The Truth about Truth

The Truth about Truth

Collin Leong. Jan 8, 2017

 What is Truth?

“What is Truth?”, asks Pontious Pilate to Jesus. It would have taken days for Jesus to answer that and to convince Pilate, but Jesus had an appointment with the cross that morning. Many people, like the highly educated Pilate, are confused about truth. How do you tell what is true? Is truth absolute, or is truth relative to your personal situation and circumstances? 

To some, a statement is true only if it corresponds to reality that they can verify (Correspondence Theory of Truth). For example, “the sky is blue” is a reality that can be verified. The problem is that reality itself can be questioned – what does "blue" mean, and what kind of blue? Deep blue? Azure? Indigo? And what about realities that cannot be verified, such as historical events or moral values? 

Other people think that a proposition is true only if it is supported by multiple coherent observations that provides evidence to the claim (Coherent theory of truth). For example, if the ground is wet and there are no water sources in the area, and that the forecast says it was going to rain, then to say that it had rained must be true. Unfortunately, there could have been other explanations we couldn’t think of at that time.

Lastly, the Pragmatic Theory of Truth says that truth doesn’t matter if it has no practical use to me personally. To these people, truth is subjective and it is alright for you to believe whatever you want as long as it fits your circumstances and makes you happy. The problem with this is that what makes you happy may make me very unhappy, so as long as you keep your truths to yourself, we'll be fine. 

It is easy to see that none of these theories about truths are adequate. All of them rely on individual's perspective and preferences. More and more, the world is beginning to accept the idea that there is no absolute moral truths. In fact, even something as sure as gender cannot be assumed anymore - it's up to the individual to decide if it is a male, female or something else, and what they want to marry.

This drifting away from deterministic truth is not surprising once God is removed from the society as there is no longer any reliable benchmark for truth or purpose. If you claim there is no creator or designer,  then the purpose of the design doesn't matter -  it's up to you (the user) to decide. 

No wonder Pilate asked “what is truth” if truths can only rely on human perception and reasoning. If common, obvious facts are already confusing to many, then we will not be able to agree on spiritual or moral truths without a benchmark (standard)  outside of the human sphere to orientate ourselves.

Therefore, if there is a God, and if God wants us to know the REAL truth, then we would expect a another approach to determine truth than the three preceding methods. This approach is so simple that most people can't accept it. It is called the “Revealed Truth." 

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law." (Deut. 29:29)

"In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets." (Eph. 3:4-5)

A Revealed Truth can only be revealed by the source of truth in order to be effective and reliable. For example, if you use a time machine to bring a car back to the stone age, the stone age people can eventually figure out how to drive the car. But they will probably disagree on how it works, who designed it (or how it evolved), and why it stopped running after few hundred miles (i.e. run out of gas). But if the designer of the car went back together with the car and explains to them everything about the car, then that is the ABSOLUTE REVEALED truth. These stone age people have two choices – believe the designer despite how incredible his explanation might be, or continue to debate about other alternatives how the car came to be and its purpose. 

Now, if something as technically finite as a car can be so difficult for stone age people to understand, how can we understand about the universe, life, and after life without some sort of Revealed Truth from the Creator Himself? ("All Scripture is God-breathed" - 2 Tim 3:16). There is a caveat in handling Revealed Truth, and is that you need the instrument called faith, which is available in each person  by design.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not that nothing about God can be known without studying the Bible and having faith. The Bible itself says that creation itself, if you study it, points towards a Creator God (Rom 1:20). That was how humans came to believe in God before the Bible was compiled. God spoke to us in different ways in the past but now it is made even clearer through revelation with the Scriptures.

The Bible is the Revealed Truth in written form,  and Jesus Christ  is the the Revealed Truth in the form of a reincarnated man. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). So what is Truth? Truth is not just the Word of God, but also a person, with the name of Jesus Christ – God becoming a man whom we could see, touch and interact with. 

But how do we know that the Bible is true and not some myth? Well, that is out of the scope of this blog as this blog assumes most readers are already a believer, and we won't fall into the fallacy of using circular argument by simply saying the Bible is true because it is God's Word and God doesn't lie, so the Bible is  true! 

