What is Real? (Three Levels of Reality)

Everything is more complex than we generally think. What we experience daily is thought to be unquestionably “real.” Yet the deeper we look, the more we realize that reality is at least three-layered—shaped by our seeing, sustained by our shared meanings, and rooted in ultimate truth that, according to AI, “precedes us, holds us, and does not depend on our perception to be real.” 

Level one: From the time we get up in the morning until bedtime each night, we have no question that the family members we greet, what we eat for breakfast, the news we read in paper or online, the car we drive to work or to the store, the work we do by our hands or on the computer, etc., etc. are all real.

On this first level of reality, the question of what is real is seldom raised, as there is no need at all to doubt it. But there are other levels that many people do think about, although it seems that there are some who are content to live their lives only on this first level. For them it may be true, to a certain extent, that “ignorance is bliss.”

Level two: Things get more complicated when we enter the realm of thought and reflection rather than remaining in the world as experienced by our five senses. Further consideration indicates that much of what we consider real is actually socially constructed.

Peter L. Berger (1929~2017) was an Austrian‑born American sociologist and Protestant theologian, best known for his work in the sociology of knowledge and of religion. He ended his long teaching career as University Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston University from 1981 until his retirement in 2009.

Berger’s book, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), co-authored with Thomas Luckmann (1927~2016), is a classic in the sociology of knowledge. It asserts that what we humans experience as “reality” in everyday life is largely a human, social product rather than a fixed, purely objective given.**

In their book, Berger and Luckmann introduce the concept of “plausibility structures,” and Berger further develops that idea in his next book, The Sacred Canopy (1967). That concept was then popularized by the British theologian Lesslie Newbigin in his influential book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989).

In July 2018, I posted a blog article titled “There Really Are ‘Alternative Facts’," and I encourage you to read that important post (here). The point is that on this second level, “facts” are only what the society one belongs to agrees upon as being real or true. For example, for those who are die-hard MAGA supporters, whatever the POTUS says is considered true and trustworthy.

On the other hand, most of the rest of us are painfully aware that every day he says things that are false or misleading. We so often disagree with what he claims to be factually true. Our plausibility structure is based on the anti-Trump Democrats and Independents who think that much of what he says is neither true nor trustworthy.

So, what is “real” in this case? The answer depends almost entirely upon the “society” to which we belong. Thus, what we consider to be real in the realm of religion, philosophy, and politics is socially constructed, formed by our thought-community.

Level three: Finally, we are challenged to consider whether there is ultimate reality, and if so, what that might be. From the ancient past, there have been some/many who have explored the profoundly important metaphysical and religious question of what is ultimately real.

There are those, of course, who don’t acknowledge this third level. But I believe AI is right: ultimate reality “precedes us, holds us, and does not depend on our perception to be real.” Most of us need to spend more time and effort exploring, evaluating, and engaging with this level of reality. While it may or may not be “blissful,” that is where we find the real meaning of life.

_____

** In addition to this seminal book, Berger is also the author of two significant sociological/theological works: The Sacred Canopy (1967), a foundational text in the sociology of religion, exploring religion as a protective framework for understanding existence amid modernity, and A Rumor of Angels (1969), which examines signals of transcendence in modern society, challenging secularization theories. In addition, he is also the editor of a much later book of interest, Between Relativism and Fundamentalism (2010).

Having Hope, Feeling Hopeless, Being Hope Free

As you see from the title, this blog article is about hope, but please note that it is only about hope in the here and now. Hope for or in the “afterlife” is certainly of great importance, but this post is only about the hope we have, or don’t have, in this world at this time. 

Hope is a widely used word and an appealing concept. I have long been an ardent advocate of hope, in spite of not always being optimistic.*

Often, though, hope is just a word expressing what we desire: we “hope” it won’t rain on our picnic planned for the weekend or we “hope” our team wins the game we have tickets for. But such hope is nothing more than wishful thinking and has negligible impact on what we will do or not do.

In a more robust sense, hope means to work for and to wait for something with the confident expectation and anticipation that it will at some point, sooner or later, be fulfilled. In that sense, hope is grounded in a positive view of the future that we believe is conceivable.

Challenging circumstances sometimes siphon off hope, but then through determination one can cultivate new hope. In fact, “New Hope” is the name of two churches that are very meaningful to me.**

In numerous ways and at numerous times, having hope is a good and positive mindset, one to be affirmed and promoted.

