The Truth is What God Says it Is
November 7, 2021
I’ve been wrestling with truth this week for some reason. It’s a bit of a silly thing to wrestle with. How do you wrestle something you can’t touch? And why would you want to wrestle something as innocent and benign as truth?
Fair points, but I am who I am, and I like a good tussle, so this is where I’m at. Or maybe that’s the real issue I’m wrestling with, whether or not truth is something to be wrestled. We seem to have gotten in the habit of stating the truth, and expecting it to be self evident, as if all statements of truth are equal—“that cedar is green,” “that action is loving,” “that thing is good,” “God is real.”
We don’t need to have a discussion about whether or not that cedar tree is green. It simply is. We can both see it and know it. But to act like we can treat other statements in the same way is folly. “That action is loving.” This may be true, but often not in the same sense as “that cedar is green.” When we treat it as “objectively true” in the same sense as “that cedar is green,” and someone else comes along and disagrees, there’s no room for discussion on either side. Dialogue breaks down and polarization ensues.
“That thing is good.” Is it, though? Who says it’s good, and how do they know? Is hard work and sweating good? Is an easy life of leisure good? Is there an objectively true answer here?
“God is real.” Here is the most important truth of all. If anything is true, it is God. But the existence of God is not a self-evident truth. If the existence of God is objectively true, I don’t know how to prove it.
God is real and the resurrection of Jesus is real. These are two truths that have deeply shaped my life and my reality. But they also stand over and against other truths that I’ve learned through the years. This is a lesson I’m still trying to learn, hence the wrestling. I think the way through is not by appealing to objective truth, but by leaning into how subjective truth is, trusting that when we allow God to steer us, he will lead us into his truth, the truth.
It works something like this. I can’t prove objectively that God is real or Jesus was resurrected. I have good reasons for believing both of those things, but nothing approaching the elimination of doubt. Rather, I see the evidence pulling me in that direction and I choose to follow. I choose to believe God is real. I choose to believe God worked the resurrection. And because of that, I hold all other truth claims up to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
Is self-reliance good? It depends—to what extent was Jesus self-reliant? Was that action loving? I don’t know; did it look like something Jesus would have done? As Christians, we strive to accept that truth is what God says it is, even when the world teaches us otherwise.
—John Coffey
