A question has slowly been taking shape in my mind and beginning to plague my eternal being. I find it troubling that I will accept and/or reject worldviews and personal beliefs without ever examining why or how I came to that conclusion. However, as soon as I begin to examine what I believe or hold to be good, I am soon flummoxed with the thought "how can one know the truth?" Obviously I am coming from the belief that there is an absolute truth, but as soon as I begin to survey the evidence of why I hold that belief my lack of education becomes ever so clear.
How does one educate oneself in truth, yet while educating must be able to decipher between fact and fiction? It sounds a lot like life in a way. We are living yet learning how to live every day. We are the blind leading the blind. Constantly striving to gain knowledge however, while gaining knowledge one has to have the wisdom to be able to decipher the truth (how does one gain wisdom?). It is while searching for knowledge about truth that we become discouraged because we soon realize that truth is much bigger than we anticipated. Truth is filled with mysteries that we can not solve much less understand. We have a tendency to dismiss that which we don't understand, which leads to the dangerous mind set of carelessness.
Truth is supposed to be factual, and straight to the point. Or maybe we don't comprehend what truth actually is. If God is truth, and our finite minds can't comprehend God, then maybe we can't understand truth. Christ was the truth incarnate full of mysteries that even now we don't understand. Yet people seem to think it rational to believe in His ability to forgive sins and save all of mankind. So also with truth. We may never completely understand it, but by acknowledging it our eyes are opened.
It is by acknowledging truth that the Greeks began to flourish. They had something to set all of their standards by and constantly refer to in case of a big decision. However, their logic self-destructed because they soon became skeptics due to the increase of new doctrines claiming truth, thereby freezing any new intellectual discoveries. They could not tell between the different doctrines which were right and wrong because they could not put their finger on what truth really was. So not only do we have to decipher the truth while learning about it, but also be wary that we do not become skeptics and destroy the logic that has brought us to where we are now.
Again my question is, how does one gain knowledge regarding truth? Is it through traditional education, or philosophy? Through life experience perhaps? Maybe its a combination of all of them. One thing that I do know is true, when I reach heaven all things will be revealed! It is then that I will see truth Himself and all that He encompasses.
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"He who is our very life came down and took our death upon himself. He slew our death by his abundant life and summoned us in a voice of thunder to return to him in his hidden place, that place from which he set out to come to us when first he entered the Virgin's womb." ~St. Augustine
4 comments:
Sorry I’m so late in commenting on this post; though I haven’t said anything, my mind has not been idle with it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week and I have to say that these questions have been more encouraging to me than many of the attempted answers that I’ve heard regarding them. These very questions have been so fervently exhausting me in my own mind, that just to hear someone else present them in the unanswered state that they’re in makes the quest not quite so scary; indeed “We read to know we’re not alone”.
Yet am I comforted with the promise of God in John 8:32 “And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.33They answered Him, We are Abraham's offspring (descendants) and have never been in bondage to anybody. What do You mean by saying, You will be set free?34Jesus answered them, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin.35Now a slave does not remain in a household permanently (forever); the son [of the house] does remain forever.36So if the Son liberates you [makes you free men], then you are really and unquestionably free.”
It is indeed difficult to know by what means we are to find understanding or knowledge of Truth, this very promise is found in scripture, which is yet to be questioned to prove if it is credible; as you said though, we must not become such skeptics as to destroy our own logic. I do not therefore say, “Believe in scripture and nothing else”; this too would destroy itself due to the logistics of its canonization which leads back to questioning the ability of man to find and decipher what is True. What I have come to believe, I have come to believe not for the sake of comfort, nor purely by “reason”. What I believe, I cannot deny and therefore, faith is its own evidence; it is the evidence of the things unseen, and the substance of things hoped for ( Hebrews 11:1-3 “1NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].2For by [faith--[b]trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.3By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.”)
It would be easier to deny my own existence and claim that I am but a figment in my own imagination, then to deny the salvation of Christ’s redemptive work. If I don’t exist He can yet remain, but if He does not exist then I am nothing more than a result of chance, and if the deceptions of chance are my parents, I may not exist at all.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun is risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else”-C.S. Lewis. “Here I stand, I can do no other; God help me”-Martin Luther.
Yes truth is a mystery that I don't see being solved in the near future. However, that isn't an excuse to dismiss it. Because when we do; we will end up as Athens and Rome. Complete and total destruction!!
I like the way the Dr. Reynolds put it. "Truth will not set us free, rather it will destroy us." Because when the truth is revealed, in one sense it will set us free, however only after showing us our true corrupt selves. It will set us free from the danger of building oneself into something one isn't, but that could be the very thing that destroys him/her.
However, this is the very thing that drives me towards Christianity. I've always liked the quote from CSL that you posted. It rings more true the longer I pursue a deeper relationship with Christ!
Interesting. I hope you don't think I'm trying to dismiss it...on the contrary.
I actually think I might know what you mean, although it is said with a very different wording than I've ever thought......but...not really...BUT STILL! (pfh!...hehe). Hey, I added a link to your blog from my blog...is that ok with you?? I mean…I don't know, maybe you want a little privacy…and you're just on the internet to be left alone? (it could happen :o) Let me know before it publishes or else .............it's too late!!!!!...!....!!...! :-p
Yeah when I first heard him say that I was a little confused. I may have misunderstood him but that is the way I interpeted it.
Also I wasn't implying that you were dismissing it.... Just an observation I have made (or rather, heard from others observations-aka.Vishal Managalwadi)
I don't mind at all!! I'll try to add one from my blog to yours as well, but I'm not very good at adding links. If you know of an easier way PLEASE let me know!! :~P
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