Monday, October 17, 2011

Superational? or just true believers?

"Perhaps there is superationality: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that makes sense only if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in" (69).

Faith as a sort of "superationality" is an interesting concept Young brings up in his novel. This idea is that only some people are privileged enough to understand faith. He points out that there is a difference between people who understand knowledge and people who understand faith. The idea is that anyone can understand and learn definitions, facts, and logic based on specific pieces of data, but only some have the ability to view this "bigger picture of reality." These few have an understanding that the rest of the world has not yet grasped.

In Eat Pray Love, Gilbert wrote about how faith is a step away from the rational to the irrational. This is because faith is not something that can be supported by fact. It can only be backed up by beliefs and ideas. What is interesting about Young's idea is that he does not believe that faith is irrational as Gilbert does. On the contrary, he believes in this sort of "superationality." Only those people that have a profound ability to rationalize will be able to understand faith.

So we are left with the question, are believers full of some sort of super rationality, able to understand the most complex ideas, or do they know what they believe is irrational but they choose to believe it anyway?

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