If you are a Christian, it is worth your time to understand basic apologetics and many excellent books and articles have been written to explain the evidence for the reliability of the scripture - including scientific, prophetic, documentary and archaeological support. You can easily look this up. 

Note a special and unique quality about the truth of God’s word. Not only is God’s original Word (i.e. minus unavoidable limitations of translations) true, accurate and infallible, the truth of God’s Word is also uniquely Redemptive and Eternal. 

While Newton’s laws are also “true”, they cannot save you nor will it be eternally true. Physical laws are true only in the observable 4-dimensional universe and breaks down in extreme conditions such black holes or in spiritual realms. Even religions, unless initiated by the one true God, will also break down in eternity. Spiritual truths in God’s Word are designed to save us from futile life on earth and damnation in hell. It is designed to give us abundant life now, and eternal life in heaven. 

The Word Saves – “It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes”. (Rom 1:16)

The Word Sanctifies – “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth”. (Jn 17:17)

The Word Disciplines - “All Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (1 Tim 3:16), 

In summary, God's word is alive and for those who believe, it works in partnership with the Holy Spirit to change us inside out. This is another evidence of  Biblical truth, because it works. 

Handling Truth

"You can't handle the truth!" Jack Nicholson (acting as a Colonel) said in the movie "A Few Good Men", when Tom Cruise (acting as Navy lawyer) asked him to tell the truth in the military court. In fact, many people can't handle the truth. It is too painful for them. They rather float along with the lies of the humanity, than to face godly truth. 

You may have or read this relatively new sarcasm: “If it’s on the Internet, it must be true.” This came about because so much fake information, including deliberate deceptions, are taken from the Internet and spread by naïve surfers. Never had there been so much information available at our finger tips, and yet determining the truth has also never been harder. The more opinions you read, the more likely you will stray away from the center of truth. 

The first distortion of truth in the Bible happens no later than the 3rd chapter of the first book. In Genesis 3, the Serpent craftily started a lie disguised as an “innocent” question: “Did God tell you not to eat of ANY tree?” Eve, trying to be clever, gave a half-correct answer. She said correctly that God only said not to eat from THIS tree (the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil), but she also added that God does not allow them to touch it, lest they will die. Well, if you are Satan, the battle is won – you can easily prove that by touching the tree, no one will die. This meant that God had lied. And if God had lied about death from touching, God must have also lied about death from eating the fruit. 

Somehow, Eve also came to the conclusion that (a) The food is not poisonous and tastes good (has she taken a small bite to try, or merely believed the Serpent?), (b) It’s beautiful to behold (she can think of multiple uses, such as decorating the home?), and (c) it is good for your health – especially mental health. (See vs 6)

The problem when we do not trust the Word of God is we begin to rationalize by what we experience, see and hear with our own eyes and ears. That’s why I warn everyone who does not have a solid foundation in the Bible not to over-read books written by Christian authors. All Christian authors are sinners and fallible (so is THIS author!) If you think you’ve read a good book, be warned there may be one or two sentences in there that may not be scripturally accurate. You need to weed them out of the truths in the book. A lie is most difficult to detect when it is sandwiched between truths. Always go back to the Word, and if possible, write down what you believe (journal or blog) basing on Biblical support only. 

The other thing Eve failed to do is this. We know she had come to doubt God about eating the fruit, but no one pressured her to eat it immediately. She could have said to the Serpent, “Hmm, what you said seems to makes sense, but I better check with God or my husband first.” Instead seeking clarification, she just went ahead and acted on the lie. It might be that she already realised it was wrong, but was too tempted not to do it anyway – a pretend ignorance. How often have we used this tactic to give in to temptation? 

Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.

Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. (Prov 15:21,22)

The proverb above says that fools do what they FEEL is right. They walk on paths that avoid pain and maximize “joy”. The man of understanding walks straight into whatever circumstances – even trials and personal pain – because he trusts and follows God’s truths instead of finding a way to escape. He also use godly counselors that God sends to help him sort out any confusion.

