An email read out at the funeral with introduction by Andrew Nugeé
Once, when I was little – much smaller than my parents’ grandchildren are today – I was rootling around amongst Daddy’s stuff and I came across a chamois leather cloth, like this one, which he used to clean his glasses. On it was printed ‘You can’t be optimistic with a misty optic’. I thought it was funny then, and it remained for almost half a century, a kind of occasional joke between us. So here is lesson one in his credo, as we will see.
There are few – if any – lawyers in the family in previous generations. But there are plenty of priests and teachers, and more than the occasional headmaster. Daddy’s first job was as a teacher, and of course we all continued to learn so much from him, right up until the day he died. Like his beloved Uncle John, Tishy’s father, at Radley then in Eastbourne, and his equally beloved cousin John in Johannesburg, Chris’s father, to mention but two – and although happily disguised later as a lawyer – he remained I think in large part an academic, but generally of the persuasive, rather than the hectoring school. He often developed contrarian and minority views, and he enjoyed debating and defending them – frequently face to face, but more often by email.
And it was one of these emails that I thought I would read to you, entitled ‘what I believe’…………….
My dearest Bee
One of my troubles is that I chatter on emails, and I don’t remember what I have said and I repeat myself. But I think I am pretty consistent. At the risk of boring you, can I tell you where I have got to?
Going by the evidence in a lawyer-like way, like the early Church I start with Paul’s list of the resurrection appearances of Jesus in 1 Cor 15 v3-8, which seem to me to be virtually impossible to explain away. Assuming Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter evening, and again a week later when Thomas was there, I ask myself, ‘Where was he between those two appearances?’ Obviously not walking the streets of Jerusalem, nor anywhere else in the material universe. But I have no doubt that the appearances were real. There is really nothing else that can account for the change in the disciples from a leaderless and dejected group of men into the fearless apostles that they suddenly became. I find the evidence that this happened convincing.
But if so, it necessarily follows that there must be a non-material universe, to and from which it was possible for Jesus to pass. What I think may be new (though I am sure others may have had the same idea) is my certainty that this non-material universe exists alongside, or permeates, our material universe.
Once you get away from the belief that everything that exists is to be found in the material world it all fits together quite well. The existence of telepathy for instance, which is proved by many thousands of experiments, fits into this view well. It fits with the experiences of those who have seen or even talked with friends who were dead. CS Lewis, for example, appeared, some time after his death, to one of his friends, sitting in his usual armchair, and spent several minutes in conversation with him. And you know the story of Jesus appearing to your cousin Hugh Montefiore when he was at school at Rugby, and simply saying ‘Follow me’, instantly converting him from a devoted Jew (he had been thinking of becoming a rabbi) to a Christian, though, as he points out in his books, a Jewish Christian, ie he did not have to give up any of his fundamental Jewish beliefs.
Putting all this (and more) together, it seems to me clear that a non-material universe does exist, though of course the scientists will not be able to find any trace of it since science does not equip them to do so.
Does this make any sense to you? I think both reason and evidence support it. Although it doesn’t have much connection with the vast amount that has been written by theologians over the centuries, I don’t think it seriously contradicts most of what they say. For my part, I agree with Puddleglum in The Silver Chair. If it is not true, it is nevertheless a more attractive picture of God’s world than the materialist’s explanation, and I shall assume it is true, more or less.
My belief in this non-material universe – sometimes called Heaven – has received very strong support from the near-death experiences of those who have died and, by the miracles of modern science, been resuscitated.
In the last 40 years, there are literally thousands of accounts of people of all ages from 4 to 100 from all over the world, and they tell a remarkably consistent story. It seems to me that there is too great a body of evidence for this all to have been made up out of thin air.
Very many have come back with a clear description of the world to come. A garden-like place, it is full of light and colour and music. Those who are born blind can see, those who are born deaf can hear, the colour blind can see brilliant colours; and the people you meet appear in the prime of life, as you would like to remember them – not bedridden, senile, and doddering as they may have been at the time they died, but full of the joy of life at its best. Everything is suffused with a feeling of peace and love; and in the centre you will find a loving, brilliant, Being, who knows us intimately, communicates with us, mind to mind, and knows every detail of our earthly lives.
Another famous passage from St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians includes the words ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face’; and the experience of a great many people is that that is exactly how it turns out to be: when you die you come face to face with a loving God.
Well, as you say, Bee, you can only be right until you are proved to be wrong. But in the nature of things, I think you will find it difficult to prove me wrong!
Lots of love
Daddy
Andrew Nugee at the funeral of Edward Nugee TD QC