I’m here to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And here’s the first truth: the Bible is all truth, but the Bible is not all truth. Wait, how is that even possible? Hang with me and I’ll explain.
What is Truth?
We humans have limited perception, which limits human understanding and is influenced by personal experiences, emotions, and interpretations. This topic has plagued theologians and philosophers for centuries.
Most of us claim we want to know the truth. But I’m going to pose the question, “What if your truth isn’t true?” We strive to know the truth, and it is possible. But it’s incredibly difficult. I challenge you to be skeptical about your truth just as I had to be skeptical about my own. The beginning of wisdom is when we question what we know and defer to a greater knowing than what we are capable of. I urge you to not believe everything you think you know. If we are not willing to let go of beliefs we had before, we are unable to accept the truth and be teachable as we go forward.
I do not proclaim to be a wise man, and perhaps this topic is above my pay grade but we’re sure going to give it our best shot at exploring this question philosophically, psychologically, theologically, and realistically.
Truth is defined as the body of real things—events, facts, judgments, propositions, or ideas that are true, a a simple definition that’s far harder to verify. Sometimes it’s very hard to accept. Remember that old Jack Nicholson movie A Few Good Men? That famous quote. “You can’t handle the truth.”? That’s true for a lot of people. Unfortunately, the truth is often difficult. Instead, we accept a comfortable false truth.
Back in the 1980s, Ashleigh Brilliant wrote a book titled I Have Abandoned My Search for Truth and Am Now Looking for A Good Fantasy. Unfortunately, many chase fantasy rather than reality, not taking time to examine the world around or within them.
The Greek philosopher Socrates was famously quoted as having said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” While that is not directly true about truth itself, it does tell us we should have an inward examination of what we hold to be true. What we believe determines our actions and therefore our outcomes. Our perception of truth determines how successful or unsuccessful, how joyous or how hard life is for us.
2 Corinthians 13:5 instructs us to examine and test ourselves, performing a self-evaluation of our relationship with Christ. We should be looking into the mirror of Truth. This is not a suggestion but a command of scripture, so Socrates’ quote about self-examination is biblically supported. However, the Bible also gives a stern warning in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Human self-awareness is limited, and we tend for our hearts to deceive us.
Three Enemies We Must Guard Against
- Flesh–our limitations, desires, and lusts
- World System–the world is fallen and darkness has invaded
- Spirit of Lucifer–the real and actual adversary of our soul
Each of these enemies deceives us to mask and conceal the truth. But we have another wonderful promise in scripture. John 8:32 says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Truth is out there, and it is sometimes painful. But it’s always worth seeking, so let’s explore some perspectives on truth. Spoiler Alert: I’m going to get a bit geeky… I want to discuss some limitations of what we can and cannot know through worldly aspects of dealing with life.
Triune Being
So first, according to Scripture, we are Triune beings. We have a body. Inside that body is an intellect, a mind. Powering all of that is a spirit in contact with an unseen realm. That’s how the Holy Spirit speaks to us. The Holy Spirit is not seen, but the Holy Spirit is indeed felt. So we are flesh, soul, and spirit—physical body, intelligent mind, and spiritual power source. Truth and deception enter all three conduits.
Faith
Faith determines what we believe. Genuine faith can be defined as absolute belief. Complete belief leads us to accept as fact those things that cannot be proven or disproven. Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. Faith is our evidence as Christians.
Faith, however, is not limited to religious views. For example, you can have faith in politicians, science, or media. You can have faith in many different things. We’ve all heard, “follow the science,” but science cannot explain consciousness, free-will choice, love, morality, the universe’s beginning, or myriad other things. Science claims the Big Bang at the beginning. But what happened before the bang? What caused the bang? Science has no answer, so we will look briefly and incredibly casually at some methods used to determine truth.
Truth
First, truth is generally considered to be objective, meaning that regardless of whether I believe it or not truth is still truth. But what about subjective beliefs? Experiences, emotions, and personal interpretation all relate to how we understand the world. Is grief not true because you cannot prove grief scientifically” Is love not true?
Let’s use an individual’s perception of a dog as an example. Somebody might remember a beautiful golden lab puppy from childhood wagging its tail. Sitting on lush green grass, the puppy is licking your face. You both are happy as can be. You’re hugging that puppy, absolutely loving that dog…
What if instead you were attacked in the nighttime, and what you saw was a dark, menacing shape with white flashing teeth coming around the corner before those teeth bit into your leg causing intense pain?
When you hear the word dog, you may have two different viewpoints depending upon those experiences (or perhaps many other views). Which are true? Or are all true, or are false? That’s one of the drawbacks of the search for truth.
Let’s explore a few theories about truth.
Correspondence Theory
Reality corresponds with what is observable in the world. If a statement accurately reflects the world then
it is considered to be true. Science often operates within this framework. Repeatability gives evidence. if we do the same experiment over and over again and get the same results, we consider that to be true.
We believe and consider it true that water boils at 212°F. We have observed that repeatedly and it always occurred at that temperature, so we consider that to be true.
Coherence Theory
This is often used in philosophical and more abstract-type discussions, emphasizing internal consistency. It’s true if it fits seamlessly into a larger system of beliefs all interconnected.
Let’s imagine there’s a new technology allowing allows the choice of favored genes in human babies so you could create a far superior human: beautiful, intelligent, strong, healthy, one that lived a long life. The argument could be that individual freedom justifies the ability to make designer babies.
