The Nature of Reality 

Hanging on a wall in our home, where it can be frequently seen, is a truly stunning photograph taken by The Hubble Space Telescope on April 1, 1995. The image is of the Eagle Nebula, a vast cloud of gas and dust where the matter from burnt-out stars is reorganized into new stars. The Nebula lays some 7,000 light-years distant in the direction of the constellation Serpens. Its three “pillars” are immense- light-years in length, emerging from their “evaporating” tips are gigantic globules of densely packed dust and gas. Relative to the size of the nebula these “embryonic stars” are diminutive, and yet, in reality, they are as wide as our own solar system. The processes involved in condensing this material into a new sun require about one hundred million years to complete.

Everything about the Eagle Nebula; the creation occurring within it, its size, distance from the earth, and the incomprehensible amounts of time involved as it gives birth to stars, all speak of a reality on a scale and of a type none among us can really grasp. It is precisely for this reason I keep its photograph on my office wall. It reminds me that the universe is unimaginably vast, old, and in some ways mysterious. There are forces at work within it that we can’t begin to understand, acting on immeasurable amounts of material and energy that we can’t begin to see (dark matter and dark energy, maybe more about them later), while obeying laws (quantum physics) that seem to conflict with everyday logic, and yet coexist with other laws (Newtonian Physics), upon which our intuitive understanding of the physical world are based. The Eagle Nebula reminds me that there are breathtaking realities that exceed my understanding, imagination, and vision; nevertheless…they are there. The limitations of our unaided senses and reasoning do not form the boundaries of our existence, physical or spiritual.  In our day secularism reigns supreme in the media and academia.  Many in western culture now belittle the believers, pronouncing the worship of God to be at best a quaint anachronism and at worst a societal danger.   If a thing cannot be observed or measured, using whatever tools science possesses at any given point, then it does not exist; never mind, that growth, change, and revision are innate components of the scientific method itself.  In short, we don’t know what we don’t know.  It is a myopic and foolish creature that contends there is no unknown frontier beyond the horizon.

The question, “what is real” has been asked for millennia by scientists, philosophers, religionists’, and poets. Even the common man (absent of course, as he is of wisdom, intellect, and letters) can’t help wonder. There are those who, after years of exhaustive research, have reached the indisputable conclusion that everything is material (there is rich irony in this statement for Joseph Smith, too, said everything is material, but in a radically different context). There is no mind, only brain. Love, though real enough in its effects, is reducible to the body’s reaction to adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, and serotonin. Compassion and conscience are merely evolved traits necessary for the survival of our species. Others among us believe that our perceptions of life, and the world around us are all illusions. Nothing is real.

Despite what mystic or materialist may assert, there is more to our reality than can be seen and fully understood through our current faculties. There is a tangible truth that though unseen is not metaphysical. Science itself describes the possibility of a reality far stranger than most of us can imagine. Our basic perception of the universe itself may be woefully incomplete.

“If superstring theory is proven correct, we will be forced to accept that the reality we have known is but a delicate chiffon draped over a thick and richly textured cosmic fabric. Camus’ declaration notwithstanding, determining the number of space dimensions- and, in particular, find that there aren’t just three- would provide far more than a scientifically interesting but ultimately inconsequential detail. The discovery of extra dimensions would show that the entirety of human experience had left us completely unaware of a basic and essential aspect of the universe. It would forcefully argue that even those features of the cosmos that we have thought to be readily accessible to human senses need not be.” Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos, p. 19

When the proposition of God and all that goes with it seem more like mythology than actuality, I remind myself, of how much I don’t know and don’t see. The existence of the Eagle Nebula, this unimaginably immense and powerful star nursery is a scientific fact, punctuating the blackness of space. Its radiance, having traveled across 7,000 light-years before reaching our night sky is an actuality, whether we acknowledge it or not.* Though I may have difficulty in grasping the tangible existence of the Creator and Ruler of a nearly14 billion-year-old universe; nevertheless…He is there.

* Because of the 7,000 light-years that separate us from the nebula, the “Pillars of Creation” may already be gone. In 2007, scientists using the Spitzer Space Telescope discovered evidence that indicates that the “Pillars” were destroyed by a nearby supernova explosion about 6,000 years ago, but the light showing the new shape of the nebula will not reach the Earth for another millennium.

In his book, Temple and Cosmos, scholar Hugh Nibley relates the story of Clement of Rome, (who was in all likelihood the “first of the apostolic fathers.”)  From his childhood, Clement was held bound “with chains of care and anxiety” by the existential questions that have troubled so many.  These questions have been summarized as “the Terrible Questions”; Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?  (Dr. Nibley’s answers to Clement’s inquiries are fascinating, but I won’t attempt to delve into them here).

