Profound Thing #3 - Reality, Post-modernism, and Humans

I really don't know why this has been on my brain as much as it has recently, but it popped into my head the other day while I was mowing the lawn. I remembered one of my friends saying that there was a psychology professor who always started out his classes by bringing in a ball and saying, "This ball is not a ball."

Now, of course, it's obvious that the ball is a ball, despite what the professor says. The thing that gives his statement any weight, however, is the inherent difficulty of explaining why the ball is a ball.

I mean, think about it. What makes a ball a ball? If it's spherical? But old undersea mines were spherical, so that's obviously not all there is to being a ball. Is it a ball because it bounces? Well, there are lots of balls that don't bounce, and lots of not-balls that do bounce... i.e., a wrecking ball and silly-putty, respectively. There is just something that tells us "That is a ball" when we see one. They have inherent ball-ness.

So the professor makes his point off of first the fact that it is incredibly difficult to describe why something is what it is, then also ties in his belief in what we call post-modernism - that what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me, and somehow these two truths exist in tandem with one another. He'll say that, even though you see a red ball, he doesn't. He sees a fish, or a saw, or a deadly snake-eating chiwawa. And who are you to say that what he sees is wrong?

The idea he's trying to present, of course, is that humans define their own realities. We perceive what we choose to perceive, and, since each human is on the same level as all his brothers, no one's reality is any more true than anyone else's.

And, of course, this may - to some extent, be true. For example, take the madman. His mind alters his perception of reality. In a way, any and everything he sees is defined by what he thinks of it. In fact, the professor might propose, it is actually we who are mad, and the insane man the only one who is actually lucid.

Now, of course, modern science and philosophy have reached these conclusions because they refuse to acknowledge the existence of the super-natural. (Unless, of course, the super-natural is some kind of alien life form. Because that just makes so much more sense than believing in any kind of higher power, much less the God. That was sarcasm, for those of you who couldn't catch it.) Mankind all have an equal ability to define reality - personal, transient. God, however...

Possibly one of the most famous quotes from Alexandre Dumas's book, The Count of Monte Cristo, is when Edmond Dantes, the hero of the book, screams at his teacher, who he calls Priest, "I don't believe in God!" Priest, with a dead-pan stare, replies, "It doesn't matter. He believes in you."


And it is here that we come to the crux of the failure of post-modernism. Certainly, humans are free to believe whatever they wish. They can even, to a point, alter their perception of what is true and false. But, in the end, God defines basic reality. He is the source of Truth. He is the reason why.


Eventually, I think, science may progress to the point where it begins to grasp that, no matter how hard it tries, it can never tell us more than "how". For example, a common question among young ones - and some older ones - is "Why is the sky blue?". Scientists, with a smile on their faces, tell us exactly how the sky is blue (you know, light-waves and whatnot), and think they've answered the question.  But they haven't. They haven't told us why, because as long as you reject the idea of a God you can never answer the question why.


So, in the end, God is the source of all true Truth and knowledge. The wisdom of man is foolishness to Him, for He is the very definition of wisdom. All post-modernism boils down to simple human pride - placing ourselves where His throne should be, making ourselves out to be the definers of reality.


The problem is, he's a lot bigger, a lot stronger, and a lot more God than we are. So in the end, we become the children who cover our eyes and yell to their parents, "I can't see you, so you can't see me!"


James
Occasional Sayer of Things Profound, Blogger of Things Totally Random, Gregory, etc., etc.