When Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor spoke these words:
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.
— John 18:38
What is truth? When Pontius Pilate asked the question he was face to face with Truth Incarnate, that is truth in the flesh. The very essence of truth. Truth with a capital ‘T’.
And what did he do? He left without waiting for an answer. He considered it an rhetorical question. But isn’t truth what we all need desperately?
•••
There used to be truth in advertising. I remember when you had to be able to back up any claim you made in a TV commercial. Now, not so much. Red Bull does not give you wings.
•••
On the witness stand you are sworn to tell “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. To solemnly swear under oath. What exactly does that mean? The judge and the courtroom are empowered to compel you to speak truth. To do otherwise is perjury, which renders your entire testimony invalid.
Liar, liar, pants on fire
A person who doesn’t tell the truth is a liar, by acceptable definition. But what about that little white lie, that doesn’t hurt anybody? If you’ve ever told your young child “Be good, or Santa won’t bring you anything for Christmas” then you, like me, have been guilty of that. But if we use “always speak the truth” as a baseline, then every one of us is just a filthy liar.
•••
Truth is subjective.
Not true.
Truth depends on circumstance.
Not true.
The truth hurts.
No, it doesn’t.
Truth defined
The definition of “true”
= sure, certain, accurate, verifiable, correct. Real, genuine, factual, conforming to the actual state of reality or fact.
The definition of “truth”
= a fundamental reality apart from and transcending perception. In other words, apart from how things look and/or feel. Literal, factual, free from exagerration or embellishment.
Truth is our connection to reality.
What does the philosopher say?
According to the philosopher, a critical difference between truth and reality is that reality exists independently, and the truth is dependent on experiences and observations, or empirical evidence, taken from reality. However, there are complications due to the human element.
How ridiculous is this?
•••
What philosopher said there is no truth?
German-Swiss philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that truth is impossible—there can only be perspective and interpretation, driven by a person’s interests or ‘will to power’.
Let’s move on, nothing to see here.
What does the psychologist say?
Since perception of events always depends on individual’s processing of information, the “actual” truth is an ideal which can only be approximated. A person may think he/she knows the truth, e.g., what happened, but that person’s perception may be altered by various conditions.
What does the scientist say?
We know what we know about the universe through observation, and those observations are flawed and subject to bias and interpretation and experimental uncertainty. And yes, some observations can be wrong (the world is flat) and will later be corrected or updated in the future. Science doesn’t deal in truth.
What science does deal with is the observable, the quantifiable and the proveable. If it can’t be proven, it must be untrue. Therefore, in applying the scientific method, there is no “scientific basis” for the existence of God.
And yet, science is not the be all and end all. The “Big Bang” is still considered a theory because it has not been proved. How sad that the scientific community has to cling to this paper thin concept of creation.
What does the Bible say?
“They exchanged the Truth of God for a lie”
— Romans 1:25
They ceased to worship God as He is—in His own true nature, and worshipped false gods instead. By “a lie” is meant here “false gods,” who are the supreme embodiment of falsehood.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie? Who would do that? Those who have known the Way of the Kingdom (a shout out to Bobby Smith), the Truth of scripture, the unerring Word of God, and the Life of service to God and His Kingdom.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
— Jeremiah 17:9
You see, we have the ability to be deceived, even by ourselves. The truth escapes us pretty easily.
And I close with this:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
— John 14:6
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