Shaping reality
Dave,
The insanity e-mail was great. I felt myself being torn by similar forces, and coming to similar ends. However, I think I'm back from my sojourn to Madness. I'm back by choice, that is.
Contemporary philosophers, psychologists, even scientists have done a number on our old concepts of epistemology... how we "know" something, and what is perceived as reality. After you figure in your genetic predispositions, up-bringing, character flaws, cultural heritage, finite inability to know anything with certainty, and the chemical transactions that actually create brain activity, it seems you're left with relativity. "Reality" can easily become nothing more than a group consensus on how to live so that a society doesn't go insane.
Kant said that we cannot know anything for sure. This comes as a blow to Christians claiming to have the monopoly on absolute truth. As the hymn goes, "You ask me how I know he lives- He lives within my heart." How can we convince a postmodern world that we've found an absolute? Should we try? Have we even found one?
-Writer's note: Sometimes I don't like to be a thinker. I wonder what it would be like to just accept things, not try to digest and redefine, sift, discover, prove... I suppose it would be a simpler life. But I don't think I'd want that kind of faith. I was not made that way. So I'll go back to trying to explain what I'm thinking recently about my faith...
You ever hear the saying, "Act as If..." ? It means that if you don't feel joyful, act joyful and eventually the rest of you will catch up. If you don't feel kind, go ahead and force yourself to play that role, and eventually you will find yourself being kind. It seems to work. Do you think there's any corollation with our faith? Believe as if something is real, and it will, in a sense, become real.
The past few weeks I was slipping into madness a little. I was off schedule, physically unhealthy, emotionally unbalanced, mentally searching. And I came to the conclusion (again) that Solomon did (Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Everything is meaningless... utterly meaningless!") I sought the answers to life directly, searched for meaning and purpose, a rational bottom line, a definitive reality. And the result was frustration and an overarching sense that it's all non-sense. Life is laughable. I really have mentally reached that conclusion. It's not really a conclusion (as if it was an ending point) but more of a resignation.
And to believe that life is meaningless produces a meaningless life. But instead, I got out of bed the next day at 5 am and started training again. Running, lifting, tae kwon do, meditation, prayer, reading of Scripture. I chose to believe that there was a point to it all, hope. I lived like it and I began to see it. Is this anywhere near what the Bible means by saying "receive by faith" ? Faith is being sure of what you don't see. Faith shapes your reality. Doesn't it? This concept cannot be applied extremely and absolutely, but I think it has its value. Many believe that there is no God- and I can see how they could believe that, and honestly not see Him. They have pre-framed their potential for seeing such things.
I once read a church sign that said "We become what we choose." It's true. We also believe what we choose, and we become what we believe.