When we no longer have hope, we feel hopeless, and that is usually an uncomfortable state of affairs.  

In his book Die Wise (2015), Stephen Jenkinson writes, “Hope is very often a refusal to know what is so, and steadfastly it is a refusal to live as if the present moment is good enough and all we really have. Hopeless is the collapse of that refusal, and it looks a lot like depression.”

So, feeling hopeless is often a negative state of mind and one we want to avoid as much as possible. But, realistically, sometimes it is necessary to give up hope and to deal with what is rather than what we would like to be otherwise.

For example, when a terminally ill person’s loved ones give up hope, they put that loved one on hospice, seeking to make them as comfortable as possible for the remainder of their days, no longer hoping that they will miraculously regain their health.

Some who see the current ecological crisis most clearly think the struggle to save the environment is hopeless. Thus, Guy McPherson avers, “The living planet is in the fourth and final stage of a terminal disease. . . . it is long past time we admitted hospice is the only reasonable way forward.”***.

There is a close relationship, then, between hopelessness and being hope free.

Why can being hope free be considered a good thing? Well, hope can be, and perhaps often is, a refusal to accept reality. In that way, it is ill-founded and detrimental. To be hopeful in spite of clearly having a terminal illness is not helpful.

In January of last year, I made a blog post about the “serenity prayer” attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. That prayer begins, “GOD, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can; and the Wisdom to know the difference.”

Perhaps some of us have mostly emphasized the second part: the prayer for courage to change things. But maybe the first part is more important: the prayer for the serenity to accept things that cannot be changed, thus, to be hope free.

That doesn’t mean being constantly depressed as when we feel hopeless. Rather, as is expressed in the longer version of the prayer, it means “Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.”

Accordingly, hope free advocate McPherson, who thinks “near term human extinction” is certain, writes, “I recommend living fully. I recommend living with intention. . . . I recommend the pursuit of excellence. I recommend the pursuit of love” (Only Love Remains, p. 175).

Amen.

_____

* Some of you may remember my Oct. 30, 2021, blog post titled “Hopeful, But Not Optimistic.” (Click here if you would like to read it again—or for the first time.)  

** You may want to (re)read this blog article I posted about those churches nearly ten years ago.

*** McPherson (b. 1960) is Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, where he was a tenured professor from 1989 to 2009. The words cited above are from his 2019 book Only Love Remains: Dancing at the Edge of Extinction (p. 199). He is also the author of "Becoming Hope-Free: Parallels Between Death of Individuals and Extinction of Homo Sapiens," Clinical Psychology Forum, No. 317, May 2019.

Science Always Wins

When it comes to knowledge of the physical world, science always wins. That doesn’t mean that science is always right. Sometimes it is wrong, but science is always open to new information and changes with increased knowledge of the physical world. 

Science has clearly won in many past disputes with widespread traditional Christian beliefs.

1) Science won in the dispute over the age of the earth. The date 4004 B.C. was at the top of the first page of the Bible I had when I was a boy. That was considered to be the date the world was created as depicted in the first two chapters of Genesis.

In spite of a few “young-earthers” still around, most modern people, including most Christians, readily acknowledge the age of the earth as being far, far older than 6,027 years. Science unquestionably won that dispute.

2) Science also won the dispute over the shape and centrality of the earth. Hardly anyone takes the claims of “flat-earthers” seriously; they are treated as a curiosity (as in this article on the LiveScience website).

And despite the persecution of Giordano Bruno (1548~1600) and Galileo (1564~1642), does anyone today (other than perhaps some flat-earthers) affirm the Ptolemaic view that Earth is the center of the universe? Science undeniably won again.

3) Science is winning the dispute over the biological evolution of humans. Partly because of the literal interpretation of the creation story/stories of Genesis, joined with the belief in a “young” earth, traditional Christians long opposed the theory of the biological evolution of homo sapiens.

According to the latest figures I could find, nearly all scientists (97%) say humans and other living things have evolved over time. That is far higher than the percentage of the general public who “believe” in evolution. But the latter will continue to shrink, and science will again be the obvious “winner.”

Science is also winning contemporary disputes as well. Consider just a couple of examples.

1) It will soon be two years since vaccinations for covid-19 began to be used by the general public, but there is a sizeable segment of the population that has spurned the vaccinations. In the U.S., about one-fifth of the population is still completely unvaccinated and fewer than 70% are “fully” vaccinated.

