Reasonable Faith

Submitting faith to proof is absurd. Reason defines one kind of reality (what we know); faith defines another (what we don't know). Reasonable believers can live with both at once. Watching representatives of the two camps duke it out has become an intellectual blood sport with no winner. Hitchens's latest opponent was Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, a Roman Catholic priest and physicist who spoke movingly of the importance of both science and faith in his life and declined to say much beyond that. "Faith," he said, "is like trying to explain to your uncomprehending family why you have fallen in love with so-and-so. They have all the arguments, and you can understand what they're saying, but you can't help it, you're in love." Hitchens, cruising for a fight, evoked barbaric religious practices, evil done in the name of God, immorality disguised as theology. Over and over, the priest expressed his sympathy and agreement. He reminded me a little bit of Ferdinand the bull, the children's book character who refuses to gore the matador, in spite of all provocation. Albacete's God is not the one Hitchens objects to, and that, he seemed to say, is that.

From Lisa Miller's article "Arguing Against the Atheists" in Newsweek, October 6.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161225