Chapter 7/3

Both or Neither?

So much for an attempt at definition. What am I talking about? The simplest approach to understanding bipolarity is to picture the horseshoe-shaped magnet. We know that each pole of the magnet is charged, one positive, the other negative. Neither of the poles is the more important, neither the more necessary. If both poles were to be made positive, the magnetism would be lost. So if both were negative. The opposite poles set up a magnetic tension between. The magnetism is dependant on the tension rooted in this opposition of the poles.

Many of the most basic features of our world exist in bipolar tension with each other. Take, for instance, the classic tension between of the sovereignty of God and human freedom. These seem to be complete opposites, incompatible with each other. In its strongest statement, if God is the sovereign ruler of the universe, then everything that happens is as he directly ordains. Everything is done precisely as God desires, with no option for variation. Humans are left with no freedom of choice. On the other hand, if humans are genuinely free, they may contradict God’s desires and may do so on a regular basis, in which case, God is not sovereign in the strongest sense. Similar bipolarities characterize many of the basic realities of life and our understandings of it.

Quite commonly, these contradictions are accepted as paradoxical. The reference to paradox is intended to make contradictories acceptable while leaving them inexplicable. We need to note that the idea of contradiction, in the strict logical sense, means that one element--pole--must be true and the other must be false. When two things contradict, they cannot both be true. In a paradox we have that which seems to be contradictory, yet in which both elements seem to be true.

An understanding of bipolarity enables us to make sense of this and present a reasoned resolution to these difficulties. In contrast to many understandings of bipolarity, the concept I present affirms, not that, while they are contradictory, both poles seem to be true. Rather, I affirm that in a bipolarity, neither pole is true--not by itself. Just as a magnet’s positive or negative pole is magnetically useless if it exists by itself, so in bipolarity either pole is untrue, if taken alone. Both poles are true, but only in tension with the other pole.