These days "Truth" is bandied about by all sorts, some
very religious, some not so much. Maybe about the best
one can say at this time is that "Truth" is relative. In other
words, perhaps we need examine what we hold as true in
particular relation to our lives, to our modern knowledge-
base, to our social conditions, etc.
As for myself, I've been hankering after Truth most of my
adult life--and not always just religious truth. What I've
discovered is that Truth is not only a shapeshifter, but
sometimes also becomes invisible. Old truths fade, new
truths arise. It's an uncomfortable situation for a person
who demands a concrete Truth.
As for discovering all the truths in Scripture that seem to
fall by wayside, well yes when I first encountered such, I
was upset. "See, see--it doesn't compute!" At least I never
closed my mind, even in the name of Faith.
But since my first glimpse into these biblical problems, I
have mellowed. As for narratives, metaphors, well eventually
I discovered that the Ancients actually wrote in this style.
After all they were coming out of their "mythopoesis" period,
so it's not surprising they weren't literalists--like us cold
rationalists.
Along the way, too, I guess I became more mellow when it
came to the cracks in the window of biblical truth. And now
old, I really no longer care about these archaic inaccuracies.
"Been there, went through that," I guess.
What is important to me now maybe is more practical.
I would love to understand better That deemed Ultimate
Reality. I haven't forgot the ancient metaphors, some of
these indeed wise, but I have put my hand to the plough
of our modern data base--which mostly revolves around
Science and Depth Psychology and its different disciplines,
such as Cosmology, Quantum Physics, the Transpersonal
Experience, etc.
It would seem that we are now standing in a whole new
ballpark, but we still haven't learned how to play the game
more effectively.
As for the "game," I've pretty much put most of my money
on what St. Paul called the "indwelling Holy Spirit." In his
day he believed that the Church was the Temple of the
Spirit. Jesus felt *we* were the Temple of the Spirit. And,
now what with our coming to realize that the entire
Universal System is composed of an infinity of related
systems, via Deep Ecology, I imagine we can safely say
that the entire Cosmos--and All therein--is the Temple
of the Spirit.
Consequently, my focus nowadays is mainly on the Spirit
as the Plenum of the Universe, as Intelligence, Energy,
propelling us through both Deep Space and Deep Time,
towards a Completion--perhaps?
Where Christ fits in all this, perhaps it is a matter of
identity--or more precisely, personality. I think it's
at this point where Teilhard stepped forward. While
examining his evolutionary sense of Cosmogenesis, he
noted that he had a "special experience" that convinced
him of the Truth of Omega as the Cosmic Christ. It
would seem that Teilhard had a personal mystical
encounter and he transposed it into his faith system.
But is what he experienced *the* Truth? He believed in
Jesus as the "Incarnation of the Logos," capitalizing
on the Greek philosophers who exclaimed the
Logos-Pneuma as the Cosmic Plenum.
So what do we have here? Faith, Intuition, Mysticism,
Philosophy, Science? Probably all put together,
mixed-up in a common pot, we have what is
essentially a Continuum of thought that has
threaded through our Western Civilization since
its earliest beginnings.
Truth spins and moves us ever towards new questions
and new answers.
