Recently a friend drew my attention to an article by Matthew Parris in The Times newspaper, which you may be able to read here. He was moved to write a letter to the editor in response, and wondered what I thought.
The article describes a visit Parris made to a graveyard and his reflections on one particular headstone inscription. He says that he loves reading gravestones, which seems curious to me, given his antagonism to religious faith (if I have recollected his views correctly).
Nevertheless he describes how he was moved to tears by the inscription for a 10-month baby, reading:
“Happy babe thy days are ended,
All thy mourning days below.
Gone, by angels’ guards attended,
To the light of Jesus gone.”
What moves Parris in this way? Is it the faith-based sentiment of the inscription or the deep sadness of the death of a 10-month old child?
Parris’ second paragraph takes an interesting twist, asking “Did little Edward’s unhappy parents actually believe this?” He mentions other inscriptions which refer to being reunited with the deceased in Paradise, and follows up with similar questions about ancient Greeks and Muslims.
The first answer to Parris’ question would seem to be ‘Yes!’ Otherwise, why would they have gone to the expense and trouble of having the gravestone erected? If people’s actions tell us anything about their beliefs, then this would point to a positive answer.
Of course, whether they believed in a way that we or Parris would understand belief is possibly a different question.
And, of course again, Parris is also correct that we cannot know – in a scientific way – whether they actually believed it. After all, they are not around to ask!
But, it seems that the question Parris really wants to ask (and which is in the headline but not the article) is whether anyone now actually believes in Paradise (leaving aside for now exactly what Paradise might mean!).
His question “With what degree of certainty?” seems slightly to miss the mark, though, as I wonder whether the concept of certainty is the right measure. Clearly anyone’s beliefs about a life after death (or not) will turn out to have been either correct or not – the certainty with which those beliefs have been held during life does not affect this.
The implicit suggestion that it is nonsensical to believe in ‘Paradise’ in the absence of cold hard historically or scientifically satisfying evidence (to bring certainty) misses the point of faith and belief.
Interestingly (given Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus in John 3) Parris mentions the wind. We experience the effect of the wind, and see it blowing straws in the wind, but as he says, “we will never see the wind. The wind explains so much.”
Indeed it does, in the same way that even an uncertain belief in a transcendent God who is nevertheless intimately involved with creation explains so much.