Forgotten Truths

This topic endears itself strongly to me and I suspect that this particular blog may come to characterize everything I write on here. I do not wish to hazard projections since I have not been very consistent on this blog yet, so we shall see what I have grace to endure in. For now, I will let this remain a single post, and pray that it will develop further.

It is a sobering reality that great and important truths are often lost sight of in succeeding generations and when such a truth is rediscovered, it's no less than groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting, such as events in history like the Copernican Revolution or the Enlightenment. The desperately tragic nature of losing sight of truth amplifies the awesome reverence that comes from rediscovering truth. Perhaps this is more evident than ever in the current generation, where even the idea of truth is contested. Thus, our title "Forgotten Truths" is compounded; it's not just certain truths that we have forgotten. There's a tragic realization coming to me that Truth itself is being forgotten by the current generation. I am very concerned that I'm not speaking in hyperbole here when I say this: I fear that the very deep notion and instinct of absolute, objective truth that resides outside of our own subjective experiences may actually be an instinct that some have never experienced and they actually doubt it's existence. I can not overstate how alarming and tragic this is to me if it's true.

Let me begin with a personal story. I was at a conference and as I listened to the speaker (I don't remember who, and I don't remember the topic), I remember being stirred on the inside and a proclamation reverberated through my soul: "Let Truth vindicate Himself." and then, "Let Truth vindicate Himself in and through me." This phrase indicates to me an important principle about Truth: it IS objective and outside of us. Therefore, it's greater, more powerful and solid, regardless of how we feel. Absolute truth, if absolute, is true, even if our opinion differs from it, or we feel that something else is true. Absolute truth is true, even if we don't believe it. It is not controlled by our belief. It just is. Our belief doesn't affect truth; our belief affects US. If in line with truth, we live as authentic people. If we don't believe and therefore live in truth, then we live a lie. People today don't seem to grasp this. They believe that we can make our own truth. This is a lie.

However, the cry of postmoderns to have felt and experiential truth is not lost. There's a forgotten truth nugget hidden in the cry that if truth, then that truth must be felt and experienced; it must be true FOR ME! And this is true! Therefore, objective and absolute truth must COME IN and define our experience and feelings. If we can subjectively connect with absolute truth, then what kind of people will we be! Authentic, genuine, and true, through and through!

Postmodern thought's pitfall is the arbitrary assignment of truth to every humanly held value and experience. The solution for postmodern thought us not to create our own truth. It is to receive objective truth into our experience so that objective truth can define it and become our experience! We must be people who subjectively experience objective truth. 

Finally, truth by nature is exclusive, for it automatically excludes everything that is not true. If there is truth, there is falsehood. If there is spiritual truth, there are also spiritual lies. If there is a God, then there are demons who seek to spiritually counterfeit his work. When postmoderns charge the defenders of objective truth with "insensitivity" or "intolerance" they expose their own insanity. Truth, by nature is open-minded to truth. Truth is reasonable and therefore, it can take challenges, perspective, and nuance. But, truth cannot mean open-mindedness to lies. To do so, is to compromise the very nature of truth. Truth can have no relationship with lies.

I heard someone say, "Truth is not perfect balance like a complacent mediocrity. Truth is equal extremes in all directions." While truth does have a very moderate temperature to it in that moderation is a helpful principle in discerning truth, truth is extreme. It has no toleration for anything that is flatly untrue. Thus, truth-lovers must be extremists in this one sense: utter devotion to actual truth, and utter rejection of anything that's not. I'm not denying the gray areas of nuance, but I am denying the blatant lies that sometimes underlie some of the discussions around those gray areas.

People! Friends! Truth exists. If we don't regard absolute truth, it remains absolute truth and our demise can only be at hand in it's rejection.


To be continued, I pray, by God's grace...

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