Reality, Part 4

Reality, Part 4

 “The visible world is an active doorway to the invisible world, and the invisible world is much larger than the visible.”[1] Fr. Richard Rohr

What does it mean to say that reality and truth are human creations that are only relevant in the present moment? It means that what we consider real and true only applies to a specific time, location, and context. That is the premise I have been exploring for the past couple of weeks. The question has many thought-provoking implications. First, if there issuch a thing as ultimate reality and truth, it is beyond our human ability to understand, describe, or attain certainty about, except in the most unsatisfyingly opaque terms. But it helps explain why science cannot find the smallest particles of matter or the most distant galaxies – they do not exist in the realms in which we seek. As we search for the core realities and truths of matter and the universe, all we find is more matter and more universe. It also illuminates why religion encourages us to have faith but cannot define in whom or what we are to have faith. The core reality of faith, as of God, is mystery and uncertainty.

A few hundred years ago, a commonly held reality was that the earth is flat. Indeed, we can understand how our ancestors held a flat-earth as truth because our daily experience seems to confirm it, relatively minor ground-level undulations excepted. We must be far above the earth’s surface to visually affirm the curved nature of our planet. It was also believed that the planets and stars revolved around the earth. Again, from an unaided, lay-person’s perspective on earth, that appears to be how the universe functions. From an individualistic view, my life appears to be at the center of the universe. Assuming the universe extends beyond measure in all directions, who can say where the center is located or prove that I am not the center of everything? Given that, whose definitions of reality and truth should we hold as ultimate – those of science, of religion, or of personal experience and observation? Is it necessary to choose only one? Certainly, all three have validity in their own limited contexts.

Finding the ultimate reality of anything in the physical universe appears to be a fool’s-errand. The terms real and true imply stability, reliability, and predictability, but nothing in our earthly existence is stable, reliable, or predictable except in specific times, locations, and contexts. Everyone and everything around us has a finite existence, meaning it comes and goes, lives and dies, waxes and wanes. From a human perspective, everything should have a beginning and an end in time and space. Some scientists theorize the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang. Some biblical literalists believe the universe was created 6000 years ago. For a person living an 80-year life, the world existed when they were born and still existed the moment they died, meaning their reality occurred on a continuum with no perceptible beginning or end. Whose truth is most real? I believe the life-lived is the closest to an ultimate reality because that observation is experiential and is not dependent on the universe beginning or ending at some point that we can neither prove nor experience. A lived experience is just that – one life placed within a specific time, location, and context. Reality and truth for that one life is whatever is real and true in the present moment, including past memories and future dreams. Need it be more?

For those who conceive of a larger, unseen spiritual reality encompassing and permeating the physical universe, reality and truth cannot be defined or understood in terms of the physical universe. The physical universe is a reflection of the spiritual realm and has no more reality or permanence than does our image in a mirror. It is not that the physical universe is without consequence or relevance, but it has no foundational reality or truth of its own. The underlying reality of an image resides with that which is reflected. The creating and organizing forces lie elsewhere, so what manifests as physical reality is a residual effect, not an originating impulse. Ultimate reality and truth cannot be found in the physical world, only its echoes. Even much of religion seeks to explain the spiritual realm in earthly terms, which is exactly backwards.

If we could actually know anything in its wholistic essence, we would not need faith because we would have absolute knowledge. But the knowledge that answers the questions of reality and truth is beyond us. Once we feel we have grasped reality or truth, we cease searching and become stagnant and wearisome in our attempts to squeeze evolving realities into limited truths that cannot hold them. Our relentless search for knowing reality and truth, whether through science or religion, inevitably leads to unknowing, and once recognized as such is exactly where spiritual transformation can begin.

This is the 24^thin a series of Life Notes on Time, and Eternity. The opinions expressed are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.

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[1] Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, October 3, 2023, http://www.cac.org.