This is getting more and more surreal.

On the one hand relativism in both its theological and secular flavours is lambasted, in line with the usual mantra “anything else is simply making it up as you go along”

Now Mr Selleck condemns “...the narrow thinking of modernity in which the only truth is scientific truth. But a poem can be true, so can a painting or a novel or a piece of music.”

The challenge of this to most of us mortals is that it undermines our understanding of art, or truth, or both.

Is the suggestion that all poems contain truth? Obviously not. So which poems can be true? Good ones, surely, but aren't we now in the realm of personal choice, where subjectivity and relativism rule?

Also, does a poem that was much admired for its veracity in, say, a Victorian drawing room, retain its truth indefinitely? Is truth-in-poetry a forever thing, or is it somehow relative to time and place?

Like those magnificent Van Goghs. Ignored in their own time, now regarded as ouevres de genie. But... are they “true”? Perhaps they are simply popular. How to decide?

A novel can be true too, apparently. But which ones? Is it only possible to recognize the truth in a novel if you happen to be a devoutly faithful Christian – a theological rationalist, perhaps?

And music – ah, music! Truth in music. Is it a truth recognizable by us all, or only by a chosen few? What of those famous first night audiences who booed music that was later loved – Bizet's Carmen, Mahler's Fourth, Tchaikovsky's D Minor Violin concerto – were they unable to recognize the truth? Or maybe, again, the quality of a piece is not sufficient to render it “true”. Is Wagner's Ring more or less true than Palestrina's Kyrie? Or is this dangerous relativism?

I think I know what you were trying to say, Mr Selleck. I even agree with what I think you mean. But I do also think that it is contradictory of so much that you have written before.

"As such they are not open to proof as the sciences are."

Religion certainly is open to proof. Claims of being in touch with the Almighty itself are either right or wrong. The rest is just
philosophical navel gazing. If there is no proof, then thats all its worth to most of us.

Your last post highlighted exactly why we need a secular Govt, with freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. Your truth is your perceived truth. Your wonder about gospels etc, you might find interesting, lots of us find it all terribly boring and irrelevant.

The Jesus philosophy is simply that, a philosophy from some guy of a long time ago. You are free to worship it, others can reach our own philosophical conclusions about life and the world we live in, based on our ability to reason and feel.

Problems arise when politicians try to impose their religious philosophies on the rest of us. If Govt was loaded with people who happened to be JWs, who tried to ban blood transfusions, there would be an outcry. If Govt was coloured with people who shared the views of the Taliban and tried to impose those views on us, once again an outcry. Similarly if Catholics try to impose their dogma
on us, it is only fair that we shout very loudly about it, to protest about religious interference in our lives.

Religion should be a lifestyle choice and no more. If some want it to be more, then you'll need some evidence to justify your claims.

Yes, I agree somewhat with Sells when he writes;

'Your statement betrays the narrow thinking of modernity in which the only truth is scientific truth. But a poem can be true, so can a painting or a novel or a piece of music.'

Science does contain truth, but most, if not all of science is made up of facts. What's more, the vast majority of scientific facts are verifiable.

The same CANNOT be said of any religion. Religion illuminates truth but not through facts. Virtually none of the 'facts' contained in religious literature can be verified. To do this we would need other secular sources from non-biased witnesses. This we don't have in any great measure. This is especially true of the Bible, Koran and Hadith.

Also, it is not only religious historical data that cannot be verified. Supernatural claims are also beyong verification. There is simply no way of gathering meaningful facts about the nature of God, angels, miracles, so called prophetic visions, creation ex nihilo, Noahs flood, or even Daniel in the lions' den.

TR
Agreed. But does that mean that we have to do away with legends, gospels, histories etc? If we relied on undisputed fact we would have a very mean life. I believe I love my wife and I act as thought I love her but is it a fact? We do know that Jesus lived and as the creed says, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, a known figure in history. We have much less reliable information as to what he said and did. The gospels are not histories, they are the church’s proclamation. You cannot expect them to live up to some modernist idea of the facts of history.
BTW there is no such thing as an un-interpreted fact. All facts fit into stories, by themselves they make no sense.

Hi again Sells,

'But does that mean that we have to do away with legends, gospels, histories etc? If we relied on undisputed fact we would have a very mean life.'

I agree with the first sentence. The stories as related in the Bible are extremely important to our society. But we do well not to be overly literal or 'fundamentalist' about them.

I totally disagree with the second sentence. 'Fact minded' scientists get enormous joy delving into nature. Speaking from personal experience I get great meaning from uncovering the raw facts of the world around me. It all depends on your personality and how your brain is 'wired'. Some people have esoteric brains and some people are scientifically minded.

Sells

O dear we are touchy today aren't we? How U arrived at yr interpretation of my remarks is beyond me. Point of fact, I have an Honours degree in HISTORY (1971) & am not a scientist, tho I do read people like Hawking, Davies, Pagels and Greene.

A poem or great work of literature is not "true" in any objective sense. It can move one, cause one to contemplate any number of aspects of the human condition, and is certainly not to be chucked out with contempt. Likewise the study of history is important - Santayana vs the odious Henry Ford.

Certainly I have no objection (quite the contrary) to the study of religion & theology. They are very important aspects of human life and history and to ignore them is indeed narrow-minded. [Ironically, I won the "Christian Doctrine" prize in senior RC high school (longer ago than I care to admit) while on the way to agnosticism. I treated the material as just another subject, and did well.] But I would make this point: such studies require a degree of detachment. This doesn't mean U must be a non-believer to pursue them (absurd notion) but it does require a "suspension of belief" (like the literary notion of "suspended disbelief" needed to read eg, the Lewis or Tolkien fantasies).

You are deliberately conflating such studies with the wholly different studies pursued in eg, theological colleges which train ministers of religion, priests, etc. There belief is not only not suspended, it is required or at least assumed. The sort of stuff you peddled in the column under discussion is appropriate for such an institution, but it's intellectually bankrupt to market it to a wider audience under the guise of a "theological study".