We see through a glass darkly; Precision amidst Imprecision?

[Anonymous]

I have been really enjoying myself teaching orienteering to beginners as part of an orienteering club I joined a year ago.

For those of you who don’t know about orienteering, it involves using a map and a compass to find control flags sort of hidden in the wilderness.

One thing that dawned on me, and that I teach to beginners, is that orienteering is the process of achieving precision amidst rampant imprecision. I show them techniques that involve intentionally missing a control target or land feature so you know which side of you, it is on. If you head straight for it, you’ll end up on the left or right of it due to innacurate compass bearings, inaccurate pace countings, and map inaacuracies. And then, you won’t know which way to look or walk to find it. Aiming off, and intentionally missing the control allows you to achieve precision amidst the imprecision of your walk toward the feature.

I was wondering how this applies to “seeing through a glass darkly”? Is it possible to lead a good life, with accurate perceptions and judgments in spite of the fact that we “see through a glass darkly”, or, in other words, “see the world with imprecision”? What techniques do you use? How do you achieve perception of what is right and true admidst all the imperfect personal perception?

[Anonymous]

For me this means perceiving what is good and true from many different sources and then filtering or percolating it out.

For me this means accepting that all sources have humanity and imperfection baked in and that if I err, I am more likely to err by putting too much faith in one source rather than trying to observe good and truth from every source.

IOW, I am more afraid of the damage that can be done by people that are convinced 100% that they know the truth rather than those that maintain a degree of humility on the subject.

The LDS church is convinced of it’s own truth to a degree that I find uncomfortable. However, we have mellowed significantly over time and I think that we are still mellowing. I also feel that the JW’s are slightly more extreme on this subject than we are (thinking specifically of refusing blood transfusions as a matter of faith but there are other examples).

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

One thing that dawned on me, and that I teach to beginners, is that orienteering is the process of achieving precision amidst rampant imprecision. I show them techniques that involve intentionally missing a control target or land feature so you know which side of you, it is on. If you head straight for it, you’ll end up on the left or right of it due to innacurate compass bearings, inaccurate pace countings, and map inaacuracies. And then, you won’t know which way to look or walk to find it. Aiming off, and intentionally missing the control allows you to achieve precision amidst the imprecision of your walk toward the feature.

Interesting concept. Thanks for sharing it. There’s a lot that can be extracted from that example but one thing is acknowledgement of imperfection and incorporating that into the plan to still achieve the desired results.

SilentDawning wrote:

How do you achieve perception of what is right and true admidst all the imperfect personal perception?

I don’t spend much time worrying about discovering the one truth or the one right path. That’s one thing my faith crisis taught me… I was extremely certain of the truth in the past and I later discovered I was wrong about what I believed were truths. If I apply that lesson to the present day, whatever it is that I believe is certain truth today won’t always hold as certain truth at some point in the future, so don’t get too attached to it.

When I pre-invalidate certainty I question the value of chasing certainty. Or maybe it’s a condition of truth and certainty being limited to the present; the right thing for the right time but never the right thing for all time and all situations. What’s perceived as right is more fluid with circumstances and with where I’m currently at than something that will always be universally right.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I was wondering how this applies to “seeing through a glass darkly”? Is it possible to lead a good life, with accurate perceptions and judgments in spite of the fact that we “see through a glass darkly”, or, in other words, “see the world with imprecision”? What techniques do you use? How do you achieve perception of what is right and true admidst all the imperfect personal perception?

I think it’s possible. After all, even blind pigs find acorns.

I think the seeing through glass darkly* at least in part is something that many people of faith wish weren’t so. That is to say, I think much of the reason we see though the glass darkly is because scripture/God hasn’t revealed stuff very clearly. That may well be on purpose (as I believe it is). I’m not sure we’re supposed to “know” many of the things that so many people in F&TM seem to testify they do know. If we actually did know there would be no need or reason for faith (belief in the unseen and unknown).

I think an apologetic defense of the church leadership is that they are generally good men doing what they believe is right. They could undoubtedly be wrong, and in my opinion have been. But they are generally about doing good things as fa as they understand. I don’t hold myself to any higher standard. I try to go about my life doing what I think is the right thing, religiously and otherwise. Generally speaking, I think it’s important to be nice to each other, to be kind.

Through our dark glass we know almost nothing about the afterlife, and very little of what God expects of us. I think we can’t do more than be our best selves. The next part of that scripture about a future where we will see clearly – there’s no use worrying about that now until it happens.

*Other translations:

For now we see in a mirror, darkly (ASV)

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror (CSB)

For now we see obscurely in a mirror (CJB)

Now we see a blurred image in a mirror (GW)

[Anonymous]

The use of the word “mirror” certainly is interesting.

If left at just the word glass one could imagine trying to interpret what object is on the other side of a piece of opaque glass or glass that distorts an image.

Using the word mirror changes the symbolism a bit. Maybe it’s less trying to discern some other object or some other thing and maybe it’s more trying to discern our own natures.

Maybe it’s less trying to discern the divine (an object on the other side of the glass) and more trying to discern our own divine nature.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Using the word mirror changes the symbolism a bit. Maybe it’s less trying to discern some other object or some other thing and maybe it’s more trying to discern our own natures.

Maybe it’s less trying to discern the divine (an object on the other side of the glass) and more trying to discern our own divine nature.

😮 😮 😮 :clap:

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

nibbler wrote:

Using the word mirror changes the symbolism a bit. Maybe it’s less trying to discern some other object or some other thing and maybe it’s more trying to discern our own natures.

Maybe it’s less trying to discern the divine (an object on the other side of the glass) and more trying to discern our own divine nature.

😮 😮 😮 :clap:

Indeed.

Turns out the vast majority of translations use mirror instead of glass, leading me to believe the KJV translators misunderstood this one. For the record I think the KJV guys did a pretty good job and I think is mostly “translated correctly” (albeit in old English). But if mirror is the more correct translation of the word the interpretation of the scripture can take on more meanings.

[Author]

Posts