What is the truth?
How do you arrive at the truth?
How do you know what truth you should believe?
Is truth based on facts, is it measured by the mounds of evidence, is it found in consistency, is it arrived at by the most convincing argument?
Scientists would say that truth is based on evidence, the more overwhelming the evidence, the more certain the theory. Theories are the structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts, but "fact" in science doesn't mean absolute certainty. According to scientists, overwhelming evidence has made biological evolution a fact for over a century. Just as the fact that the earth is round is no longer a matter of debate, the book on evolution is also closed.
What about the contribution that modern technology has revealed? Is there really nothing newly discovered over the last hundred years that might shed doubt? Does saying that evolution is a fact, infer then, that all new evidence must support it, or that no new evidence can reverse it? If we followed this "logic" in the past, might we still be living on a flat world being circled by the sun?
It is a widely accepted notion that sugar causes children to be hyper, yet the results of a double blind study, published in the November 22, 95 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, couldn't prove it. In fact, according to a study published in the August 94 issue of Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, parents who thought their kids were being fed sugar, when they were actually given a placebo, were more likely to report hyperactivity than parents whose children had indeed received sugar, but their parents thought they hadn't. It would seem that expectations affected perception. In spite of these findings, will we ever be convinced that sugar is not at fault?
I say that we are all prone to consider true whatever we already believe to be true, and thereby filter all further evidence as either supporting our truth, or if it doesn't, as unreliable, irrational or conspired. I like hearing my truth being proclaimed; it downright makes me euphoric.
We are also prone to believe what we want to believe is true. "Do you think he likes me?" the young woman asks her friends, as if a consensus will confirm truth. A boy says "I love you", and a girl loses her virginity because she wants to believe it. She's not interested in her friends' warnings, doesn't believe the rumors of infidelity, ignores the red flags. Is that rational?
Juan Diego sees an apparition in 1531, and an entire country is converted to worshiping a woman. The vision and interpretations of Joseph Smith in the 1820's led to a religion that has swept the world. Since 610, when the prophet Muhammad began receiving visions from the angel Gabriel while alone in a cave, Islam has grown to include more than 23% of the world's population. How do so many arrive to a truth built on a single person's vision without any witnesses? Does that sound logical?
The author of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, may have written a fascinating piece of fiction, but why should that keep us from wondering if the conspiracy of the Catholic church is true? Conspiracies are just too appealing to the flesh to pass up a chance to exploit one.
"Truth has power," Dan Brown says, "and if we all gravitate toward similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true...written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us...vibrating with our unconscious wisdom."
Remember how we thought society was going to collapse on January 1, 2000? Did you feel the gravitational pull of that "truth"? Oh it vibrated violently in all our wisdoms when we heard it, yet somehow that didn't make it to be true.
My purpose here is not to be an apologist, to give clever arguments for what is the truth.
My purpose is to expose us to the reality of human nature, to the flesh, and suggest that we are not so especially good at knowing or finding truth, not so especially consistent with truth, as we would like to think ourselves to be. We say that we arrive at the truth through inquiry, proof, and logic, but historically, we have consistently proven that our minds are irrational, that we are predisposed to believe certain things, that we easily succumb to irrational thought due to fears, even when the evidence isn't there.
We are naturally skeptics and doubters, but does that mean we are naturally truth seekers?
I wonder if we have grossly over-estimated our "natural instinct" for truth. Are we as logical and consistent as we believe ourselves to be? Is it the nature of flesh to seek truth?
I asked a young friend of mine whose flesh appeal is existentialism, if, having believed in Jesus Christ, he believed he had arrived at the truth. His answer: he believed he had arrived at the source of truth. Like you and me, every day he must crucify the flesh, for flesh doesn't know the meaning of surrender. Every day he must be ready to put to death the desire his flesh has to think on existential thought, and return to the Spirit for his truth.
Do not be deceived in thinking that your flesh will guide you into truth, only the Spirit can do that.
Jesus promised,
"when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth;" john16:13
Jesus prayed,
"Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth." john17:17
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