Anthropocentric Reasoning

We usually reason from our own sense of self-importance. That statement might get you hopping. That is often true socially and relationally. We tend to see the world as it affects us, more than as it affects other people. We have a filter. That filter governs our outlook over what immediately affects our lives. Do we see a workplace challenge, for example, objectively, or predominantly in terms of what is likely to happen to us?

There's also a corporate potential for blinkered thinking with mankind in general. Man has a certain filtered outlook. This is what I'm calling 'anthropocentric reasoning'. Our reasoning is an attempt to model reality so we can act positively toward our environment. (Often with 'me' at the centre when we define 'positively', see first paragraph!) Science is an attempt to model reality, to anticipate outcomes, to affect them where possible. 

What is 'reality?' We really don't know, even for the 'world' we do see and perceive, measure and investigate. As Stephen Hawking said: 'there is no model-independent view of reality to be had'. What he is saying is that there is no relationship with whatever reality really is for mankind unless you somehow picture it, imagine it, find a way to mentally conceive of it. With physics, the best conceptions are mathematical ones. This is the story of science, to find that model for whatever you are considering. In the case of physicists, they are trying to model everything, and they're looking for a theory of everything. They don't have it. They have two chunks of pretty good understanding which unfortunately don't meet in the middle. They're called the Standard Model and General Relativity. In certain scenarios the agreement between the two we would expect is not there. We are missing something major in our conceptualisation of the ultimate physical reality of this particular created order, or realm. 

Beyond the fact that our attempts to model the universal fabric of our existence have stalled, there's something else to say, hard to deny. We ourselves, as humanity, are filters on how we are able to perceive reality. We are only so smart, and only so capable, in terms of perception. We are bounded by five senses, plus instrumentation geared to feeds only those senses. We could very well be constrained within a lesser existence, lesser when compared to All Things. I believe we are. We are not normally able to perceive the full nature of all realities. God is. He decided we wouldn't be able to, for His reasons. 

The proud soul will not admit this, but it is obviously true. A greater being can constrain the existence of a lesser. The greater spirit can constrain the perception, the perspective of existence of the lesser.

Listening to really smart guys, by human standards, like Roger Penrose and Sean Carroll, it seems glaringly obvious to me that they are not even close to having a handle even on this present reality. They use terms defined within our current existence, such as 'beginning', to attempt to extrapolate how the universe got here. They talk about the possibility that time is not fundamental, but a subjective outcome from other things. Are the 'other things' final reality? We don't know. How would we know? That deferral will never end. Perhaps that' a good thing for physics funding and careers! In the end, we live in a framed existence, bounded by God. And our ability to comprehend it physically is also bounded. By God.   

The writer to the Hebrews understood this. He understood by Divine revelation, not human reasoning.

But Christ came as a High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)

(Hebrews 9:11)

Concerning realities yet to be revealed Paul says:

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

(1 Corinthians 2:9)