Stewards of Reality

Posted Tuesday, December 12, 2006 by Brian Beers

“Spiritual truth”
“Spiritual realities”
“In God's eyes”
These phrases reveal a distinction made between reality and “spiritual reality.” They are a pre-emptive capitulation to a materialistic view of the world. The adjective “spiritual” modifies the noun “reality” as though we aren't speaking about actual reality. Isn't it a sign of mental illness to isolate a part of reality and treat that as everything that exists? In truth, there would be no reality at all if the part of reality recognized by materialism were everything.

Christian apologists try to speak the truth into the language of the partial-realists to bring some to a knowledge of the truth, but we have also adopted this language of partial reality as our own. Christians are not suffering from a collective delusion that doesn't fit well with reality. We are actually the stewards of reality. We need to think this way, talk this way and act this way.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:53 AM

Sam wrote: I agree that terms like "spiritual truth" may undermine truth. I think such terminology is used, not to assert different kinds of reality, but to assert unseen and thus, unbelieved truth. Eg: It is a spiritual truth that good is always rewarded by God and evil is always punished. This is not visible to us...and so we don't believe it. I think pastors and others often use spiritual in this way...though it is probably not preferable. I typically say, "The truth is x, even though it may not look that way," or something similar.

Sunday, December 17, 2006 9:37 AM

Charlie wrote: Another consideration is that, at least biblically speaking, spiritually is used to mean "given by the Spirit" rather than "amorphous." Hence, in 1 Corinthians 2 "spiritual words" means words given by the Spirit, not a special kind of word.

Monday, December 18, 2006 12:21 PM

Sam wrote:

You are, of course, correct...but do you think pastors ever use the word "spiritual" in that way? I'm not sure that I ever do, or that I've ever heard it from other pastors...

Monday, December 18, 2006 2:50 PM

Brian wrote:

And wouldn't that be "Spiritual words" with a capital "S?"

But even with the capital "S," the distinction is problematic. God doesn't have a different, private, Deity-only reality.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006 4:31 PM

Charlie wrote: This is another good example of why Hebrew is better than English: one does not need to worry about caps. Brian, you are entirely correct. But I just wanted to throw in the reminder that the way we use the word is different from the vast majority of its uses in the Bible. I think that this is a major part of the problem and reflects a western world view that Christians have picked up too much.