True Intimacy

Human relationships easily become possessive. Our hearts so much desire to be loved that we are inclined to cling to the person who offers us love, affection, friendship, care, or support. Once we have seen or felt a hint of love, we want more of it. That explains why lovers so often bicker with each other. Lovers' quarrels are quarrels between people who want more of each other than they are able or willing to give.

It is very hard for love not to become possessive because our hearts look for perfect love and no human being is capable of that. Only God can offer perfect love. Therefore, the art of loving includes the art of giving one another space. When we invade one another's space and do not allow the other to be his or her own free person, we cause great suffering in our relationships. But when we give another space to move and share our gifts, true intimacy becomes possible.
-Henri Nouwen

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The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 5

Finally, I come to the conclusion of series on all things objectively true, relative, and intimately true. You can check out Part 1, 2, 3, & 4.

Simple stated, I do not believe that objective truth exists. Let me nuance that, I do not believe that we can know the Truth objectively without our frame of reference, particularities, culture, and values guiding what and how we think. I do believe there is Truth, so not I don't we're left with relativism, but to a faithful relativity. We need story, traditions, cultures, history, along with scientific reasoning to get to the truth.

Everything outside of reason though was erased from the methods of seeking truth with Kant who said that religion has to fit within the bounds of reason. Nicholas Wolterstorff, a Christian philospher, flips Kant's line on its head by saying that reason must fit within the bounds of reason.

Most people who are squeemish at the mention of nonobjectivity are those moderns who ahve bought into the idea that truth can be had apart from one's perspective. Reasoning is core and foundational to what it means to be human, and humans are seemingly by nature religious. Even if you can't admit that humans are religious by nature, I think you must admit that we cannot escape our place in life, who we are, our enculturation process.

The most important reason for myself to pull back the curtains on objectivity to realize that it truly is a bankrupt commission, is because too often religion adherents (especially Christians) claim to have THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH. Many consequences follow, but the worst that I find in my Western, white middle class context is Christians claim that the gospel is objectively true while pulling away from the church as the center of truth. So what is lost when we claim the gospel is objectively true? We lose embodied witness. Why live out the gospel when I can point to an objective truth that exists outside of reality?

God though did not find it fit to drop facts and knowledge to be known as truth, but rather God dropped a baby into the world that one day would proclaim himself as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth can only be known in faithful, covenant relationship. We must be in faithful relationship to ourselves in our context, to traditions, religions, cultures, histories, reasoning, philosophy, art, and most importantly God.

The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 4

In continuation of my series on truth, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, and one of my reasons, today I'll try to construct how truth is understood rather than objective. Usually, when I get this far into this conversation with truth the answer suggested is that we should just strive for a more objective, objectivity or humble objectivity. Seems like a noble enough goal. But I hardly think it's an answer.

The way we understand truth is based on the way we understand the world. Ontology precedes epistemology. For example, when you understand the world as an objective reality that works like a machine we study it and make it submit to our desires. Fundamentally, we describe the world as a "watch" built by the "watchmaker." Thus, when the world is understood in materialistic terms the techniques for materialistic knowledge will be elevated above all others, "This is just the way the world is or works."

The Bible though does not talk about the world in mere materialistic and mechanistic terms, but rather the world is dynamic, personal, and a living creation with a voice. The stars witness (Ps. 19), the creation groans (Rom. 8:22), the trees sing (Ps. 96:12), the land mourns (Jer. 12:4; Hos. 4:1-3), and the rocks on the side of the road praise God (Luke 19:40).

As seen above, the metaphors that we use to describe the world around us are often telling of how we view the world (ontology). Trees can be understood as crops, products, decorations, habitats, parks, or responsive agents in God's creation.

What is needed to counter the idolatry of reason created by objectivity, is an epistemology based on relationships.