Existential Truth and Factual Truth: What They Say About Religious Texts

Once you are in possession of a truth you can either tell the truth or hide it from the others. This is one kind of truth, factual truth, that makes lying possible. When a person lies to the other, he is hiding the facts from him. Factual truth therefore is a social one: there are witnesses, not just one, who can tell the truth or who can hide the truth, and therefore, lie about the situation. And there are people from whom the facts can be hidden.

On the other hand, Existential truth deals with the meaning of events whether or not these events actually occurred. Existential truth can be experienced by anyone for everyone, given a certain level of human experience, understands and have experienced some of the human conditions like compassion, hurt, suffering, love, relationships, wonder, meaning of life etc. That is why we are touched by events in our lives, news of human interest, books, and movies.

Existential truth does not require a group of witnesses other than one’s self. However, like factual truth, existential truth is a social. Existential truth can be shared with people who have undergone certain universal experiences that they can appreciate the meaning behind every human story. Unlike factual truth, Existential truth is deeply subjective. It is a revelation of a deeper meaning of life. It is not a fact like tables and chairs, or newly discovered papers or artifacts of a thousand years ago. Existential truth is the result of one’s special relationship with reality that is invisible (not in the manner by which objects are hidden) to those who are not prepared to ‘see’. It has not changed since the dawn of humankind. Existential truth, to be revealed, requires a certain level of experience. This is why children are not yet capable of  ‘seeing’ for they lack human experiences to grasp the deeper meaning of living.

What of historical truth? Although there is no one today who has lived long to see Abraham Lincoln (or Jesus Christ), there would still be some ‘facts’ that have been preserved. These facts don’t tell the whole story, for it is impossible to gather every fact of a life of a human being or earth. So, it is left to the historians to make sense out of the facts and come up with a reasonable theory or interpretation about the meaning of historical events. Facts like Abraham and the holocaust of WW2 are factual truths that can be told and be lied about. But history in general are really about plausible interpretation that tries to make sense of what little facts we know about the past.

Yet, a history that is worth writing about is a story that carries within its womb a deeper meaning for everyone to learn from about themselves and their stations in life. In that regard, there can be some existential truth to be gotten. Read or, even still, watch a movie on Abraham Lincoln, and you will find situations of making hard choices that everyone can relate to.

So, we go back to religious texts. Do they consist of factual events, hence speak of factual truths? It is hard to say because the events occurred a long time ago, and for hundreds of years many interpretations have been believed to be coming straight from the lips of God. Yet, what is more significant and the reason why religious texts are relevant is because it deals mainly with Existential Truth.

There is no reason to lie; unless literal-minded individuals takeover and treat the main texts as a collection of facts. And, impose their ‘interpretation’ on everyone else.

Love Is A Rational Act

So, if Love is not feeling (certainly it is accompanied by an intense feeling), what is it then? Let’s say that it is a rational decision. I may have an intense feeling for a person, but I may choose not to love him or her. On the other hand, I may choose to love him or her, yet I may not have the kind of feeling that is associated with romance. Dr. Martin Luther King, for example, has much love for Americans, regardless of their race or religion. But, he is not ‘romantically’ linked to anyone in particular except his wife. A husband may have extra-marital affairs, and may choose to love his wife.

I am not endorsing extra marital affairs. I only want to show that it is possible to distinguish love and an intense feeling that has often been confused with love. We still need to explore the distinction, more so, the nature of love.

Love may be accompanied with an intense feeling; but love may be absent when there is only an intense feeling. I may have a fling, a lust, an unexplainable sexual attraction, so intense that I want her only for myself. This intensity of sexual attraction is so strong, I am led to believe that I had no choice in this matter. Now, this intense feeling can be directed to more than one person. It is so easy to persuade yourself that you are in love, when in fact, you merely experience an intense feeling that the other, as an object, can satisfy. (And, what happens when you have satisfied yourself?)

Intense feeling is what it is. If both parties feel the same for each other, they form a relationship that excludes everyone else. As they get to know each other in a more intimate way, it is possible for love to form. There is a commitment, a devotion to one another. Let us call it a romantic love. In a relationship overwhelmed only by an intense feeling, there is no romantic love.

Is there love between a parent and child? Perhaps, not yet with a child, who only learns at a very stage to accept that a parent is the only living object that he has learned to rely on. There is no intense feeling that a child has for a parent. There is only a connection that, through time and being together, deepens and widens as the child witnesses how the parent places much attention and care upon him. This connection is not a cause, however, to loving a parent. It is a condition, and a very important one. For without it, the child would not be able to come to love his parent.

Between friends, it may not be appropriate to say that they are in love with each other. There is nonetheless love - not in the way sexual partners have for each other. Friendship may have begun with similar interests and harmless fondness for each other. Like an intense feeling, the beginnings of a friendship may benefit both self interests. But a true friendship that enters the realm of love transcends self interests.

Love, then, transcends self interest. It is not an intense feeling for it would only wish to satisfy the ego. Love, then, since it transcends self interest, is a decision to care for the other as an other (as a subject), even at the expense of the self (for the self ceases to seek the satisfaction of self interest).

What's Love Got To Do With It?

We know what it feels like when we like something. It could be ice cream, your favorite dish, an IPOD, a new smartphone, an idea. We want it because we don't have it yet. We want it because possessing would satisfy us.

Sometimes, we want more of it. We can't seem to get enough. At other times, we've had too much of it, and we just lose interest until such time we come to miss it, and we go through the same prociess of liking, wanting and possessing; and, dropping it.

We like something because of what it does to us. It is an object. It is a utility. It was given a value that has no value of its own. Or, maybe it has a value of its own; but no one has any interest in it if it is not of value to him or her. The external value takes over the internal value. And, it is liked, not for its sake, but for what it can be use to the individual. Money is liked because we use it to buy something that we sought for. Stop liking it, and the thing loses its value. It not only ceases to be of value, it also ceases to be of use. The value is in its use. This is what liking does to an object, be it a thing or a person.

The negative thing about liking then, is the belief that you can't live without it. This is what markets want you to believe with all your guts. There was a time we didn't have an IPOD. We weren't craving for it. But, market created a need that we could live without. But, with marketing, people were conditioned. As one girl said: I could not live without my blackberry.

The positive thing about liking, however, is that we need objects to possess or consume in order to live. We need food. We need clothing. We need people to learn how things work, how to behave, we need to know what to value.

Without them, we would be nothing. We would not be able to function properly.

Liking then serves one purpose: to satisfy the individual. It is natural and necessary.

But, things can go wrong when we start confusing liking with some other experiences. Especially, when we confuse love with liking by infusing the features of liking into love. When that happens, the situation becomes a moral issue.

It becomes a moral issue when we 'love' someone for that person fills a void, a lack in us. This is what liking does, but when love is confused with it, then we tend to use people. Liking becomes confused with loving because of the intensity that is felt or developed over time. No one likes to call it liking, this intense feeling that we have for the other because then we becomes aware that we are using him or her. We would want to give it another name. We call it love.

But that does not change anything; except giving liking another fancy, romantic name. It does not change anything because the other is treated as has having an external value and therefore of use when we need to satisfy our biological or psychological need.

At time, we gradually transcend liking and enter the realm of love. Many want to believe that it was indeed the case with their mate. Nonetheless, unless we take the time to differentiate loving from liking, we can never be sure. Or, we may have mistakenly believe that what we experience is love, when it was never the case.

So, what is love if it is not a liking? Is it a feeling? Or, is it borne out of a rational decision?