Truth

The question was posed yesterday "What is truth?".

So, I ask you. What is truth? Take a few minutes and think about it.


Yesterday, we were watching a video series called The Truth Project. The video showed clips of normal Americans giving their answer to the question "what is truth?". There were a variety of answers. Here are a few

"Truth is honesty"

"Truth is whatever we make it to be"

"There is no such thing as absolute truth"


(And one of my favorites, that I disagree with, but I still enjoy listening to the answer.)

(me paraphrasing)
"Picture the human race standing in a cathedral. (A really big cathedral). Upon the ceiling there are glass window pains with light shining through them. Near the alter all the light comes together to form one really bright light. But when we look up at the windows, we see all different kinds of rays of light, all shining to the center. Truth is the collection of all of those rays of light. We may look at truth through the lens of Christianity. We may look at truth through the lens of Agnosticism. We one look through truth through the lens of science. But ultimately, all truth is relative to us and we are free to believe what ever truth we want to believe."

The interesting thing is that most of the people that were asked looked like they were trying to figure out what their definition of truth was as they were talking. That kind of baffled me, because, at least for me, what I believe is true is the most important think about how I live my life and how I look at the world. I know there are many people who are going to read this blog and disagree with my view of Truth, that Jesus Christ is The Truth (John 14:6) and He is the Son of the living God (John 1:1-18, Philippians 2:,5-11) and that is fine. But I would think that if what we believe about truth defines how we live and how we look at the world, we probably should know how to articulate it if we were asked.

Here is why I enjoy thinking about this answer about the cathedral.

If you did not know, that answer is from the position of Universalism. In simple terms, a universalist will believe that there is a little bit of truth from every religion and when you combine all of them, then you will find truth (or some of it is truth and not all of it. Both positions are valid in that church). If you want to read more about Universalism, just follow the wikipedia link or google it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism. What is interesting about this answer, is, that it is probably the most common answer we see in America today. The idea that truth is relative, is a very popular idea today. Many people will not associate themselves with the Universalist Church, but still believes a lot of their doctrines without realizing it.

So, my point in all of this, is this. If truth is relative to us, then how do we know it is truth? If one person says "Christianity is truth", and another says "Buddhism is truth", and yet another says "The flying spaghetti monster is truth", and all three of those agree each position they hold is valid, how can we know which is true? Are they all true?

Truth must be objective in order for there to be truth. Another question... If one hold's two positions of truth, for example, say someone believes the idea that God just created the world and stepped back from interacting with Creation but also likes the Mormon idea that every man will rule their own planet with over 50 wives (don't quote me on the number of wives), and chooses to believe both, then how can he believe both? How can he believe more than one truth?

I love what this 13 year old kid said on the in an interview. "There has to be a fixed truth for the universe to function properly"
I agree. Take morality for example... If truth is relative, what if one believes that murder is good and apart of culutre, like many tribes do in Papua New Guinnea, and then another person believes murder is evil? Then each person has a right to believe whatever they believe because their interpretation of truth is truth for them. So the guy that thinks murder is good can go kill as many people as he wants because he lives by his view of truth. It doesn't matter that the other man thinks murder is evil, because murder is 'good' for the one man and evil for the other. There is no absolute moral law that defines what is good and what is evil. That is the inevitable outcome of everyone believing truth is relative to themselves.

So, here are a few question to think about.

If you are a follower of Jesus:

Can you explain what you believe is Truth?

Does your belief of truth affect how you live? And if so, to what degree?

Jesus says in Luke 9:23 "If any man would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Is that your response for believing Jesus as truth, denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Him?

If not, why?



If you are not a follower of Jesus:

What do you believe is truth?

Does it affect your every day life? to what degree?

Are you satisfied with your life in regards to your belief of truth?



Thank you for bearing with me on this blog. I know it was longer and a little deeper than the past ones. But I feel like this is a discussion that needs to happen. If anyone has any questions, or would like to dialogue further, shoot me a message on facebook or an email at cjoshuanims@gmail.com


If you want to probe this issue further, I reccommend reading Mere Christianity, by C.S Lewis. If you really want to try and tackle it, read The Reason For God, by Timothy Keller.



Thanks for reading and hearing my thoughts. Feedback is always appreciated, even if you disagree with me. :)



Loving Jesus,

JN