Revaluing Truth

From the places of our idealistic perspectives, we claim to have a high regard for truth. Truth is described as going hand-in-hand with what is right. But in practice, do our actions show that we really value what is true? Consider the media’s reporting on events in the political arena. No matter which geo-political region you are observing, you find news media have an agenda for how they report a story, or what stories they choose to report. If you follow the chain of motives back to the source, usually the objective is financial gain, stroking popular opinion, or a self-driven political agenda. Consider the education system’s instruction on the origins of the universe. Children are instructed that the theory of evolution is the actual explanation for life. It isn’t taught as a theory (even though theory is in it’s title). In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding. Albert Einstein, who had previously proposed this in his equations, but tried to deny his own findings due to the implications of an expanding universe, was invited by Hubble to observe the evidence that proved Einstein’s theories formulated from his math were actually accurate. After the meeting, Einstein made the famous statement, “I now see the necessity of a beginning.” The implication of an expanding universe is that if you reverse the expansion of an object, eventually you reach a time where that object can no longer exist. Zero mass can hold zero matter in it. Scientists had discovered proof that the universe was not eternal, but it had a beginning. The issue for Darwin’s theory of evolution then was that it is based on the idea that matter can evolve into new forms of matter according to the need for adaptation to matter’s environment. But if matter did not always exist, how could evolution of matter occur? Yet scientist’s reactions to this weren’t to discard evolution, but to deny the evidence that made it obsolete. The thinking behind it is well summarized in the comment made by Sir Arthur Eddington, an astrophysicist responding to Hubble’s discovery – “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order is repugnant to me. I should like to find a genuine loophole. I simply do not believe the present order of things started off with a bang….the expanding universe is preposterous….it leaves me cold.” Eddington didn’t try to hide his motivation for rejecting Hubble’s discovery at all. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense, it was that it wasn’t the reality Eddington wanted to believe in. Such is the condition of the mind of man. It’s not that truth is so hard to discover, it’s that the lies are more convenient to the lifestyles and choices we want to make.

Truth, by definition, will always be restrictive and exclusive. If two plus two equals four, then two plus three can’t also equal four. In Western culture, we would like each individual’s reality to be true. In fact, it’s common to hear people say, what is true for one person doesn’t have to be true for another. You can have your truth, and I will have mine. What happens to truth with that type of thinking? It becomes devalued. It’s no longer useful to the collective, when it can be defined according to the needs of the individual. But there is nothing in life more important that truth. Jesus said that truth sets a person free. The implication then is that lies enslave a person. I have seen so many people enslaved by a lie they believed. I was preaching yesterday evening at a girl’s high school where I meet with the students each Monday and Tuesday night. We have been discussing the roles of men and women that God instituted in comparison to how our culture defines those roles. I asked this question to the girls, “what does it mean to be a man in our society?” The girls replied, “men must be sexually active. They own all the children and property of their family. They are to be served and taken care of. If a woman doesn’t produce children for her husband, the husband is allowed to find another woman to produce children for him.” There were many other statements, but those were the highlights. The girls laughed a lot as they we were discussing, but then I asked them, “is this the type of husband you would like to have to journey through life with?” They responded with resounding negatives. Then I asked, “but is it probable that your future husband may exhibit most of this behavior?” They admitted that it was probable. I asked why. They said because that’s what culture approves and everyone expects. Then I asked, “do you see how important it is to define who we are from the truth?” That begs the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth?” John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Our creator is the one who defines us and defines the sacred boundaries we are meant to live within. The truth isn’t a chain that binds us to what we don’t wish to be, rather it gives us the freedom to enjoy who God made us to be.

With just two passages – Matthew 20:25-28 “But Jesus called them to him and said, “you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Ephesians 5:25-29 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” – we can condemn what the culture in Uganda approves of in the behavior of men. Truth leaves no gray area up for debate. GK Chesterton once said “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult, and left untried.” Is the truth important enough to us, that when truth becomes difficult, we still pursue it? Or is it easier to continue operating in a reality that we create for ourselves?