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Ways of Knowing

Insights from religious scholar Terrel Givens

"From the most rigorous calculations...there is overwhelming evidence that we cannot detect 95% of the physical universe. Dark matter and dark energy are neither perceptible nor observable by any scientific instrument or human faculty. Yet unless we posit their existence, the equations we use to make sense of what we can observe don't work. Similarly, although we can't detect spiritual realities directly, the life I experience doesn't make sense without acknowledging that another plane of existence is there, like dark matter and dark energy, threaded through the fibers of space and time." writes literary and religious scholar Terryl Givens. He argues that "[faith and spirituality] open our faculties-- intellectual, moral, and sensory-- to the richness of a boundless universe. There are multiple ways of knowing, and we need to honor them all."

He suggests that spiritual ways of knowing show up in our lives in ways we often don't notice-- including in the senses and intuitions that we trust as we make decisions and carve our paths. One of these ways is love. "The true meaning of the other as other...becomes visible only through love...In the most emphatic and urgent meaning of the word, love reveals truth."


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