You can find this wonderful word in Susie Dent’s book: ‘Word perfect – etymological entertainment for every day of the year’ where she describes it as ‘a 500-year old epithet for someone who insists they are right, despite clear and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary’.
It goes back to the 15th/16th century when religious debates roused strongly worded divisions of opinion. Those who believed they were right and cited their ‘incontrovertible evidence’ described their opponents as ‘mumpsimuses of divinity’. Which of course, applied to both sides of the divide.
These days, the debate seems to be between the evidence of science, which though not always incontrovertible is supported by observation and careful experiment, and the teachings of religion, which is backed by nothing other than tradition, feeling, emotion and spirituality.
We cannot prove the existence of God; we cannot uphold the stories of Creation, angelic visitations, prophetic words or the history of biblical narrative by scientific means. Scholars have delved into such evidence as there is to find the proof of, say, the life of Jesus, the disciples, the spread of the early Church.
They have tried to be ‘scientific’ in explaining this evidence, but when it comes down to it, we have to take it in faith. And there we have it – faith.
Faith that we cannot prove nonetheless is real. All of which we can ‘prove’ to exist in the lives we lead. Science can take us far in our understanding of the world, its beginnings, its substance, its working, but science cannot tell us how to live in harmony with all those around us.
For that we need faith with action.
As the little letter of James has it: ‘What good is it for someone to say he has faith if his actions do not prove it? Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and food. What good is it to say “God bless you” if you don’t give them the necessities of life?’ (James 2:14 – 16)
So we need to hold on to that faith, active faith, which is as real as love, kindness, grace – and if that makes us mumpsimuses – so be it.
Rosi MorganBarry is a member of Wokingham Methodist Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
