What is Truth?

Do you feel any frustration these days about what is true and what is not?  If so, I share in it.  First we have the dialogue that occurs daily between liberals and conservatives regarding the issues of the day.  For example, are the children of migrants coming into the United States from Mexico being treated inhumanely, or is it like a “summer camp”?  Liberals believe the detention is an outrage while conservatives say that our laws require it, and that these laws were passed by liberals back in 1997.  Fact checkers claim that their efforts track down the real truth.  But can we trust them?  What is truth?

There is the ongoing debate concerning faith and science.  Those on the science side of the debate say that science has proven key points of religious faith to be simply false and that we can only believe what science has proven to be true.  Those on the faith side of the debate say that the complexity of creation proves the existence of a deity and that, over time, ongoing scientific research has shown many scientific “facts” to actually be false, proving that the public should keep an open mind.  What is truth?

There is also the continuing debate concerning which Cristian faith is the true Christian faith.  Catholics claim that they have the fullness of the truth, in that Christ Himself founded the Catholic Church and it is the only faith that is true to everything God has revealed through Christ.  Protestants, believers in such doctrines as Sola Fide (Faith Alone) and Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone), claim that the Church that Christ founded got off track around the third or fourth century and that the Reformation finally got it right.  Even within these Christian faiths there are disagreements, i.e., conservative and liberal factions.  What is truth? 

Interestingly enough, “What is truth?” is a passage from the Sacred Scripture.  See John 19:38.  It was Pilate whose frustration was showing through when he was trying to decide whether Jesus should be turned over to the crowd to be crucified.  Pilate questioned Jesus and found his responses to be unworthy of the death sentence.  He claimed to be a king, and that that is why he was born, why he came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears his voice.  (John 19:37).  Hearing this, Pilate, frustrated, uttered the famous question.

What should our response be to all this frustration?  Prayer, I think.  Within the Lord’s prayer, prayed by both Protestants and Catholics alike, liberals and conservatives alike, we pray that God’s will be done:  “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  Let us commit to praying the Lord’s Prayer with this intention in mind; that the frustrations we experience in our current lives on Earth will melt away and that God’s will would ultimately be done in all modern day conflicts.  Amen!