Friday October 20, 2023
Owen Labrie
The Color of the Universe
In 2003, a gaggle of highly credentialed, thoroughly diploma-ed scientists from Johns Hopkins made a bold claim. They announced that they had discovered the fundamental color of the universe: a creamy beige that they had deigned to name “cosmic latte.” I respectfully proffer that our friends with the telescopes were in this instance out over their skis, and that we have no obligation to take them seriously.
One of the enduring delights of our faith is its resistance to claims about the fundamental nature of things. Is man born in sin, weakness, and ignorance, uninterested in escaping the bondage of his will? Or he born good, innocent, and noble, everywhere endeavoring to transcend the fallenness of the world? Unyielding arguments one way or the other are the standard fare of philosophers or politicians or people trying to sell you something on the television.
Fortunately, scripture provides refuge from the hardliners. To illustrate this, we might wonder aloud: what is the fundamental nature of Jesus? We can make a few curious observations on this front: He is The Prince of Peace, but He brings not peace but a sword; He curses the fig tree, but he blesses the meager loaves; He is the Lion of Judah who comes as the Lamb of God; He is both the Now and the Not Yet; His burden is light and yet narrow is the way. To crib from Charles Williams, we might note that He speaks of love in terms of hell and hell in terms of perfection.
If we contain multitudes, it is because so, too, does our Lord. And so it is not that man is either good or evil, it is that he is both: indeed, the line between the two runs through every human heart. Perhaps nowhere do we find the mystical both better exemplified than in the gospels of the crucifixion and the resurrection. If we are to live De Imitatione Christi, every day we are called to die, and every day we are called to live again.
Returning now to our friends in lab coats, I submit that we cannot possibly cede that the fundamental color of the universe is “beige.” It’s akin to suggesting that, because you spend half your life lying down asleep and half standing up awake, life is fundamentally lived at an angle of 45 degrees. Only the rational faculty could come up with something so lifeless, so brummagem, so ridiculous.
But what might we offer in response? What is the true fundamental color of the universe?
Looking skyward, we might see things two ways.
We might see the deep, impenetrable black of suffering: injustice and pain; hatred, humiliation, and cruelty; the disorienting loneliness of sin; the dark night of the soul; the loss of a young child; an eternity in the oubliette. We may hear Jesus on the cross: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
We might also see the pure, ineffable white of heavenly light: our Lord’s grace; the bread of heaven; His open arms; forgiveness from our sins and deliverance from evil; the true, the good, and the beautiful; ecstasy, salvation, and eternal life. We may hear in the music of the spheres the engraving on the font at St. John’s: in hoc signo vinces.
Which is it? I believe we are bold to say: it is both.