Solving the Puzzle?

A friend recently asked me if there was only one solution to the Truth puzzle; if there is only one Truth to be discovered. That got me thinking.

The question I have to being with is, can the puzzle actually be solved? If so, what would that look like? In order to explain my response to those questions I need to lay out the puzzle the way I see it.

The puzzle, in its entirety, is unknowable to our finite minds. To put a number of pieces on the box would be pointless. If I said the puzzle was sixty billion pieces that would be an understatement. This doesn’t necessarily speak to the size of the puzzle; more it speaks to the size of our human minds. To the infinite mind (God) size is of no concern; only to the human are we concerned with such things as beginnings, ends, and solution. So the puzzle to my small mind is as good as infinite.

So how does a finite mind “solve” the infinite puzzle? It can’t be done, from my perspective. So what’s the point? I believe that the purpose in life is not to solve the puzzle, but to assemble as many pieces as you need to assemble to find peace in life. For some, like me, that means a lifetime of assemblage. Does that mean my life will never have peace in it? No. What that means is that I am only at peace when I am assembling the Truth Puzzle. Does that make sense? Others will never have peace if they aren’t allowed to stop assembling the pieces; this speaks to the majority of religions in the world. Who needs to be assembling and who needs to sit at rest with their pieces of the puzzle is a personal question, and one only each individual can answer.

So is there one solution to the Truth Puzzle? For me, that doesn’t matter, it’s the journey not the reward of completion that makes the difference.

Now, is there only one Truth? That’s a bigger question, and it speaks to the battle between Absolute Truth and Relative Truth. This is an argument I have participated in and observed for a long time now. I am often seen as a relativist because I believe that the journey to God is unique to each individual; this comes from my hesitation to participate in organized religion. But I am not a relativist, and those who spend a conversation with me, will probably figure that out. Here’s the deal; the majority of what I believe is routed in Evangelical Christian Philosophy (I’m avoiding the word Theology here). That means that I believe in Absolute Truth. I believe that there is only one Truth in all of existence. That’s where organized religion and I part ways. You see, I do not believe that Absolute Truth can be understood by humanity. This is based in my previous statements about the finite mind attempting to grasp that which is infinite. I believe that there are True things in the world, and it is our job to find them; this is the purpose of the Truth Puzzle. There are false things in the world, and these things are to be avoided. What are the false things? That’s not for me to say; if it is for anyone to say.

Organized religion becomes so preoccupied with defining the Absolutes that they miss the majority of the puzzle. The other pitfall is making lists of rules that must be followed to attain a satisfactory afterlife. Though there are signs of this trend shifting in the Church, their history has been more focused on the next life (heaven) than on this life. The Truth Puzzle is all about this life. Buddhism and Mysticism speak to the idea of leaning to “see” the world. That is the Truth Puzzle. That is what I want to ponder in this blog and in my life. Not to see things as I think they should be; and not even to see things as they really are; but rather to see the Truth in the world, and the absence of Truth.

In Christianity there is more importance placed on what you believe than how you act out your beliefs; this is a flaw in that system. There’s an argument in the institution about faith versus works as the means to salvation; but that misses the mark again. Let’s put salvation up on the shelf for minute. (shocking to Christians, I know!) Let’s talk about what a faith is that has no actions. It’s just some intangible belief; it has no impact on the world. My understanding of the Gospels is that impact is very important. The teachings of Christ were not “here’s how to go to heaven when you die”; rather “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”so SEE IT! The Church seems more about the former than the latter, and that is frustrating for people like me. The Church may have some pieces of the Truth Puzzle (in the teachings of Christ, ten commandments, etc) but for some reason they decide to see the puzzle as complete (or as complete as we finite minds can perceive) and that is a mistake. The search for Truth continues, whether the organized religions of the world like it or not.

So is there only One Truth? To me, that’s not the question. It will only lead you to more limited thinking and a “my side is right” mentality. To grasp that which is infinite we must train our minds to look in such a way at the world. And the first step in the wrong direction is to try to label anything “Absolute”.

Putting Together the Pieces

I've started this blog as a way of focusing some of my search for Truth that began with Zip-Line Theology and Spirtual Spelunking (http://www.zip-linetheology.blogspot.com/). I want to explore the different ways that we experience the Truth in our lives. I want to talk about how ideas expressed in religion find new life once they have moved outside of the "walls" of their religion. Trying to explain this in the past has been challenging, but I want to try again. So I will use an analogy.

The Truth of God, if "God" is a word that isn't to limiting for you, is like a puzzle, but it's all broken up and the pieces are scattered. The purpose of faith, and maybe even of life, is to gather these pieces and try to make something of the picture. At least that's what I think it is. Regarding this puzzle, religion often makes two mistakes. One, they take a couple of pieces of the Truth and claim that they are the entire Truth (or at least all the Truth that humans can ever attain) and they build their theologies around these Truths. This attitude lead directly to the second mistake, and that is believing that different religions can not hold different pieces of the Truth. This isolates the religious practicioners from one another and limits their abilities to really "see" God.

I thought about writing a play called "The Truth Puzzle" a long time ago. In it several characters would be working on a giant puzzle; each character representing a different faith. The interesting thing was that these characters would discover throughout the course of the play that their pieces fit together. In fact, without fitting their "opposing pieces" together, they could never get a good look at the picture. The play has long since been abandoned, so this blog will stand in it's place.

Here's the trick though, about the Truth Puzzle. You'll never finish the puzzle; you'll probably never get much of a picture together in fact. But finishing the puzzle and seeing the Truth in its entirity was never the point. The point is in the process. The work involved in searching for the pieces and figuring out how they fit, and the faith involved in believing that such an effort is not worthless.

I believe that it is not worthless, and in this blog I hope to throw some of my pieces on the table and let people do what they want with them. And I hope to continue to find new pieces or at least of few lights that lead the way to undisovered Truths.