But what if you realize the poor cannot afford this? Only the rich would be able to purchase this technology. So as society progressed forward, the rich would develop into a superior species and the poor would thereby become an inferior species. Is that social justice?
Whether there is a right or a wrong answer depends upon your moral stance. That’s something you cannot quantify. You can only feel and believe. That’s the problem when man tries to determine the truth. It’s difficult if not downright impossible in many circumstances.
Pragmatic Theory
This explores truth through its practical consequences. It’s true if it has a successful outcome or is useful.
Constructivist Theory
Perhaps one of the most interesting truth topics that we see so much of in society around us is Constructivist Theory, which claims Society determines truth. Cultural context, power dynamics, social processes—all these things are the basis of truth according to this theory. How do you process truth manipulated, distorted, and weaponized? We have moved from the Information Age to the Misinformation Age. We have fake news, conspiracy theories, propaganda, hoaxes, and deepfakes working together to distort our perception of reality to adhere to an ideological agenda designed to control what people think and do. So it’s more crucial than ever
There’s been a long-standing argument truth is relative and depends upon the individual, and that everybody deserves their version. For example, all Republicans are bad or all Democrats are demonic. The left is right the right is wrong or vice versa. Many demand the right
to choose their gender, but it’s not permitted to choose your race. Some races are automatically racist. For other races, it’s impossible to be racist. And even though you can’t change your race, apparently species is still up for grabs as evidenced by the furries.
I’m not judging, just using these things to illustrate that intellectually
we are unable to come to terms with what truth is.
Become a Skeptic
To understand truth, we must question and examine our understanding, question our assumptions, and seek out knowledge with absolute integrity. We must become skeptics, to question what we think that we know. That doesn’t mean becoming a radical skeptic or distrusting everything, but it means asking powerful questions using what God has given to us to weigh the evidence for or against. As mentioned previously, we are Triune beings created in God’s. We must use all three parts to discern the truth.
We take in perceptions through our body, seeing color, and feeling heat. Sight, touch, hearing, and taste are used in together for our mind (soul, intellect) to turn those impressions into thoughts, memories, and imaginations. We remember what red looks like. We remember what grass feels like on the bottom of our bare feet. We remember what it feels like to take in a deep breath of air. We make connections between what is happening and what we are perceiving within our intellect, within our mind, through sensations passing into our body.
But then by the spirit of our creator, we can judge those things, the most important part of establishing truth.
The Quest For Truth
Questing for Turh is a lifelong journey, not a destination. It’s a continuous process of inquiry, exploration, and self-reflection. It requires us to be open-minded, willing to abandon thoughts proven false, engaging in critical thinking.
The Pursuit Of Truth is a deep, personal, and ongoing endeavor. It’s about seeking meaning, understanding our place in the world, and striving for a deeper connection to reality and therefore to God.
Who Knows Truth?
We’ve examined how our perception of Truth is limited. It’s subjective, opinionated, and manipulated by deception. If we are to know the objective truth of reality, it must come from a source far wiser than Humanity. It must come from a divine all-knowing source. It’s got to come from God, not from man.
In John 14:6, Jesus is quotes, “I am the way the truth and the life. Notice he did not say He knew truth, but instead that He WAS Truth.
Scripture promises in John 8:32 that we will know the truth and by ir be set free. Exactly how will we be set free?
We’ll have liberation from sin, from spiritual bondage, from the consequences of our past actions through forgiveness. We have freedom from deception, freedom from constraints of fear, freedom from the constraints of lies of misinformation manipulation, and freedom from ignorance. Most importantly, we will gain freedom from self-deception. We will know the truth about who we are, what we are to do, what we are called to be, and who we were created to be.
However uncovering the truth can be difficult or painful because we’re going to discover uncomfortable realities about ourselves, about those around us, and about the world that we live in. It’s hard to determine what truth is because there are so many different interpretations and so many different versions. There are multiple perspectives on events that happen to us and events happening in the world.
Begin the Journey
Perhaps you’re stuck in your own beliefs and want the freedom truth offers. Or maybe you’re already on that course, discovering greater
and deeper truths. If not, perhaps that journey begins today. It’s not up to me to tell you what to think or believe, but I will certainly try to give you things to think about.
We each have an active role in seeking out that ultimate truth through inquiry and exploration. Abert Einstein said the only way to find truth is to seek it. The scientist says we are to seek it, The Word tells us where we are to seek it. Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”
I wrote a statement at the beginning of this post saying that I would come back and explain it further. That statement was, “The Bible is all truth, but the Bible is not all truth.” Everything we read in the Bible does indeed represent truth. It doesn’t always represent facts, but it represents truth. As you read the Bible, you’re looking at hyperbole, simile, metaphor, symbolism, and other literary constructs. You’ll read history, poetry, philosophy, and prophecy. if you simply read the Bible as a treatise of facts, you’re not getting the truth of what the Bible is. The Bible speaks truth from a spiritual standpoint.
To continue explaining my opening statement, everything in the Bible is true, but it is not the total of all truth that exists. More truths exist beyond what the Bible tells us. God tells us what we need to know, but it doesn’t tell us everything we could know.
What that means is that we can know enough, without being a know-it-all.
Faith and fortitude. May God bless you abundantly…