There are diverse understandings of reality. For Plato, reality is the world beyond the objects perceived by the human senses, a world of eternal, unchanging archetypes. What is perceived by human senses is merely a shadow of reality. For Kant, reality is the "thing-in-itself," a world beyond human perception and unattainable by human understanding.
For empiricists such as John Locke and David Hume, reality is the physical world as observed through human intuitive experience. Anything not experienced, or that cannot be experienced, is not reality. For example, the shape, color, smell, and taste of an orange—the sensory data—combine to constitute the reality of the orange.
For the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, reality is an object towards which human consciousness is directed. While it may seem like the same brick, for a carpenter, the brick's reality is its use as a building material, whereas for a robber intending to harm someone, the brick's reality is its use as a weapon.
More recently, Quentin Meillassoux, a philosopher advocating "speculative realism," argues that reality is a vast world that exists independently of human perception, even prior to the emergence of humanity. For example, the Earth itself is an absolute reality that existed before humanity and independently of human consciousness.
Pope Francis does not deny these various theories of reality. However, he maintains a more grounded understanding of reality. It encompasses God and the entire created world, "the sun and the moon, the fir trees and a single small flower, the eagle and the sparrow, the spectacle of their countless diversity and differences" (*Laudato Si'* 86). These things—the sky, the earth, the wind, the water, and humanity—are endlessly interconnected. The Earth, the Sun, and the Universe are vast realities that predate humanity.
Yet, humans, considering themselves exceptional, act as if they are the arbiters of God's creation, judging and selectively choosing based on their own self-centered perspectives. They presume to understand everything, shaping and evaluating reality according to their limited understanding, forcing it into their own preconceived notions. They present their shallow, contrived ideas as if they were the true reality.
The biblical warning, "God made mankind simple, but they have gone in search of many schemes" (Ecclesiastes 7:29), perfectly describes this reality. In this regard, Pope Francis warns against this tendency, stating that "reality simply exists, but thoughts are refined," highlighting how humans, while claiming to pursue reality, distance themselves from it.
All realities are interconnected, and the interconnected whole is also a reality. "For from him and through him, and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36). Nothing among them is insignificant. Yet, humans, with their narrow-minded thinking, manipulate these realities, creating hierarchies based on their own standards, rejecting and harming those they deem inferior, thus obscuring God's world. In doing so, the order of life is destroyed, and the playing field becomes even more uneven.
For Pope Francis, the suffering of the vulnerable who groan on this uneven playing field is a vivid reality. Therefore, the means that obscure this reality must be rejected. Just as the Ten Commandments state, "You shall not murder," we must say, "Today we must say 'no' to an economy of exclusion and inequality" (Evangelii Gaudium, 53).
We must restore God's reality, which has been obscured by humanity's narrow-minded thinking. To achieve this, there must be a continuous dialogue between reality and our understanding of it. Because living in a world of mere words, a world of images and sophistry, is dangerous. (See "The Joy of the Gospel," paragraph 231)
We must properly grasp reality. We must fully concretize the fundamental truth that all life, including non-human beings, is oriented towards God in a way that reflects their interconnectedness. That is the path to salvation contained in the message that "reality is more important than ideas."
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