I came across the following in an email this morning:
Reality is subjective, after all (a
lesson from my 11th grade English class) and people see things
differently.
Unfortunately, I see too much of this these days. And it seems that the Christian response is to bludgeon everyone in sight (and many who aren’t) with the objectivity of reality, never really addressing what the wrong thinking above actually is. Or, in other words, we try to cure the disease by addressing the symptoms.
As I see it, the problem with the above sentiment is that it is confusing reality and perception. Perception is subjective; reality isn’t. Were reality subjective, then we ourselves, a portion of reality would be creating that which we ourselves are. Can the creation create itself? Of course not. Thus, reality cannot be subjective. (Or, if it is, the subject is outside of reality.)
But I can agree wholeheartedly that our perception of reality is subjective. Look at the diversity of life. The objective reality is that we have diverse life on planet Earth. How we perceive that diversity is subjective. I, one who believes in creation ex nihilo by a supreme being, attribute it to a reflection of the aforementioned creator and thus see the glory of God manifest in His creation. An atheistic evolutionist, however, sees random chance totally devoid of any superior being. We’re perceiving the same reality, but perceiving it differently, because we are two different subjects. It’s easy to use short-hand and say that reality itself is different for us, but that’s not true: we’ve both begun with the same objective reality. The difference is in how we interpret that reality.
Any desire to engage the world and the church meaningfully is going to have to start with the realization that (a) reality is objective and (b) it must be perceived in order to be discussed so that (c) there are many subjective interpretations at play. The Creator may be objective; we aren’t. For us to pretend we are is to set ourselves up as God, which is not a good thing.