Things As They Really Are

Introduction

			One New Year's Eve, enough years ago that my oldest daughter was only four or five, we were invited to spend the evening with some friends. We brought both our young children, with the naive assumption that the children would soon tire and be put to bed so the adults could enjoy the evening alone. Of course my eldest decided to endure most of the night. When we began watching a movie, she was right there with us. The movie that night was Jaws, which contains some rather graphic footage of a shark attacking people. My wife and I were quite concerned about the effect of the such graphic violence on a young girl. We watched her closely, but she never seemed afraid, nor did she appear to be at all upset during the shark attacks. In fact, when the movie was over she declared it the best she had ever seen. The next day we talked with her to make sure that she had not been traumatized by the violence in the movie. She reiterated her assertion that it was the best movie she had ever seen. Besides, she informed us, it was only a movie. Within a couple of weeks of the Jaws episode, The Muppet Movie started showing in theaters. Both our children were great fans of Kermit the Frog, watching Sesame Street on a daily basis. It was a family movie certain to please everyone. The story line of The Muppet Movie has Kermit chased by some evil men who want to turn him into a frog's leg dinner. There are hilarious chases as Kermit is extracted from one difficulty or another. When we left the theater we were congratulating ourselves on our wise choice in family movies. We asked our daughter what she thought of the movie, of course expecting great praise. We were astonished to hear that she considered it the worst movie she had ever seen. She absolutely hated it. We asked her why, and she replied "Because those men were trying to kill Kermit!" I admit I laughed, and reminded her that she had seen Jaws, in which people actually did die, but Kermit was never even harmed. She told me it wasn't the same, because Jaws was only a movie, but Kermit was real! As adults, we frequently assume that we live in the real world, while it is our children who, from time to time, live in a world which is not real. We do not realize that what we consider reality is also an artificial construction, pieced together from multiple definitions we gather from clues around us. We operate in that artificial reality with complete assurance, regardless of the fact that part of our conception may, in fact, be totally wrong. In our own way, we too frequently believe that Kermit is real. It is easiest to understand this problem of perception with historical examples. For many years many people believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun passed over the earth. Their elementary astronomical science had not yet discovered that the earth really does orbit the sun, a fact which now brooks no dispute. Nevertheless, prior to this discovery many people lived their entire lives thinking that the sun orbited the earth. Their lives were unaffected by a reality which was different from their perceived reality. Similarly, our popular knowledge contains the information that people "long ago" thought that the world was flat. From our modern perspective, they did not understand reality. Nevertheless, the world functioned perfectly well in its daily life, even with this erroneous perception. Although sailors may have stayed closer to the shore, to the vast majority of the world whether the earth was flat or round made no difference at all. In this world it really does not matter to us whether what we believe is or is not actually Real. While it is true that mankind cannot function without some definition of reality, it does not matter if that "reality" is composed of magic, myth, or science. Societies have existed quite nicely with a wide range or perceived realities. Regardless of the nature of the Really Real, all societies find ways to define a working reality. When a farmer plants, it is his fervent hope that his efforts will yield a crop. Some "realities" require that he appease the gods who govern crops, and so he performs a series of rituals to aid the important processes which govern growth. In the scientific world, the farmer has the same fervent hope, and merely applies a different set of rituals, under the guise of science, which will improve the yield of the crop. In either case, the vindication of their version of "reality" comes when the crop actually does come in. When the crops are harvested, it matters not which reality was used to produce them. The difference between the two "realities", it can be argued, lies in the ability of either paradigm of reality to make a difference in the yield. The scientific world knows that many of the results of magic are simply coincidence, while we comprehend the reasons why some of our scientific methods produce the desired results. As a paradigm for reality, our current science is a powerful tool, because it constantly more closely approximates the Really Real than any other explanatory tool. Nevertheless, the advances of science in the last 50 years teach us that even a reality constructed on science is only an approximation. Why should this matter? Why should we understand that what we know of the world is simply an approximation of what is really real? It is important in that when we construct our operating version of reality, we want the one which provides us the greatest benefits. We clearly accept what is known of scientific reality, precisely because it provides an effective base to provide the things we want or need. The danger, however, is that we will limit ourselves to only that reality described by current science. There is more to what is real than science has, or can, discover. Ultimate truth is contained in reality as seen from God's perspective. While this is nearly a tautology, it is a necessary distinction, because our ability to perceive reality does not enjoy that perspective. We may never completely understand the really real or God's reality on this side of the veil. What we know of that reality must come from our mortal perspective, aided by the revelations from God which give us glimpses into that eternal reality. We piece together our version of "reality" on the basis of our knowledge of the current position of our science, and the current revelation from God, as we understand it. Nevertheless, we must seek that eternal perspective. Just as the scientific paradigm is more effective than magic, so an understanding of the eternal reality can make us more effective. It may or may not make us more effective in raising potatoes, or sending a man to the moon, but it will make us more effective in a much more important goal; fulfilling the measure of our creation. Without a proper eternal understanding of who we really are, we are limited in what we may become. There are two basic tools with which we comprehend eternal reality. One is the direct revelation of God to man, and the second is our capability to discern reality on the basis of our talents and reason. The latter is the realm of the various sciences. Both tools are critical because neither is complete. God has never yet revealed to any man the entirety of this reality. Science has never completed its comprehension of reality. It remains to us to combine the two. It is also just as important not to dismiss the one for the other. Like two pieces which make up a pair of scissors, life works much better when we understand both.
			by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998