What is Truth?

Imagine that I have a puzzle box in front of me. I ask you to tell me what you think is in the box. I shake the box and it sounds like pieces of a puzzle. So, you tell me that you think there is a puzzle in the box. However, I open the box to reveal a bunch of Cheerios, which sound like pieces of a puzzle rattling around in a box. Here’s the question: Did what you think was in the box have any effect on what actually was in the box? Of course not. What we think about something has absolutely no effect on it. Cheerios are Cheerios, regardless of what we think. What we think about things doesn’t change them. Have you ever seen a picture of a radio personality whose voice you were familiar with, and were then surprised when you saw a picture of him, because he didn’t look a bit like what you thought he would look like? Or perhaps you had talked with someone over the phone and then one day got to meet that person, and she did not look at all like what you thought she was going to look like. Was that person affected by what you thought she looked like? No. A short, stocky person does not become tall and thin just because you envisioned them in your mind as tall and thin. What Do We Mean When We Say God? Deidre Sullivan asked thousands of people what they meant when they said “God.” She compiled her answers in a book entitled, What Do We Mean When We Say God? The responses were all over the place.

• A lady from Missoula, Montana, said, “I believe God has some faults just like everybody. I think God is overwhelmed by what’s going on.” (p. 25)
• Philosopher Friederich Nietzsche is quoted as saying, “Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?” (p. 42)
• A young man from Yucca Valley, California, ventured the opinion that “God is the electromagnetic field surrounding the earth out of which everything is made.” (p. 58)
• A student from Harvard University said, “God is a psychological phenomenon. It doesn’t make any difference whether or not God exists because the effect of belief on people’s minds is the same.” (p. 69)
• A teenager from Yonkers, New York, suggested, “I see God as a friend, a guy I hang out with, a poker buddy, a fishing pal, someone you can relax with. In all seriousness, I can picture myself kicking back with God and having a cold one. Really, I mean it.” (p. 77)
• A gentleman from Fairfax, California, stated, “God is a very personal thing—which does not mean that He is a person. It means that each person has the opportunity to devise his own notion of what is God to him.” (p. 95)

  There is a fundamental reality that something cannot be both “A” and “non-A” at the same time. Therefore, all these different concepts of God cannot possibly be true. The most insightful quote in the entire book came from a woman from Chicago who said: “Although the peoples of the world have concluded that there are many definitions of God, there is only one. No matter what we mean when we say ‘God’ it has no real value unless God says the same thing.” (Page 124) No matter what we mean when we say God, it has no real value unless God says the same thing! Just as the Cheerios were not affected by what we thought was in the box, just as a radio personality is not affected by what we thought he would look like, so God is not affected by what we think about Him. God is what He is, regardless of what we think. And in the same way, truth is true regardless of what we believe or what we think. Truth is true regardless of what we believe Daniel Moynihan, former Senator From New York, once famously said, “We are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.” So true! So, when it comes to truth, Christians must be clear on it. We are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. In the Bible, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” Again, he said, in a prayer to God for his disciples, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.” Truth is outside us. It is objective and determined by God. Jesus also said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) If we hope to be set free in the living of our lives, we must embrace the reality that there is such a thing as absolute truth, that it is God who determines truth, and that we must align our lives with it. For some helpful tips on knowing and reinforcing truth from the Bible, if you haven’t done so already, download my free 15 minute video Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You.

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