Just now I was watching a TV documentary on the theories of how the Earth formed, and, of course, how life got started. After listening to the scientific perspective, I could hardly embrace the idea that Allah made everything (except Himself, of course). How could Allah be everlasting, having no origin and no ending? Well, He’d have to have had those qualities if He actually did make the solar system– no, the Universe–and subsequent life forms.
If you believe that God made everything, you must believe by default that God has no beginning and no end. If you believe in this, you will easily believe the virgin birth of Jesus story, or the ascent of Mohammed into Heaven and his return to tell us how he negotiated with God about the number of prayers He decreed for us mortals. If you do not believe in any of those irrational ideas, known as “magical thinking” in psychiatric circles, then you must admit that you cannot account for the existence not only of your personal world, but the planet, the Milky Way and everything beyond our humble abode.
Between the pole of absolute faith in the irrational and the pole of atheism as suggested by science, a tightrope stretches, upon which some of us walk back and forth, back and forth, first approaching the pole of “magical thinking” and then reassuring ourselves with common sense as provable by the scientific method. Neither extreme satisfies me, and I know I’m in the minority, because most people don’t think deeply about the implications of either way of thinking. I have always envied those who could adhere facilely and sometimes passionately, to their “truth” as found in the buckets of these two extreme ways of regarding the existence of both human beings and the Universe beyond. I’ve tried, because I really do not enjoy balancing in the middle of the tightrope, vulnerable to winds and weather and my own missteps.
However, I have learned through my studies of Jung and Depth Psychology, how to “hold the tension of the opposites,” an uncomfortable position that the less intelligent amongst us would describe as “wishy-washy”, indecisive, avoidant, but actually needs much energy to maintain. With practice, it gets easier, but security eludes me, as I know that no matter how skillfully I traverse the tightrope, I am at the mercy of influences I cannot control.
Marahm 