatural, not experiments that can be duplicated based solely on natural law.

I started my research with the intention of proving the existence of God through the study of the physical sciences, through logic and reason, through material observations and established scientific theories. I quickly learned that none of the shining lights in the field of theology believes this is the way to find God. Pope Francis, for example, stated, Finding God in all things is not an ‘empirical eureka.’ When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way… A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God, and love of all things in God—this is the sign that you are on this right path.¹⁴

Moreover, as Thomas Merton noted, "We do not see, then act; we act, then see. It is only by the free submission of our judgment in dark faith that we can advance to the light of understanding: credo ut intelligam. And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey."¹⁵

Finding God, then, begins with the belief that God exists. Unlike the physical and social sciences where we can achieve enlightenment by starting from a nonjudgmental position, Merton points out that to know God—as far as humanly possible—an individual’s first act must be to believe in the existence of God. Belief in God can originate in many ways, but it must start the journey.

Belief leads to the understanding that God’s love is infinite; that, though it is beyond our abilities to fully grasp it, we can find comfort and peace just knowing we are on the right journey. How do we know this? Through experience, not through the study of the standard models of science. The Christian theologian St. John of the Cross, who was also a poet and mystic of the Church, believed the best way for someone to start the journey toward finding God was to experience Him through solitude. In his poem The Living Flame of Love, St. John of the Cross writes:

"I entered into unknowing

yet when I saw myself there,

without knowing where I was,

I understood great things;

I will not say what I felt

for I remained in unknowing

That perfect knowledge

was of peace and holiness

held at no remove

in profound solitude;

It was something so secret

that I was left stammering."¹⁶

The first nine words of my favorite psalm best describe how to begin this silent, solitary search to find God: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.¹⁷ We must first recognize in our heart that God exists and is our Shepherd. This is achieved through having the faith to believe that He exists. Then love him by eliminating all attachments to earthly desires. Jesus said to the rich man when asked how he can inherit eternal life, If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.¹⁸

This is the way of the mystic. Accordingly, we must empty ourselves of all desire except the desire to be with and to love God. Since God is infinite in every way, He cannot be known solely through an empirical quest. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophical and theological tenets—the five ways to find God—realized the futility of trying to find Him first through science. With all the logic and reason at his disposal, St. Thomas still referred to God as the Unknown. St. Thomas was both a theologian and a mystic. He understood that as finite beings we live in a world of limits. God does not. God is unlimited in love, mercy, justice, goodness and grace; in power, presence, and knowledge. He cannot be quantified (thus, a known quantity) in human terms. Therefore, we can never know God from the limited standpoint of our nature, through science, without first knowing Him through love and faith. We must purge ourselves of knowledge and enter into a state of nothingness, of darkness, in order to first know God.

According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, …(A)s the soul makes progress, and by a greater and more perfect concentration comes to appreciate what the knowledge of truth is, the more…does it see that the divine nature is invisible. It thus leaves all surface appearances, not only those that can be grasped by the senses but also those that the mind itself seems to see, and it keeps on going deeper until by the operation of the spirit it penetrates the invisible and incomprehensible, and it is there that it sees God. The true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge and is everywhere cut off from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility. Thus that profound evangelist, John, who penetrated into this luminous darkness, tells us that no man hath seen God at any time (John 1:18), teaching us by this negation that no man—indeed, no created intellect—can attain knowledge of God.¹⁹

Once all worldly thoughts and desires are eliminated, the presence of God is revealed. It is only after seeking God in this manner (finding Him in the darkness that comes before the light) that we can delve further (through human intellect and will) to garner finite proofs that God exists in our world. These proofs, however, will not convince the nonbeliever of the existence of God if the nonbeliever does not find God first in his or her heart. It is the belief of the mystics and theologians of the Catholic Church that an open heart is necessary for God to enter with His grace. Grace, in turn, leads to faith.

This is not to discount philosophical, theological, and scientific studies as a means to enhance our relationship with God. It is simply to point out that God must first be found in the heart. Thus, the following chapters will assume that you have already accepted God in your heart and simply wish to find compatibilities between science and religion. You might still find interest in understanding how nature is in harmony with your faith in God. So to show this relationship, we must examine the core foundations of science and religion. My intention in the next 16 chapters is to do just that. A good place to start is with an analysis of what can be seen and what cannot be seen.

2

The Visible and the Invisible

It is only with the heart that one

can see rightly; what is essential

is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I believe in God, both the visible and invisible. I always have, although there was a time when I did turn a blind eye and deaf ear to God. It occurred during my college years, not an unusual time for a young person to lose or question their faith. At that point in life many young people begin to see themselves as the center of the universe. A religious path is a tough avenue to follow at this stage of a person’s development. It demands faith in something greater than oneself. Young minds generally have a difficult time dealing with cultural structure and obedience just at the time the adolescents are moving from the subservience of childhood to the freedoms of adulthood. This is a time that leads inevitably to the questioning of traditional norms. Religions and cultures realize this and, so, institute rites of passage. In Judaism the rite of bar mitzvah for a boy and bat mitzvah for a girl occurs around the age of 12. In the Christian Church the rite of confirmation is around the ages of 14-15. In the Amish world the rite of passage is called rumspringa a time when a young person around the age of 16 is allowed to break free and experience the world outside the culture.