The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity commonly employed in the modern world can be summarized as follows:
-
Subjective = how I perceive or feel.
-
Objective = how things actually are.
This distinction presupposes that one's interpretation of the world can never truly coincide with the way the world actually is. To say that "how I perceive" is distinct from "how things really are" is to assume that human beings can never attain an objective, divine perspective.
Accordingly, subjectivity comes to be understood as something possessed only by the individual, while objectivity is redefined as that which is shared among multiple subjective perspectives—that is, what can be commonly affirmed or validated by many people. The subjective becomes a psychological event confined to the individual mind, while the objective becomes an unattainable ideal. As long as all human knowledge begins from subjective perspectives, even the sciences regarded as objective are understood as continually revising themselves and progressively approaching objectivity, yet never becoming objectivity itself.
Within this framework, an individual's experience of God is necessarily classified as subjective, since it cannot be directly shared with others. It therefore remains excluded from the supposedly objective horizon constituted by what many people can publicly verify.
There is, however, a fundamental misunderstanding in this way of thinking.
To receive divine revelation is not merely to experience a private religious feeling. It is to internalize the divine perspective and thereby come to see the world through it. If this definition is accepted, faith is no longer merely a psychological event occurring within the subject; it becomes a transformation of the very standard by which reality is perceived.
In this event, the divine perspective that is internalized is both subjective and objective. It is the event in which how I perceive reality becomes aligned with the way reality actually is. Scripture describes knowing God as having one's mind renewed, one's eyes opened, and one's capacity to discern truth transformed by the Holy Spirit.
If such a transformation is possible, then the conventional distinction between subjectivity and objectivity no longer holds. When the human perspective participates in the divine perspective, the subjective becomes objective.
