When I Thought Truth Was Simple

My co-worker and I were discussing truth. She boasted, “You have your truth and I have my truth.” I answered with a brief illustration in which two people witnessed a hit-and-run auto accident but reported different colors when describing the escaping car. I told my friend that the car could not be ‘both’ blue and green. She still maintained, “You have your truth and I have my truth.”

Unfortunately, she could not accept that she had inserted the word ‘truth’ for the more accurate word: ‘perception.’ After all, a blue car really isn’t green regardless of one’s perception. (Even changing lighting does not change the true color, but only one’s perception.)

The thinkers of our day have taught us to despair with Pilate, “What is truth?”

People have approached truth in a variety of ways. The Sadducees tested Jesus by asking probing questions. (They believed if they could trip Jesus up with a tough question, it would prove that he was not the Messiah.) Probing questions do not establish truth. In fact, the wise answers Jesus gave did not ‘establish’ truth. He was the Messiah with or with the question, and with or without an answer to the question. Unanswerable questions do not establish truth.

I read an exhausting multi-page ‘explanation’ of a Bible passage on the Holy Spirit by a man who could not accept a simple straightforward declaration in Scripture. He began, “What if…?”

Translation: He did not know what it meant, but wanted to offer a suggestion to promote his perception. “What-if” statements are often used to change perceptions. Truth already exists with or without the “what-if.”

Truth really DOES fall in the category of “black and white.” The problem is that many people are not in love with reality so they try to obfuscate* truth. In other words, they tend to ‘muddy the waters’ or ‘deal with gray areas’ or ‘blur the lines’ or ‘use fuzzy reasoning’ (not to be confused with ‘fuzzy logic,’ if you know what that is).

Many people are astoundingly proficient at keeping truth out of focus. Gray areas sell books. Fuzzy thinking is more easily accepted. Blurred lines are more easily followed. Muddy waters obscure the reality beneath, the reality many do not wish to face.

My dad inquired about a toy I was playing with on one occasion. Knowing that it was not mine, he asked me to show him where I had found it:

I stopped and pointed to a place in the grass, but dad asked, “Is this where you found it?”

“No”

Still in ‘our’ yard I stopped and pointed again, but dad asked, “Is this where you found it?”

“No.”

I stepped into the neighbor’s yard and stopped and pointed once more, and again dad asked…

“Yes” (Toy returned to neighbor with apology.)

There was but one reality, the exact spot where I had found the toy. I did not have one reality, dad another, and the neighbor another.

Some questions are very difficult to answer. Yet, truth does not change just because of our clouded perceptions, inability to discern reality, or refusal to accept reality. Truth can be hidden, but in reality, truth is quite simple. So, why do so many people have difficulty with truth? Perhaps they wish to escape from reality!

The most profound truth ever told is that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, deity in the flesh. The Holy Spirit validated that truth when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. God verbally declared that truth at the same event. Jesus acknowledged that truth and did not deny it. All the questions and explanations and perceptions change nothing. Truth IS.

What do you say about the truth of Jesus?

*Obfuscate - To make more difficult to understand. (The word was used to make a point; the sound of the word is much like its meaning.)