Synthesis: Something Greater Is Here!

It has been said, “Opposites attract.”  Is that so?  She’s quiet, he’s loud.  She drives a Honda Civic, he drives an F-150 Ford Pickup.  She is a Roman Catholic, he claims no religious affiliation.  She reads, he never reads.  She has a graduate degree, he never made it through high school. He’s a Republican, she’s a Democrat.  Can they get along?  Can they synthesize their differences into a harmonious and meaningful relationship?

The philosopher Hegel suggested that truth is found not in one thing or in its opposite, not in one side or on another, not in one idea or another, but by the combining of the two (with a new idea).  This process is called “synthesis,”  which occurs when two opposing (opposites) ideas are reconciled or brought together.  Synthesis is not “either/or”—it is  “both/and."

Jesus suggested that truth comes by blending opposites.  “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” and then told his disciples,  “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves”  (Matthew 10:16). Can you picture a person being like a serpent and like a dove at the same time?  That kind of synthesis just doesn’t seem possible, but Jesus recommended it.  Somehow, over the years the “wise serpent” has been classified as “tough-mindedness” and the “harmless dove” has been labeled “tender-heartedness.” “One of the greatest of all Christian terms,” wrote Elton Trueblood, “is the word ‘and’.”  Jesus called his followers to be BOTH tough-minded AND tender-hearted.  He called them to be like the scribe, who like a householder, “brings out of his treasure [BOTH] what is new AND what is old” (Matthew 13:52).  The first and most important commandment Jesus gave was to [BOTH] love God (with heart, soul, and mind) AND to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:36ff). God and my neighbor are opposites and Jesus called for synthesis. 

Now I wonder if it is possible to combine (synthesize) the opposites: tough-mindedness and soft-mindedness, or must it be “either/or?”  The tough-minded sifts the true from the false, discerns fact from fiction, and is always engaged in hard, solid thinking.  The soft-minded are gullible, embrace superstition, fear change, strangers,  and are opposed to new ideas.  Hitler saw the prevalence of soft-mindedness among his followers.  He said, “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”  He also wrote in Mein Kampf:  “By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell—and hell, heaven…The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”  The division between tough-mindedness  and soft-mindedness is immense just now.  Is synthesis possible?  Is it “both/and” or will it be forever “either/or?” The Gospel calls for synthesis and provides the new and overriding idea to bring it about.  “Something greater is here!”