Living in Two Worlds: A Reflection on Ways to Truth | By Viveka Hall-Holt

I am a person who finds myself at home in many worlds and, therefore, in none of them. I'm sure that this statement is true of everyone in some way or another. This is especially true for me when it comes to different ways of knowing. I am a senior in college majoring in Religion and Psychology. This combination of disciplines means that I have been formally exposed to vastly different ways of conceiving of knowledge and how to come about it. Going from one class to another sometimes feels like it should require a passport to enter into another world. 

The reason that I chose to study both Religion and Psychology is that I find both fascinating and meaningful. They both resonate with ways that I had already learned to understand the world from my religious family and my academic surroundings. However, as I learn more about each way of knowing, I notice how each one seems to belittle the other. Where scientific spaces frequently seem to turn up their noses at religious knowledge, dismissing it as make-believe with no solid basis, religious spaces also have a tendency to see science as temporal and meaningless. I often feel caught in the crossfire and deeply unsettled. These arguments simply serve to alienate me from both ways of knowing instead of convincing me that their way is right. 

As much as it would be easier for me to decide between the worlds and be done with it, I cannot because they are both a part of me. Living in both of them gives me joy that is unique to each one. My understanding of the world feels much more expansive when I incorporate science and religious studies. Ultimately, I have decided that having two ways of finding truth is better than one, because Truth is so intricately complex. Every added perspective can only give a wider understanding of the whole. 

My struggle with holding the tension between these two ways of knowing can be a metaphor for a larger theme within interfaith work. As much as I wish that I could claim to know everything myself, the one thing that I do know is that my two limited disciplines cannot come close to the wisdom that is found when we all come together in search of truth. This is not to say that there is no room for disagreement or that the goal of interfaith work is to always agree. However, I do think that part of this work is to decide whether we want to believe that there is only one way (our way), or choose to learn from each other and grow in many kinds of understanding. How many worlds are we willing to inhabit? All of my interactions at Interfaith Philadelphia from Passport and Civil Conversations training discussions to thoughtful Gateway questions and answers to conversations with each staff member have reminded me of the power that interfaith communion has to enrich our collective understanding, something more powerful than the singular world of any one person. 

Viveka is a rising senior at St. Olaf College and a double major in Religion and Psychology. She is a member of Interfaith Philadelphia's summer intern team.