In the fist chapter of the book Ratzinger gives a definition of faith that emphasizes what he calls "the primacy of the invisible." I'll share some of that definition in the next post. In this post I want to set up that discussion up with an illustration.
During the last summer fire season you might have seen a story about the oldest trees in America. Some of the giant sequoias in California’s Sequoia National Park are over 2,000 years old. Imagine that.
The trees at the time of the story were being threatened by a local wildfire. So steps were taken to wrap the trees in protective blankets.
Which might raise a question in your mind. What does wrapping ancient trees in foil have to do with God?
As I argue in Hunting Magic Eels, human life requires a sacred texture. Life needs to be imbued with value and meaning. Trouble is, as I also argue in the book, the "scientific gaze" bleaches the world of value and meaning. And there is something in us that recoils in horror at a purely materialistic description of the world. This is why we wrap old trees in foil.
Viewed through a materialistic lens, a 2,000 year-old sequoia is just a tree, an expression of organic chemistry. But this purely scientific description of the sequoia misses its value and meaning. And it's this value and meaning that causes us to treat these trees as holy--as sacred and set apart. Different, in a qualitative way, from other trees. This is what Ratzinger means by "the primacy of the invisible." There are things that are true about this world that science cannot measure. In fact, these invisible truths are the truest things in life. Truths that demand energetic moral responses. Truths that make ethical demands. Truths that have causal effects and impacts upon the world.
In the case of the sequoias, what is invisible about them is primary.
