The Trial of Saint Murphy

Eli Murphy couldn’t see them looking but he could feel their eyes on him. Like forty tiny pin pricks on the back of his neck, he felt those eyes boring holes in him as though searching him inside and out for the words they knew he was forming. They knew, like he knew, that he didn’t have a choice. Not really.

Mr. Edwin had brought God into things and Eli was one of God’s- a genuine old-fashioned, evangelical, born-againer.

And everybody knew it.

And since they knew it, and because Eli knew they knew it, the choice had been made for him as unavoidably as if it had been destiny.

The only one who didn’t know what was coming was Mr. Edwin, the new North Cascades High honors science teacher who, despite his recent tenure, had already cemented his reputation as a tough grader and something of a provocateur. He’d made Sally Wolcott cry because he’d given her a B- on a lab report last year.

Nobody had given Sally anything less than an A since elementary. That was on account of her good behavior more than her smarts. Sally wasn’t dumb but she wasn’t anything special as far as smarts go. Mostly she was nice and she was respectful and the teachers thought she was a good influence on the rest of the students and so they gave her good grades to demonstrate the rewards of good behavior.

The last thing you want if you’re a teacher is for the bad kids to get better grades than the good kids. That’s the beginning of anarchy, right there. So Sally got good grades but Mr. Edwin didn’t know that just like he didn’t know that Eli was one of God’s.

Slowly, Eli’s hand crept up into the air. The whole class watched it creep up, wondering what would happen when Mr. Edwin saw it. The hand trembled slightly as it hung over Eli’s head and felt somehow very naked and intrusive.

Mr. Edwin finished squeaking out letters on his whiteboard and made a big, scribbled flourish under the words “Facts Not Beliefs” and clicked the cap onto his pen. He dropped the pen into the aluminum tray and only then did he turn around and see Eli’s trembling hand.

“Yes, Eli?”

“I believe in God,” said Eli.

“That’s fine,” said Mr. Edwin, “Please understand, class, when I say that God is a belief and not a fact I don’t mean to necessarily imply He doesn’t exist. What I mean to say is that he is not a factor that relates to the study of science. He is not a variable in the data. Science must deal exclusively with the data of the observable word. Facts and facts alone. If God exists he is unobservable and, therefore, beyond the scope of science. The question of God‘s existence is something to be settled in a philosophy class. Not here.”

He clasped his hands behind him and looked out at twenty-something blank faces staring back at him.

Eli’s hand crept up again from out of their midst.

“Yes, Eli?”

“God is a fact,” said Eli, though his tone of voice carried none of the certainty his words implied, “If God exists, His existence is a fact.”

“That’s true,” said Mr. Edwin.

“How can you leave a fact like that out of science?”

Mr. Edwin pursed his lips. It was a face he often made while he processed his thoughts. When he spoke again, he spoke slowly, feeling out his words as he went and making an effort to keep them accessible to his young audience.

“If God exists,” he said, “Then, yes, God is a fact. But He would remain an unverified fact. Not because his existence was any less factual, but because, factual or not, we, with our limited powers of observation, could not prove He existed. In order for God to be God, He must exist beyond the limits of the physical universe. Science is the study of the physical universe. It simply doesn’t provide us the tools to test a hypothesis that, by its very nature, is transcendent of observable reality.”

The glassy stares that answered him told him he’d waded a little too far into the deep end for his posse of sophomores, honors students or otherwise. He sighed and pitched the top of his nose, reminding himself to slow down before continuing.

“Look, take something that is observable- gravity, for instance- gravity can be measured, its effects calculated. When a concept can produce tangible data- that is when it enters the domain of science. It becomes something that can be tested. Test something enough times that you can prove that the same tests will always give the same results and bingo! You’ve got yourself a fact. But-”

He reached out at tapped the capped marker under the word “theories” written in big purple letters.

“-something that is not tangible, that does not produce measurable data? These are ideas that exist outside of science. They cannot be proved; they cannot be disproved. They can only be accepted or rejected based on the subjective preference of the individual. We call things like that beliefs. Like God, for example.”

He let his arm fall back to his side.

“Does that make sense, Eli?” he said, “You can believe in God or not believe in God all you want but - whatever you decide - it will not change the facts as established by science. Two plus two will still equal four. Hydrogen and Oxygen will still make water. Do you see what I mean?”

Eli Murphy pondered that. It made a certain kind of sense, but not the right kind of a sense.

For Eli Murphy had been warned of such things.

He had been warned, in every Sunday school class and every Bible study for as far back as he could remember, that the World was a battleground. He knew that the Truth was always and forever under attack from the Lies and other forces of that crafty old devil.

“But God is real,” Eli’s voice cracked. The words tumbled out before he could stop them. “He’s not just some theory or- or belief. He’s real. I know He’s real. Because the Bible says so.”

“And who wrote the Bible?” Mr. Edwin’s eyebrows lifted. “Can you prove they knew any more than we do about God?”

A snicker spread through the class and an uncomfortable heat crept up Eli’s neck. He glanced around at his audience and found Robert Sean giving him a sympathetic look from his seat in the back row.

“Let me put it another way,” said Mr. Edwin, “I assume that you believe God is all powerful, correct? You would agree that there is nothing that God could not do?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe God answers prayers?”

“Of course.”

“Alright then. Let’s put that hypothesis to the test,” said Mr. Edwin, “This is a science class, after all, so I propose an experiment.”

Mr. Edwin walked to his desk and, yanking open a drawer, lifted a glass beaker from inside and held it up into the light.

“This is a glass beaker. If I were to drop this beaker onto the floor, scientific knowledge says that it will fall down onto the tile and shatter. There are many reasons for this; the laws of gravity, acceleration, and mass, for example… all verifiable and testable scientific principles.”

Eli felt an ominous shiver creep up his spine like an old spider, uncertain of where the conversation was headed and but very much disliking the look of the topography.

“What I suggest, Eli, is that you spend this weekend praying and ask God to stop this beaker from breaking when it hits the ground. Ask Him to act contrary to the expected and established laws of the universe. Then, on monday when we reconvene, I will drop this beaker onto the floor. If it breaks, we will have proved that prayer, however earnest, cannot overcome the static physical laws of nature. If, however, the beaker does not break then we will know the opposite, that prayer can influence the observable universe. That God, in all His complexity, must be considered a scientific fact in addition to a belief.”

A mutter spread through the students. This was not how teachers were meant to talk, not how teachers were meant to act. It confused and excited them.

“What do you think, Eli?” asked Mr. Edwin, “Should we put your hypothesis to the test?”

All eyes turned back to Eli. All voices trailed off into silence, as though clearing the stage for Eli’s answer.

“Let’s do it.”