The failure of reason

Something strange is happening in the world. Did I ever tell you that? I’ve had things happening in my life that I absolutely cannot explain. And at the same time, they do leave room for a little bit of doubt. Just enough so that I cannot be certain whether this is really happening or if I’m just going crazy. 

I’ve figured as much as that I cannot hope to understand this with my intellect. I’m neither a dumb nor a smart person. I’m somewhere in between. But I seem to be able to understand a few things. I also seem to understand more the less I allow my ego to meddle with the process. 

But this… I’m starting to see time after time, that where I thought I had everything figured out I didn’t. Not at all. I think that a good example would be what could, in Christian terms, be called “sexual immorality”. On the surface, it seems pretty straight forward. Sex is free as long as you find a willing partner and as long as no one gets an STD or it leads to an unwanted pregnancy we’re all good. This was my view for a long time. But now I’m starting to see that a life with many sexual partners, for me at least, became part of a destructive lifestyle. And having copulation as a goal in my interactions with people in some sense caused me to objectify them. And this objectification did not just damage my relationship with potential sex partners. It damaged my connection with other people in general. 

The point is that none of this was visible to me while I was engaged in the behavior. And the point of this, is that I at least have a very limited perspective. I’m not able to see my life, my choices and my relationship with myself, the world and other people from the all-encompassing perspective that God does. It’s easy to be prideful and arrogant and think that we can know more than we can. Especially if we believe that we are smart.

But the truth is, at least for me, that the more I try to figure things out on my own, the more confusion and misery I create. I’m able to convince myself of two completely different views on a subject, sometimes in the matter of minutes.

So, do I believe that I have any use for my reason? Yes. But I believe that the best use I can put it to, is to, as openly as possible try to understand what can be said of my human condition. How do I function and what is my place in the world? Knowing that God exists, is personal and has a will, what can I learn and understand about these facts? How can I best grow into the person that I believe that God wants me to be?