By hanging on to things, we lose them. Whereas by offering ourselves into the world, we find infinite richness.
-- James Low
Among many others, one of the basic problems with fundamentalism (particularly of the religious kind, but the concept itself is a larger one) is that it requires a certain amount of selective blindness to, of all things, truth.
Fundamentalism proports itself to near exclusivity about truth, and yet by definition, only maintains a portion of it (the fundamentals). Terminology most often used to describe it identifies the (most) important elements involved in truth that need to be held on to. And, while that is not necessarily untrue, it clearly disregards what I believe to be another “fundamental" dynamic of truth — that it is ever-growing (at the very least, our understanding of it). I would suggest that truth is even more dynamic than it is static. And, while that nearly sends shivers down the spine of fundamentalists, it points to truth as something infinite (as opposed to a finite list). The inhibiting nature of fundamentalist ideology seems to be predicated on the premise that truth is finite and, therefore by implication, must be held onto tightly. But if truth is, in fact, limited (to only certain basic things, not to mention the complications of who decides which ones those are), there are all kinds of ramifications many of which end up tossing you on a dumpster fire of co-mingled truth and (human) power issues.
Many would not disagree that God is infinite; in part, it seems to me, because the opposite would be too problematic. Many of the same people would also say that ultimate truth is defined by God. If so, on those premises, truth cannot be finite. And if truth is, in fact, infinite then the whole direction and energy behind one’s relationship with it is fundamentally different. Why is it that Jesus said the truth will set you free? What, then, is freedom if not expansive in its richness? Is the mode (and the mood) of his observation consistent with finitude?
There are some merits to the notions we hear often these days that sound like getting back to the basics is needed. But, I suspect that has more to do with the means, than it does it the ends. God is ever-pulling God's creation forward into the ideals of everything that God created. It's hard to imagine that God is hand-wringing about whether or not sin (or whatever is evil) will effectively suppress the truth in the end. It seems to me that it is man that is concerned with that possibility and, often, thru the use of reduced realities about truth. And, even in recognizing that, thru the incarnation, God essentially said something like, "Let me get closer to my creation, so that I can make even more manifest, what is true". This may be the nearly some total of the great prayers of Jesus — for the revelation of God to creation that everything that God created is still at its core good. And, God himself seems to want to leave us with the impression that that goodness as limitless ('storehouses' of it that are waiting to be revealed!). God is infinite. God is Good. Goodness is infinite. And, it is our discovery of this infiniteness that perpetuates the very revelation of it. Such is the very nature of truth!
So, beware of...finish here.
