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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Rethinking Reality

Last month, I wrote a post titled Subjective/Objective Reality. In it, I made the point that subjectivity is equally an important part of reality as objectivity is. My position in that post was that moral and spiritual laws are subjective because they can not be seen with the eye, touched with the hand, or examined under a microscope. Yet, as I maintained, moral and spiritual laws are real since they proceed from the mind of God who is absolute.

I now, however, take pause to reconsider, whether or not right and wrong are indeed subjective after all. The reason for this second thought is that, as I have said before and say again, God is love. The reason that we as human beings even have a concept of love; the reason that it is an essential part of the human being, is that we are created by and in the image of God who is love. Love is not just an idea. Love is not even confined to being an action. Love is Persons. God is love (Genesis 1:26-27, 1 John 4:8).

Now God is Spirit (John 4:24). But I'm not entirely certain that that means He is non-objective as a Being or Entity. Perhaps we may conclude that a spirit, and also the Spirit, is another kind of objectivity though transcendent over and apart from the natural universe. We are spirits who have bodies, and we are persons. And God is Spirit, and Personal. And God is love. And love is the fulfillment of the Law of God (Romans 13:8-10). 

I conclude then that God, from eternity past and forever, is a kind of love in three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is, that the subjective idea of love actually comes from the objective Persons of God who is love. And we being made in His image are in the image of love, though because of sin, the image of God in us is distorted. That is, God who is love has made us to have the subjective concept of love, which comes from Him and leads to Him. As an old Christmas carol says "Let loving hearts enthrone Him". If we do not love Him, then we do not love, even if we claim to.

And furthermore, Jesus, being the Son of God, also became a flesh and blood human to die for our sins which alienate us from God. So being God incarnate, He is perfect love, from eternity past with the Father, incarnate also as a flesh and blood human. And so it might be said that in God, and also in humanity (since we are created in the image of God) that which would otherwise be subjective, is found instead to be objective.

However, until one comes to be reconciled with God through Christ, one can not personally know God who is love. And as stated above, God is Spirit. And whoever would worship Him must do so in spirit. As the apostle Paul, through the Holy Spirit, pointed out; the carnal, or natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit. The natural man can not receive the things of the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned (2 Corinthians 5:18-21, 1 Corinthians 2:14).

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