The most real is that which is not seen or touched. The reality beyond my phenomenal world is filtered by my physical, sensory apprehension system and the cumulative syntheses of my experiential interactions. Even time and space are relative to me as an observer. (A photon can travel a million light years and yet from “its perspective” not a second has passed!) My propensity, then, is to ground myself in my subjective, ephemeral constructions of life. But what is Most Real? That which lies behind my reality. The One who does not “exist” as I exist, but is Tillich’s “Ground of Being” - if I understand him. Einstein said, “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”# These thoughts led me Hebrews 11:1, a much misunderstood verse.
I have heard cynics wrongly refer to this verse as the “blind faith” verse,
the “leap-of-faith” verse. A modern translation
of Hebrews 11:1 is:
“Now faith (πίστις, pistis) is confidence (ὑπόστασις, hypostasis) in what we hope for and assurance (ἔλεγχος. elengchos) about what we do not see.” (NIV).
The second and third key terms (in Greek) are being rendered above in a personal and subjective sense, which makes sense in the context of faith and hope; however, these words project something more foundational than a person's psychological state. The word hypostasis expresses “essence,” “real being,” and elengchos expresses “evidence of truth,” “the proving,” “verification.” So, a wordier rendering would be:
"Faith of what we look forward to is what's real; [faith] of things not see-able is verification."
When we understand that “faith” (pistis) is the commitment of entrusting oneself in relationship with God, then we see that this verse is stating that a faith commitment entangles one to what is Most Real. By such faith one is grounded on the Reality that has promised things to come and on the Reality that is not visible to the eye.
I cannot explain the reality of this faith relationship to someone who does not know it. I freely admit to agnostic friends that logically my theistic and Christian beliefs could be wrong – something which my Christian friends find close to blasphemy. However, just like our material brain’s processing of our sensory perceptions can never be proven as giving us the correct apprehension of reality, so too I must admit that logically my beliefs fall into the same category.
What I know, just like Hebrews 11:1 states, is that the commitment of myself to my Creator satisfies me with a peaceful assurance of the reality of my Creator in relationship with me.
For this I give thanks, Amen.
*A devotional
reading by John Baillie yesterday started me on this train of thought.
#Quoted at: https://religiousnaturalism.org/god-as-ground-of-being-paul-tillich/
You are rubbing the surface of a baseline paradox; maybe even pushing. The "most real' being unseen and intangible vs our reality of the sensory and tangible can certainly exist simultaneously. Good thoughts, thank you.
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