Perhaps Nibely and Clement might forgive me if I added to the conversation, questions of doubt, reason, and faith. In the interest of full disclosure: I am not a writer, a scholar, or an academic. I am not educated, well read, or intelligent. I have never held or expect to hold any position of prominence in my church, field of employment, or community. In short, I have only one qualification to address this expanded list of the “Terrible Questions.”  My single qualification? I have been a doubter, I have sought reason, and I have found faith. I leave it to the reader to determine if there is any measure of truth in what follows, obscured though it would surely be for want of a more skillful advocate. My objective is not necessarily to put forward original thought. Rather, I hope to gather some of the ideas that have helped me negotiate the less than smooth waters of my ongoing conversion. I do so with the full realization that my readers will be few. Perhaps, in some future day, these words will serve to bolster my own faith in a time of trial. Possibly, in some future day a great-grandchild, struggling with similar questions, might stumble across these reflections and find a degree of comfort or direction. That would be my greatest hope, that is why I write.

In the “Consolitor,” a painting by Carl Bloch, the risen Christ is touchingly surrounded by a small group of yearning followers. Among those seeking consolation are believers who gaze upon Him with reverence and adoration, cling to Him, rest on Him. To Christ’s side- a man in chains, imprisoned by his own impetuous choices, looks desperately to the Savior for release and relief. And there, in the background, the partially obscured face of the skeptic, the doubter, as he seems to contemplate the meaning of the scene and the Man then before his eyes.

Many of us have played each of these roles at different times in our lives. There may be those who, for whatever reason, have a propensity to believe, while others of us struggle with a nature as unrelenting as gravity, constantly pulling us toward questioning and even doubt. Is there a God, if so what is He? Where was He when the unspeakable brutalities of endless war slaughtered the innocent as well as the evil? Was He blind to the suffering of countless children whose sojourn on this earth was so blighted and brief? What of the young father or mother who has been torn from mortality by disease or accident, seemingly without mercy, from a beloved spouse, and children?

And the questions continue: if there is a God, why do many of the most intelligent among us speak so assuredly (with an ever growing contempt of those who dare believe) of the utter meaninglessness of a universe devoid of design or a Creator? Is life itself a miracle or merely the unfathomably fortunate collision of precisely the right materials at precisely the right time?

And still the questions continue, if in a more focused form. Was Joseph Smith a prophet, a charlatan, or a madman? Are the writings he left behind, principal among them the Book of Mormon, linchpins in a glorious restoration of eternal truth, or do they represent Joseph’s own amalgamation of early nineteenth-century religious creativity, deception, and folklore?

Of course, there will never be an end to the questions, and they will vary from one person and circumstance to another. Mortality must not be a condition in which we have complete, satisfactory, answers to every spiritual query or intellectual dilemma. Such is the necessary nature of our existence, were it otherwise, Agency and real choice would cease and the Plan of our Father would be frustrated. As Fiona and Terryl Givens have written:

So must reason work with will to fashion understanding.  The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true.  There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief, in order to render the choice more truly a choice,    and therefore the more deliberate, and laden with personal vulnerability and investment.  An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.  The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension.

Resolving all spiritual uncertainty is impossible and to attempt such an undertaking would be foolhardy. Are there genuinely perplexing issues raised by sincere seekers of truth? Certainly- and while ultimately deep and abiding faith is a divine gift, provided through those means He has prescribed, reason need not be abandoned for such faith to take root. It is my opinion that reason is a necessary component of a well-grounded testimony, if that testimony is to endure the inevitable “slings and arrows” of an increasingly secular society. The scales of rationality are not heavily unbalanced, favoring disbelief and agnosticism, as some contend. If we are willing to invest the required time and effort, we will discover that in most circumstances when a weight has been placed on the side of disbelief, another has been placed on the side of belief. While there are questions, there are also answers. When an answer is not immediately forthcoming we can learn to “be still and know that I am God,” trusting that in a future day, our knowledge will be made full. There is a reason to believe, reason that supports faith and buttresses testimony, reason that gives hope, that can open the door leading to the greater and more sure foundation provided through the Holy Ghost. Like Paul, we may at last reach the ironic conclusion that is both comforting and disquieting- we are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Even so, we have not been abandoned here, and though a veil provides the temporary separation required for agency’s efficacy, it does not prevent our hearing the divine call beckoning us home.