Blogging about a quote in the computer lab

"The pursuit of truth shall set you free even if you never catch up with it." Clarence Darrow - yes, THE Clarence Darrow from the Scopes trial.

This quote is on the wall in the CAHS computer lab in the Education Building. I have been looking at it for almost 2 semesters (woo hoo!!) and it has always intriuged me. Anyway, I thought about how Darrow pursued the truth about whether teaching evolution or Creation (or ID) was valid in the schools. Though the trial was more of a proto - trial, it did have people asking for the truth.

Now, 50 years later with Behe writing Darwin's Black Box and the ID movement turning heads and coming into mainstream press, once more, people are seeking truth again. The truth about where we came from will set us free because we will know for certain whether there is a God and the answers to all the questions that issue raises. Look no further, folks!! ROMANS 1:20!!! :) :) Anyway, it's interesting that Darrow understood that about the pursuit of truth even though I think that he lived his life as an agnostic.

But I thought of the second part of the quote "... even if you never catch up with it [truth]" We come into the College of Applied Human Sciences and want truth and knowledge. Well, most everyone knows that the human life cycle is divided up into stages, but depending on which developmental theorist you ask, you'll get four or seven. And there are other things: People were made (or have evolved / adapted) to need relationship. Hence there is Bowlby's theory of attachment. There are many other theories, which keep in mind, a theory in the scientific sense is a framework for interpreting data and forming hypothesis and not mere musings, that are out there.

But everything is relative. Spirituality is relative if it is only defined as 'meaning making' of life. One person's spirituality may be O - Chem. Another person's may be Buddhism. Another person's may be pantheism / goddessism / agnosticism. Another person's may be the Methodist creed... Same with relationships. A man in holy matrimony with a woman is the same as a man and a woman who merely live together which is the same as a woman and a woman living as if they were in holy matrimony...

We never catch up with the truth in my department becauase we do not believe it exists. Sure, there are observable truths such as developmental stages or attachment theory or Gottman's research on marriage, but what about Truth? No. Because your truth is not my truth is not the prof down the hall's truth.

God, I pray that those who run after the truth in HDFS and in the College of Applied Human Sciences find Your truth because You promised that if we seek You, we will find You. And You know the plans for us, plans for good, plans that entail us - all of us to eventually praise Your name as Lord, Savior, Creator, Truth and Life Giver. amern.