Jesus told us that the truth would make us free, (John 8:32). But in a pluralistic world there are many voices, each proclaiming a different variation of ‘truth’. How are we to know what is really true? Or does each of us have his own, equally valid truth, so that in the end, there is no truth but self-invented reality?

I think the words of Jesus refer not only to objective and absolute truths, but also to an inner attitude – truthfulness.

Every person has deep inner motivations and desires. These fundamental desires drive our actions. They may differ from person to person; one person simply wants to be happy and have a good time, another seeks to be loved by others; yet another desires power, control and status. Or it may be a combination of such things. Whatever it may be, we could sum it up by saying that we are motivated by self – self-gratification, self-fulfilment, self-satisfaction. It may be an utterly unconscious thing, but to meet that desire we identify secondary things – money, power, sexual gratification, adventure or other experiences – that we think will bring fulfilment of the deeper motives. The apostle Paul called this ‘the flesh’, a shorthand way of referring to self-oriented desires that drive us to sinful, selfish and evil actions.

It seems to be a rule that none of us live easily with knowing that we are morally or ethically in the wrong. We must either change our way of living or justify ourselves. The process of self-justification is a denial of the truth about ourselves – and a denial of truth about God and the truths that he has written on our consciences, (see Romans 1).

Our inability to know truth is therefore a moral issue, not one of knowledge, information or intellectual powers.

 

This website is dedicated to truth-seeking. Beginning with true repentance, a turning away from selfishly motived behaviour, and faith, which is turning to God, who alone can reveal what is true.

 

Many people have found a dissonance between the things they perceive as realities in their lives and traditional dogmas and doctrines they have learned from family, their culture or whatever church tradition they have grown-up under. We want to examine some of these ideas, not to be anti-tradition, because it is arrogant to think we know better than our forefathers and other people, but because ancient truths may be re-formulated in ways that better satisfy our minds and hearts. Some things are proven true and others discarded. Let us be as the Bereans who “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

(We take the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the truth,” (John 14:6) as authoritative, and assume that the Bible is accurate and true. We do so simply because experience has shown the Biblical viewpoint to harmonise with experience of life.)

 

Peter Mountain

10 February 2018