The Ultimate Reality - Just Jesus

31 August 2026  1 Corinthians 2:1-5

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”  (1 Corinthians 2:2) 

St. Paul came to Corinth from Athens, where he had tried to use some elements of Greek literary culture to promote the Gospel, and was laughed out of town. Acknowledging this error, he decided to go to Corinth, the Vegas of the ancient Mediterranean world, and “know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). No more privileging of the Greek view of the world. The ultimate reality is Jesus. Just Jesus.

Romans would have been happy to welcome Jesus as they had Isis, Serapis, Cybele, Bacchus and dozens of others, provided Jesus remained, as the others had, in the world of tastes and preferences, and far from the world of “facts.”

This, of course, is what got Christians into so much trouble with the Romans. The Roman world was blithely tolerant of any religion, all religions, as long as they confined themselves to the private realm of life and stayed out of the “real world” of business, politics and “facts.”

Romans would have been happy to welcome Jesus as they had Isis, Serapis, Cybele, Bacchus and dozens of others, provided Jesus remained, as the others had, in the world of tastes and preferences, and far from the world of “facts.”

This is still the great scandal of Christianity – it claims the whole world, including and especially the world of “facts.”

Pluralism is the ultimate object of veneration in today’s world, but it only exists in the private sphere, the place where we keep our preferred TV shows and favorite flavors of ice cream. Pluralism is not allowed in the public world of facts, where scientists and businessmen sit in the big chairs, and only material causes and “stuff” are allowed. The problem with this view of the world is that we already know it is complete nonsense. Mathematicians already know this. They know that mathematical objects like numbers, quadratic equations, and the Pythagorean Theorem are real and definitely not material, but conceptual. Language is, too, and we use these things all the time to understand the world we live in. We can’t prove that they exist, because we would have to use them to prove them, which is the very definition of arguing in a circle. No coherent thought is possible without taking some things, like numbers and language, for granted, which is to admit that a non-material, spiritual realm exists. No system of knowledge can be faulted for doing this. What can be faulted is a failure to admit it. Christians admit our assumptions about Jesus, and present them for the review of all. Secular materialists simply deny that they are making any assumptions, arrogantly claiming that they alone are looking at the world the way it “really is.”

Secular materialists continue to insist, however, that the nature of ultimate reality is just impersonal “stuff” and exists only as an object for observation. We decide which questions to ask, which tests to undertake, which of course conditions the kinds of answers we will get. But if, as Christians propose, the nature of ultimate reality is a Divine Person, who created numbers, mathematical objects and language, who can ask questions as well as answer them, then we can only understand ultimate reality by means of a personal relationship, or, as St. Paul put it, by knowing Jesus, and Him crucified.

The result of Pluralism, which tries still to confine religion to the private sphere of tastes and preferences, is not a secular society, but a pagan one, and its paganism is more resistant to the gospel than Roman paganism because it thinks it has already understood, managed, and filed away all the claims Christians make. But Pluralists can’t account for non-material realities like numbers, mathematics, citizenship, honor, love, or a host of others.

We can, and we do it by knowing Jesus, and Him crucified.