"I am the way, truth and life, no one comes to the Father except through me"
"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved"
"Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth"
"Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you please, that is chaos, instead freedom is the choice to do what is right"
I find it interesting that in this post modernist world, truth and reality are subject to personal experience and interpretation. The narrative, the personal story is considered the higher level of truth, irrespective of the actual facts of the circumstances, physical or metaphysical environment.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htm
To give you an illustration, a man in Sao Paulo steals a car, next day he robs a chemist, while robbing the chemist, his car outside gets stolen, while he is looking around for his car, holding the bag of money, the bag gets snatched from his hand, he is so angry, he goes to the police to report his stolen car (which he stole the day before), while at the police station, the owner of the chemist recognises the robber and the police catch the thief. While being interviewed by the reporter, he states he can't believe what the world has come to, that he worked hard for that car and now even the robbers and stealing from the robbers and the injustice of it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kvLnx-Kw_I (make sure you turn the captions on)
Now his experience tells me, his interpretation of the truth of the matter is incorrect. He mixes the truth of stealing is wrong and unjust, yet perpetrates this truth value for his own gain.
Let me give you another illustration: A married man gets found out by his wife that he had sex with another woman. To his defense he states that he didn't realise she was a prostitute because after the act, she requested payment.
Another illustration: A person states that objective moral values exist. In other words, there is absolute moral laws. Yet they also state that an external God does not exist. If there is no external God, there can be no objective moral law, if there is no objective moral law, there is no absolute right or wrong, if there is no absolute right or wrong, then every moral law is subjective to the individual, furthermore there is no absolute evil, good or bad. (otherwise known as the Moral Argument)
You see, truth by it's nature is exclusive. Truth is boolean - it is either true or not true. A half truth is not truth. For example, "Buddhism and Christianity can co-exist under the same faith" Buddhism does not require an exclusive belief in God or Jesus, so in that sense, there may be a way Buddhism and Christian beliefs can come together. Yet Buddhism believes in different teachings to a different end state, buddhism does not believe in a beginning or end, salvation, forgiveness or righteousness.
God says, "i am, there is no other God but me"; Jesus states: "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me"....
My challenge to you and I is to question what we mean by truth and searching for it. It really is a huge question, because so much of our world view, has so many assumptions baked into it's foundation that we assume are true, yet some of them aren't.
A final example: A married couple go through a hard time and separate. It gets messy, court orders are involved, civil communication ceases, there is no infidelity, no grievous abuse or manipulation occurred, just plain old clashes of personalities and a feeling of falling out of love with the other. Marriage vows are broken, children suffer. Both parties say they "want the best for their kids", they are going to court "to fight for their kids".... is that a true statement? Viewed in light of their marriage vows? "I will love and honor thee, in sickness and in health till death do us part?"
I say this not to cast judgement on the separated. Let he who has no sin cast the first stone....
What I am highlighting is when we search for truth, and recognise it, as Jesus said: "it will set you free"
Free from the bondage of lies, deception, deceit and evil. Think about it. I certainly am...
Think about it like this, "Love conquers all". Who said that, why is that, who determined that to be the case. If it does not have an author to it, then it is relative and not truth.
