Live Man Walking: Covday, Matamín 17th 7703 (Monday, 02-21-2011) Philosophical/Political Post (3P Article) #10: Truth

“There is no god higher than Truth…”.
(Mahatma Gandhi)

“Y’shua said to him, ‘I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life…”.
(The Gospel Of John, Chapter:Verse 14:6a)

“Truth is rarely writ in ink; it Lives in nature…”.
(Martin H. Fischer)

“The trouble about man is twofold:

He cannot learn Truths which are too complicated;

He forgets Truths which are too simple…”.
(Rebecca West)

“They questioned Y’shua, saying,

“Teacher, we know that You speak & teach correctly and

are not partial to any person(s), but rather teach the Way of God in Truth…”.
(The Gospel Of Luke, Chapter:Verse 20:21)

“Truth has very few friends — and those few are suicides…”.
(Antonio Porchia in Voces in 1943,
Translated from the Spanish original by W.S. Merwin)

“The greatest enemy of any one of our Truths may be the rest of our Truths…”.
(William James)

"I will ask the Father, and Abba will give You another Helper so that

Your Father may be with You forever: the Spirit of Truth — whom the world cannot
receive, because the world does not see Him or know Him.
However, You know the Spirit of Truth, because

He abides with You and He will be in You.

I will not leave You as orphans. No, instead I will come to You.
(The Gospel Of John, Chapter:Verse 14:16-18)

“It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute Truth…”.
(Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy)

“Y’shua was saying to those Jews who had believed Him,

‘If You continue in My word, then You are Truly disciples who belong to Me — and
You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make You free…’ ”.
(The Gospel Of John, Chapter:Verse 8:32)

Truth, like milk, arrives in the dark, but — even so — wise dogs don't bark.
Only mongrels make it hard for the milkman to come up the yard.
(Christopher Morley in Dogs Don't Bark At The Milkman)

In my undergraduate & graduate philosophy studies, i was exposed to one of the lines of philosophical questions often posed & considered that has to do with the concept of “truth.” Specifically, a key question has to do with the notions of “objective truth” and “absolute truth.” In what i would call an ontologically-oriented discussion (although others may not share that view), a commonly posed question is:

Assuming the “existence” of “God” or some creative

deity responsible for the whole of creation,

is that “Being” held to an “objective” standard or

does that “Being” determine the standard?

In other words, does God have the right to say what is “right” and what is “wrong”? What is “sinful” and what is “righteous”? What is “moral” and what is “immoral”? Or is God beholden to some arbitrary standard of “goodness” that is outside of Him?

You might want to consider Your answer carefully before just reflexively throwing spaghetti up against the wall and hoping it sticks….

Truth is a person, and His Name is Y’shua Christos. He is the Messiah (literally “Anointed One”) of the LORD Most High or, specifically as known by His Name, YHWH (Blessed be His Name). The problem with Y’shua (or “Jesus” as Westerners call Him) is that He didn’t go quietly into the bad night, much less a good night. He didn’t retreat from death and back Himself into good standing with humanity by being a “good” person who is fondly remembered for preaching Love or tolerance or acceptance. Instead, He fought (albeit a spiritual fight and not an earthly one) and defeated our enemy by making a public spectacle of him like stringing up a horse-thief in the dry, dusty center of a burgeoning mining camp for everyone to see what happens to His enemies. Instead, He conquered death and removed its power over us and led captives back from the confines of a dark dictatorship more sinister than anything ever imagined in the movies. Instead, He and His Father demand acknowledgment as God — not by threatening or manipulating or coercing or forcing, but rather by simply holding out an offer of covenant relationship. Y’shua is not someone Who preached a warm & fuzzy kind of emotional Love, but rather a tenacious, unyielding, and sacrificial kind of self-denying Love hemmed in on all sides by covenantal obligations, salvific intentions, familial bonds, & eternal fulfillment. Instead of mere honesty, He craves trusting openness…instead of mere tolerance, He models forgiving forbearance…instead of mere acceptance, He offers existence-altering adoption. He isn’t just a savior or simply an ambassador or one more teacher or any one thing for that matter, although He is each of those things. Instead, we should listen to the descriptions He uses to define Himself….

He defined Himself by saying such things as “I AM the Way, the Truth, & the Life,” “I AM the bread that has come down from Heaven,” “I AM the First and the Last,” etc. These descriptions are important, and none more so than “I AM the Truth…”.

The notion of “absolute truth” (also referred to as “objective truth”) means that there are some things that are True regardless of any mitigating circumstances. This notion allows no room for situational ethics, relativistic idealism, or moral ambivalence. Instead, everything is rigid and inflexible and exhaustively determined in matters of ethics — nothing is left to chance, much less mercy. Many people i know (and most who consider themselves “Christians,” which means disciples of Y’shua) would argue for the existence of absolute Truth. They do this not knowing that in that very argument they undercut the very God they claim to know, to serve, and to worship. They don’t realize that by trivializing God as a cosmic judge beholden to a greater constitution that there is also the possibility of mandatory sentencing where the judge has no discretion. They can’t understand that by arguing that God can’t just say “murder is OK” and that it would suddenly be OK (not that He ever would do that, but He could…), that they consign God to a place of universe policeman doing the will of something greater. They won’t acknowledge the fact that by contending that God is less-than-all-moral that He is not all-powerful. It is a sad reality to me that so many Christians are so theologically poor as to look to a richer, poor persona and call Him wealthy when, instead, their Dad isn’t poor at all but rather beyond the reach of wealth….

On the contrary, i think that the notion of “subjective truth” is scary to some people, because they don’t think God can defend Himself to humans or to the enemy. The roll out the trusty “slippery slope” argument to assert that “You can’t just have God making case-by-case decisions — how would that look?” Uh, i don’t know…say merciful or just or appropriate? The fact is that — if You take Y’shua at His Word that He IS the Truth — then He gets to say whatever He wants and that is the way it is. Period. There will be no arguing it or circumventing it or mitigating it….

The reality is that we can take refuge in the fact that Y’shua is Truth. That is precisely why the Scriptures argue that He is our strong tower, our rock of refuge, our help in a time of distress. What? Is Ghandi gonna be able to persuade Zeus that You should go free? Is Mohammed gonna be able to successfully argue with a set of scales as a prop to some New Age consciousness that You weren’t as bad as You seemed because You have calluses from praying five times a day? Is Buddha gonna be able to convince the three guys in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure that You Lived a couple of Your multiple existences toward the end in a markedly more humble & Loving way? Seriously…what do people think will happen? Maybe we should get together the Dr. Pepper crew of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Bigfoot, etc. and fast track their membership to the Justice League so that they can join forces with Superman, the Green Hornet, the batfolks, etc. and we could put our hope in them. Or perhaps, we would rather hope that we could find the equivalent of money in the after world and hire Plato or Cicero or some other famous advocate to stand in for the Holy Spirit. i think i’ll go with Y’shua, the Holy Spirit, & Abba, and You can have all the fairy tale characters….

Philosophy can be helpful, but sometimes folks get outside their depth. The question of what kind of Truth exists would better be answered by getting to know Him first. Then, You can experience first-hand that Y’shua is a “good” Truth — the real deal and not some aspartamish substitute like Buddha, Mohammed, or Chaka Khan. At that point, You won’t have to worry about what He decides is righteous, although it’s not like You could alter it anyway.