My Truth, Your Truth, and the Truth
Apr 16, 2023 1123
In recent times, I’ve heard people talk about their truth, as in “my truth” and about the truth of others as “their truth.” Implicit in this is the idea that that because it is “my truth” or “their truth” it is somehow inherently valid as a statement of truth.
Opinions have been elevated to truth and personal preferences have been elevated to rights. To challenge anyone’s “truth” now causes personal offense and seems to be a definite “no-no” in society. How did we ever get to such a point in society that no-one is ever wrong anymore because everyone is right?
It’s fine for everyone to have their own view of things and their own opinions. Furthermore, everyone deserves to be treated with respect, even if their opinions are different to ours. But if we cannot challenge one another anymore, how will anyone ever change their views and personally grow, and how can society as a whole learn to deal with the increasingly difficult challenges that confronts it?
The scientific endeavour is fairly foundational to our civilisation. Our modern society is built on the assumption that we pursue reality by challenging hypothesis through experimentation. The same principle applies to every aspect of life. We challenge what we think we know so that we can learn and grow.
The whole modern mindset that goes along with the scientific endeavour assumes that reality can be understood and that there are facts that can be known. But in the popular mindset, there is nothing that is true in an objective sense anymore; only “your truth” and “my truth.”
Are We Destroying the Foundations of Our Own Civilisation?
This applies across the entire spectrum of reality. Any event can be minimised or denied, and any scientific consensus can be questioned, if it doesn’t agree with “your truth.” Are we undermining, and ultimately destroying the foundations of our own civilisation?
It is as if we live in an age of absolute relativism. That might sound like a contradiction, but what it means is that relativism is absolute because it rules over every principle.
The Bible has a very different way of looking at the world. In the Bible’s view, all truth is relative, but not to other truths. All truth is relative to God’s truth. God’s truth is the fixed point of reality, the source of all truth. Truth originates in the very being of God. When Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6), he didn’t mean that he had some of the truth, or even that he had all of the truth. What Jesus was saying that truth is part of who God is. Every word he speaks, every decision he makes, and everything he does is truth. It is fully and absolutely true.
We human beings can only ever speak about truth in imprecise and incomplete , ways, because we can never see the full picture. But God can. We don’t even know how big the universe is or how it works. But God does.
This keeps us humble, while at the same time it compels us to continuously search for truth. It is precisely that search for the truth about our world and how it works that led to the development of modern science.
If there is no absolute truth and all truth is ultimately relative, then the search for truth is meaningless. Because in fact, nothing has any meaning.
Truth is Untouchable Unchangeable, and Absolute
Why should you search for truth if your opinion is good enough? And in this way, contemporary society demolishes its own underpinnings. Scientific progress is hindered, and worse than that, so too is the moral progress of culture.
The Bible tells us that there is such a thing as “truth” and it is a truth that is completely unaffected by your opinions. In fact, it is untouchable, unchangeable, absolute truth.
We Should Make It Our Priority to Discover God’s Truth
This truth doesn’t reside in the minds of humanity, but completely outside of us, in the person of God. This truth is revealed to us by Jesus. One of his most astounding statements was the claim, “I am the… truth” (John 14:6.)
This truth transcends all human knowledge domains, including science. This is a truth that transcends knowledge itself, because it consists of so much more than just the “knowing” of things. It includes the truth of experience, of feelings, of relationship, and of all that can be truly known. This truth is reality itself.
Rather than seeking my truth, or even to understand “your truth,” shouldn’t we make our first priority to discover God’s truth? We will only ever find it in relationship with Jesus. Then truth will open up in front of us as a whole new creation.
– Eliezer Gonzalez
Wolfgang A. Streich
Apr 17, 2023
Saludos Eliezer y hermanos de GNU. Muy correcto y bien explicado el tema de la verdad y la verdad completa en Jesús, Verdadero y originador de toda la Verdad.