Someone responded to my “gravity wells” of history idea, and here is my response back.

So are you saying, N, that even as we are all attracted, by our various faith traditions, into different gravity wells of history (“strong attractors” was my other choice of metaphor!), as we dig further down into those wells, we hit a common underlying pool of Truth, from which a common culture and shared assumptions can come? Hmmmmm, could be! A very interesting idea, in fact; though I suspect you would find argument in some Christian quarters about it. To put it in somewhat more extreme terms, I wonder if such a view would extend to secular and non-Christian wells? Does Truth underlie all wells?? In this case, I’m sure you would find argument in many Christian quarters!

It is a tricky problem, because we do all believe (don’t we?) in an underlying Truth which surpasses all human cultural and historical knowledge and experience, and yet, most of us still do believe that some (usually one) faith tradition, culture, or historical period gives closer access to that Truth than all others. Further, we would tend not to believe that the one giving closest access was only a matter of personal needs or proclivities, so that even if there is only one right way for me, there would still be a (different) right way for you. No, even though there is common underlying Truth, some wells are — objectively speaking — better than others. So we believe. Or we wouldn’t take our differences in religion so seriously.

And yet… back on the other side again, we do know that God, who is everywhere, works on each of us differently, because here we all are, with our differences, all of us Christians of good will seeking His Truth, each in our own way. This would seem to be the deep, dark problem of modern pluralism (and ecumenism) in a nutshell. Exactly.