Chaplain's Corner

We want to believe many things but just because we believe something doesn’t make it true or factual. There is a strange reality in the realm of spirituality that suggests that if one believes something to be true, it is true. It is strange because in no other realm is this an acceptable axiom.

In mathematics for instance, one can believe that 2 + 2 = 5 until the cows come home and despite the sincerity of one’s belief, it is not true. In physics a person can believe that the law of gravity is a fiction, but that belief will not prevent him from falling to the ground if he slip off the roof.

So how is it that when we cross the line into the realm of the spiritual that anything and everything is true if one simply believes it to be true. Do you doubt that this is so? Well, when the assertion is made that “all spiritual paths lead to heaven” few will challenge it as false. Or when the assertion is made, “Well, we all worship the same God, we just call God by different names” most people just nod their heads and accept it as truth.

So what is so different about mathematics and spirituality that makes truth absolute in one area and relative in the other? This is a very important question and a serious one as well. The vast majority of human spiritualties teach that there is something beyond this life. The something is radically different depending on the faith tradition, but this belief in an “afterlife” although not universal is pervasive. However, there is a great variety of beliefs about what that “something” might be.

Some believe that the individual is absorbed into the universal state of freedom from the repetitive cycles of reincarnation, a state of “non-self” or emptiness. Whereas other faith traditions teach that the state after death is one of perfection in which individuals are free from all the troubles of earthly life and where sickness, sadness and death are eradicated and this state goes on eternally. And still other traditions teach that at death there is a parting of the ways between the wicked and righteous and that the wicked are condemned to an eternity of torment and the righteous are welcomed into an eternity of joy, peace and love in the presence of God.

Now which is it? Are they all true? How could that be?

Some traditions teach that one “works” for their eternal reward. Many regimens of duty are outlined depending on the tradition and it is taught that there can be no certainty about what’s after death until “God” weighs one’s life in a balance to determine if sufficient “good works” were done to tip the scales in his/her favor. Others believe in a concept called grace, whereby God offers freely forgiveness and entry into eternal bliss based on faith in a Savior.

Now which is it? Are both constructs true? How could they be?

I’m not writing this article to give you “my” answer to this spiritual conundrum (many of you may know from other articles I have written). But I write to challenge us to think about this idea that when it comes to spirituality “anything goes and everything is true as long as you sincerely believe it to be true”. If this is true, how then do we deal with the apparent differences between the worlds many religious traditions? Are we conclude that it is simply our inability to synthesize all the “pieces” each tradition that is the issue?

Where else in our extensive knowledge base as humans is such a concept embraced? Where else is truth left to the individual? Where else can individuals hold diametrically opposed and contradictory things to be true, yet we gladly nod our heads giving assent to the veracity of both? That’s the question.