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EMBRACING FAITH
... suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell
to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why
do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?"
It's ironic that the first
Christian theologian, who did so much to spread the gospel of
Christ beyond the Jewish world, had been such a defender of
Jewish orthodoxy and had so resisted accepting Jesus as the
Christ. In my study of the history of science, I found a
framework for understanding Saul's conversion to Paul that
offers more than mere irony.
Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" posits a
framework of paradigmatic erosion, a process in which the
prevailing scientific paradigm faces greater and greater
difficulties in explaining observations and results. He points
out that the developer of the new paradigm is quite often
well-schooled in the existing paradigm, but eventually rejects
it. One of Kuhn's best examples is the inability of Newtonian
physics to explain experimental findings of the late 1800s.
Ultimately the Newtonian paradigm fails and is replaced by
Einstein's theory of relativity.
Jesus often confronts the priests and Pharisees with teachings
and parables designed to point out the inadequacies of the law
as a faith paradigm. This outlook opens to us a view of Saul as
a man who has sought all the answers through his study of the
law but ultimately finds that paradigm cannot provide answers
because it has eroded beyond repair. He finds his new faith
paradigm in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
When viewed from this aspect, the conversion of Saul to the
apostle Paul is not merely a surprising quirk - it creates the
ideal messenger to craft the message and spread it to the target
audience in the Hellenistic world.
Lord, help us to discern your call and to follow it
faithfully even as it challenges and leads us in new directions.
Amen.
Ted Vlamis
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