I prefer to stay with Christ

Not what things mean so much as why things mean – for the sake of beauty, for the sake of love. I do not believe – despite my modern skepticism – that real truth (the pure unadulterated kind) exists as something to be palpably grasped and fondled with. We know nothing for sure; we only perceive bits and pieces of a dependent and limited reality (our bible, with it’s seemingly numerous convoluted inconsistent texts, included). Our ignorance is far vaster than our knowledge. And yet we still think we are capable and in reach of this truth – truth which probably encapsulates the entirety of knowledge and comprehension. So what are we to do? Claim to know what things mean? Of course most wise people will not credit themselves with such a vast claim, so they will look to irrefutable revelation – from one who does know what things mean. And they, those humble servants, are simple emissaries… and eventual enforcers.

Maybe this is true, who knows? Who will ever truly know? So why do we focus so much on something that we will never know. Can’t we just look for truth elsewhere? Not in the what-is-truth, but in the why-is-truth? We are all looking for the same thing: peace, happiness, contentment, and above all – love. Has not the person with these attributes found something meaningful… and thereby truthful? Dostoevsky says, “If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” Why is truth necessary? But really.. What purpose does truth serve? Should it be hopeful and meaningful… and what if it isn’t? Would it still be necessary and purposeful? There would be no worth to truth if it wasn’t meaningful – so that truth can basically be measured by its meaning. Can truth be hopeless? And what if it is? Would we still pursue it?

God and everything that he means to us is far beyond the truth. I will take Christ and my God over truth any day. Why? because He is meaningful… and much more. He is everything and all a man can hope for, he is perfect all-encompassing love, flawless beauty, and the only thing that can bring abounding peace and sublimate our faulty tendencies. He stimulates our souls, he brings virtues to life, He gently takes us out of the center, thereby causing us to look at the world with new eyes, as a lover looking upon his beloved, but above all – he frees us. Can there be freedom in unbelief?  

He is all that is Good, and his meaning is unrivaled. So what if Freud says that Faith is not the end result of our thinking, but an illusion, a fulfillment of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wish of mankind of which the secret of its strength lies in the strength of that wish. We should simply smile at him, and say that in the image of God, through the most urgent wishes of God, we have been created.