Every once in a while, some circumstance surrounding a saint that cannot be denied ends up being heavily bracketed and made exceptional by the Church. Today’s saint, Matthias, presents just such a case. You see, he is actually mentioned in the Bible–in the Acts of the Apostles. Matthias was the one chosen to replace Judas Iscariot (the putative betrayer of Jesus) and restore the number of the special ones (Apostles, né Disciples) to twelve.

So the Church finds itself stuck with the Scriptural account of how Matthias became one of the apostles. For those who never knew or who need a refresher, the story is told in Acts 1:12-26. In brief, Peter makes a speech  to a group of about 120 people that there is a need to replace Judas, and that it should be from among the men (of course) who had been faithful followers of Jesus throughout his entire public ministry. Two men were nominated for consideration: Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas. Nominations were closed and then they all prayed for Divine guidance. So far, so good–nice standard church procedure.

Then there’s this part that the Church isn’t comfortable with–to choose between the two, they didn’t take a vote, but instead cast lots (imagine it like throwing dice, with Matthias rolling a five and beating out Barsabbas who only rolls a three). Since the biblical text cannot be expunged, Butler (representing the Catholic Church) goes to great pains to explain that only because the two men were of such indistinguishably equal quality, and only because the group prayed and it was God’s design (no textual evidence for this), then and only then was it ok to trust an important decision to casting lots. Butler writes that “otherwise, to commit a thing of importance to such a chance, or to expect a miraculous direction of divine providence in it, would be a criminal superstition and a tempting of God”–and, unmentioned, it would dramatically democratize the power of decision-making!

Here’s a question: what wold it mean if each time we had a decision to make, and it was not clear which way to go, we just said a short prayer, tossed a coin, and went forward in faith that the course selected by heads or by tails would be just fine? Is that any less an act of faith than agonizing, asking everyone’s advice, and procrastinating? If God is present everywhere, why not in a coin toss? And if God is not present in a coin toss, then why would we believe God to be present in a majority-rules vote, or in the edicts of oligarchs?