Intellectual arrogance

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I FELT very sad after reading Melville Cooke's article - "Myths, miracles, mumbo-jumbo and morality" - as published on Page 9A of The Sunday Gleaner, June 3, 2001. Among other things, he wrote:

"Of all the mumbo-jumbo in the Bible that I take issue with, two stick out. One is the Virgin Birth and the other is the story of creation".

My immediate reaction was not to make a response to the article. However, that evening at about 7 p.m., as I reclined on a settee in our apartment and looked through the window, I saw a glorious nearly-full moon, in the heavens. On such occasions I usually recall the words of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly:

"That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon..."

However, it was the words of the story of creation as recorded in the book of Genesis (scorned by Mr. Cooke as "another myth"), that came to mind:

"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also.

And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good".

As I gazed at that glorious moon on a calm tropical evening, very humbly, I agreed - "It is good".

Later that evening I noticed that the reading for Day 3, of a book which I have, entitled "The Wisdom of Saint Augustine", (compiled and introduced by David Winter), entitled "The Beauty Of The Creator", was as follows:

"The order, arrangement, beauty, change and movement of the visible world declare that it could only have been the work of God, who is indescribably and invisibly great and indescribably and invisibly beautiful".

In the first paragraph of his Introduction to these extracts from the writings of Augustine, Michael Winter wrote:

"Augustine of Hippo was born in what is now Algeria in AD 354. Although his mother, Monica, was a devout Christian, Augustine turned his back on the faith for the first thirty years of his life, preferring various philosophies of the time, especially a rather strange, dualistic religion called Manicheism. It was not until his time as public orator in Milan, in 386, that he first came under the spell of the golden-tongued Bishop Ambrose. After a long and agonising struggle both with his conscience ­ he had a mistress and an illegitimate son ­ and his intellect, he finally surrendered to the claims of Christ on a hot August afternoon while reading words of St. Paul from his Epistle to the Romans. He was baptised the following Easter".

Mr. Cooke is entitled to the comfort of his intellectual arrogance. However, those of us who, for many years, have received enlightenment and solace from the teachings of the Bible (in spite of the difficulties we sometimes experience in understanding some things in it), are happy to join in the praise and prayer of David, as expressed in the 19th Psalm:

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world..."

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

I am, etc.,

LESLIE L. SCAFE

(E-mail: scafe@cwjamaica.com)

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