There is an important difference between reason and reality.
Now, one may answer this by saying: "Yes. Reality trumps reason whenever there is a
conflict between the two."
But, I will answer this by saying, simply, that we do not, and we cannot know, fathom, perceive,
or experience reality. We cannot possess reality. Also, we do not, and we cannot asertain or
command reason. We are strangers to reason.
"You must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today, since, like that of yesterday,
it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow."
-- Luigi Pirandello
What is "natural reality"? Is there a natural reality that we can know, or possess with our
intellect? Can there be a reality if there is no reason? Does reason love reality? Does reason
yield to reality? Does reason obey reality? Does reality conquer reason? Does reason master
reality? Is what is real also what is truth, goodness, and beauty? Reality may be as subversive
as it is seductive. Truth, goodness, and beauty may be as unsettling as they are alluring.
The Roman poet, Publius Ovidius Naso wrote that reality is "what is before your eyes." Very well
said! Ovid also wrote that "what is now reason was formerly impulse." What, then, is reality?
Is it what we see? But, each one of us sees differently? What, then, is reason? Is reason a
kind of violence? Is reason a kind of hammer? Is reason progressive? Is reason an error?
There are those who will say that "facts rule". What facts? Whose facts? What are facts?
Facts are, in the words of Tryon Edwards, "God's arguments." If so, then who has such facts?
If you know the facts, then you must also know God's own reasonings.
What are theories? Theories serve. Some theories serve the powerful, by justifying their power.
There are theories that serve the people, by denouncing the powerful.
"Reason is but choosing."
-- John Milton
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