Adam made the same mistake as Eve: he ate the fruit given to him without checking with God. God charged Adam, “you listened to your wife... (and not to me)” (vs 17). I hear many marriage counselors and pastors say “Men, listen to your wife.” Unless some context is added, this statement alone, by itself, is a distortion of truth. Yes, a man should HEAR what his wife has to say, but in the end, the man is responsible to check with God,  make the final decision and take the accountability.

It is said that we now live in a "Post Truth Era" - in other words, truth is not just subjective and relative, but doesn't matter much anymore. A man can be successful and gain public support even if he is full of lies and everyone knows it. You just need to say things your hearers want to hear, and it doesn't matter if there is not an ounce of truth in it. All the more,  Christians need to be extra careful in taking information at face value, and to be grounded in the Word.

What to do with Truth?

The purpose of God's truth is to correct what we believe and how we behave. The Bible tells and says a lot of things that no one life time can fully analyse. However, the basic message is that man has chosen a path without God, and that we can't find our way back even if we tried. (We can never understand the full, real truth with our own logic, nor behave holy enough to be accepted - as has been proven by Israel's failure to meet God's moral code for thousands of years. Thus the one major message - the major truth - is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to die for us for the punishment of our sins so that we can be forgiven. This great truth can be summed up in these two passages:

"All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him." (Isa 53:6). 

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

What to do with truth? First, you should believe it and accept it by faith. As eluded earlier, logic can help you get close to the truth, but only faith can make you accept Jesus as your savior. The truth saves.

Secondly, the truth sanctifies - it wants to change us to be Christ-like. James compared God’s Word with a mirror where a man reflects on his own state. (James 1:23) There are a number of reactions that man can take. First, he can say “I don’t see anything wrong with me.” This is the sin of Self-Righteousness. A self-righteous sin is the most dangerous of all (worse than pride), because it overrides what God says is wrong with the world and with myself. I saw a video clip of a famous celebrity saying that when he dies and meets God, he will call God “stupid and evil” because of the sufferings God allowed on earth. He rather not go into heaven with such a God (don’t worry, he won’t.) Such men (or women) ignore the inadequacies of intellect and morality in themselves,  and think of themselves as smarter and holier than God. They will never admit wrong or confess, even in private to God. 

Even Christians can fall into this error by "selective reading"  of the Bible to avoid commandments that they don't want to follow at specific times or circumstances. Instead of embracing the Whole Truth, even the ones we disagree with, we have twisted the Word according to our own image. 

Then there are those some of us who will admit that we are wrong, when the Word convicts us. We might even confess and ask God for forgiveness. So we are not self-righteous, because we KNOW we are wrong. However, we refuse to change and make things right with our fellow humans. We refuse to ask for forgiveness or to forgive. This is the problem of pride. Most of us are in this state, with one sin or another, or with one person or another.

Thus, knowing the truth and acting on the truth are two different things. James continued to say: “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25). 

Doing the truth blesses us. Most people, like Eve, thinks that if I do whatever feels good, whatever avoids suffering, or whatever profits me most must mean the right thing to do for me. But God says that is not blessing, that is a curse. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12). Doing it God’s way leads to blessings, even if it may take years before you get justice or get rewarded with the fruits of righteousness, and furthermore these rewards last eternally, unlike the “good feeling” that you gain which is temporal only. 

Finally and most importantly, we must always remember what we mentioned earlier - truth is not just codes written on paper. Truth is a person. Jesus implied that to Pilate but he didn't get it. Jesus also said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." As such, knowing the truth is not only through the careful study of the scriptures, but also through a close relationship with Jesus Christ. While the Bible is a generic will of God for all Christians, an intimate relationship with Christ will reveal to us specific will or actions He wants you or me to take. 

Sometimes we don't want to get too close because we are afraid to hear things we don't want to hear - to forgive someone, to give to someone, to give up our ambition, to minister to someone, to serve the church in specific ways, or even to be a missionary. If this is you, my advise is this - don't turn away or stay away because of it, but rather, tell God that what He asks of you is difficult and you are not ready. Admit your weakness to do what He asks. He understand it is not "easy" for us, even if the request is "simple". God will somehow find a way to make it possible, if you are willing.