In spite of all the “scientific” tests and precautions taken, many have accepted non-scientific “myths” to discredit the “facts” (see this website, for example) and to refuse vaccination. But science has won this dispute also: there is ample evidence that vaccinations greatly reduced covid-19 deaths.

2) One of the most prevalent, and serious, ongoing disputes currently is regarding global warming. According to this NASA.gov website, “There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.” 97% of scientists believe this.

But, the general public’s views are quite different: according to Pew Research only 57% see global warming as a serious problem, and among Republicans that falls to 25% (compared to 83% of Democrats). However, eventually science will certainly win this debate also. Science always wins.**

When it comes to questions of Why? though, science doesn’t have the answer. As I said at the beginning, science wins in matters pertaining to knowledge of the physical world. But there is a “metaphysical” world as well.

The latter deals with reality “beyond” the physical world that can be known by the senses, which is all science can deal with. Science can only examine/explain the nature of what can be seen, measured, and explored by the senses.

“Metaphysics” deals with questions about why there is something rather than nothing, and with matters of meaning and value. This is the world of the three “transcendental” values of truth, beauty, and goodness. And there, science/scientists qua science/scientists have nothing to say.

These values can only be explored by philosophy and/or religion, not by science. So while it is true that science always wins in matters pertaining to the physical world, science isn’t even a player in the more important “game” of life, which is linked to reality beyond, as well as of, this physical world.

_____

** See this related 2017 article, “Climate change deniers, science always wins in the end,” on The Hill’s website. And for the few of you who want to think more, and more deeply, about this matter, I highly recommend the following article in the December 2022 issue of BioScience: “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022.”

TTT #17 Both/And is Generally Better and More Nearly True than Either/Or

As narrated in my 6/20 blog article, D. Elton Trueblood’s book Philosophy of Religion (1957) greatly impacted my life and thinking. Particularly, I was significantly influenced by the chapter titled “Faith and Reason” as I learned about the Danish philosopher/ theologian Søren Kierkegaard and his “Christian existentialism” and about the French mathematician/physicist/philosopher Blaise Pascal as well as about the idea of paradox as a serious philosophical concept.

Embracing Paradox

The use of paradox as a literary device is widely recognized as a legitimate, and often helpful, means of enlarging one’s perspective and consideration of complex issues. In the English speaking world, however, it was not until the 1950s that paradox became the subject of serious theological consideration.

Of course, the idea of paradox as a way to comprehend reality goes back far earlier than to the last century or to the centuries in which Kierkegaard and Pascal lived.

The concept of yin and yang, for example, is an ancient Chinese concept. Taken together, yin and yang describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent. So, according to that perspective, reality is not just unitary (one) but neither is it dual. It is, as is sometimes expressed in East Asia, “not-two.”   

Truth is often found in the combination or unity of opposites. That is the philosophical or theological idea behind the concept of paradox and the reason I assert that in most cases both/and is better than and more nearly true than either/or.

In the 1960s I became so interested in the concept of paradox that I ended up writing my doctoral dissertation on The Meaning of Paradox.

Paradox is, I believe, a key concept that helps us grasp the truth about reality. Accordingly, both/and thinking is almost always better than either/or thinking.

Affirming Coincidentia Oppositorum

Recently I came across a significant statement by Charles Simeon (1759-1836), who emphasized that “truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes.”

That idea can be traced back at least to Nicholas of Cusa in the fifteenth century. He wrote about coincidentia oppositorum (the “coincidence of the opposites”).” This means that in many cases Truth is not on one side or the other—or even in the middle between the opposites. The truth is in both extremes held simultaneously.

This seems to have been the position of Kierkegaard, who referred to Jesus Christ as the Absolute Paradox. By that he meant that Jesus is not only wholly God and wholly human but also wholly unexpected and wholly incomprehensible to normal rational thought.

The nature of Jesus Christ is just one of many Christian doctrines that have a paradoxical nature, at least the way that I and many others understand the matter.

Seeing the Limits of Both/And Thinking

While generally, or in most instances, both/and thinking is better than either/or, that is not always true. It is especially not true when it comes to ultimate commitments.

For example, Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24, NRSV). Here is a clear case of either/or being correct; both/and doesn’t work.

So, this section turns out to be an illustration of the point of the chapter. Rather than say we should always use both/and thinking or always use either/or thinking, it is far better to realize that both “both/and” and “either/or” thinking should be used at times and that neither can nor should be used exclusively.

[Click here to read the 17^th chapter in Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now, my unpublished book manuscript.]