"What is Truth?"

This morning I read the question, "What is Truth?" The author posing the question then answers the question by quoting something that Jesus allegedly said, that God's Word is truth.

I thought about the question, leaving Jesus aside.
Carol, what is Truth?
Truth is the opposite of a lie. Lies are fables. 
Truth then must be reality, life as it is including events that really happen(ed), and not fables. 

Both fables and reality claim facts and circumstances and motives. The difference is that one story really happened or happens; the other didn't or doesn't. One is true; the other, false.

So I was left pondering reality as truth.

~*~

The author continues, "Truth is not relative."

I agree. Truth [reality] is not relative. Nothing trumps reality. Reality is. In a sense, it is the ultimate power and judge.

I believe that nature must be the closest example we have of reality [truth]. She plays no favorites. Nature is. We see her raw power on display, though the forces themselves may be invisible to the naked eye.

Human actions do have an effect on nature and her forces, and thus on reality. But ultimately we have to surrender to reality, facing consequences or blessings.

~*~

The author continues, "God expresses His will to us with words so that we can understand Him."

That sentence stopped me in my reading tracks.
Really?! God relegates the vastness and multi-layered aspects of truth [reality] to mere words on a page? That is how I can understand a universal creator? By reading words on a page?

My past Way-brain instantaneously reminded me that's really not what I learned or believed as a Way believer.

God's Word involves more than words on a page; it includes oral words and the Word in the flesh, Jesus. And God first wrote His Word not on a page, but rather in the stars, telling the story of redemption in the zodiac and beyond. Much of the meaning though is contained within the names of those stars which were all passed along orally until God later had to have his certain chosen prophets pen that revelation to have a document, a standard, because as the earth became/becomes more and more filled with people and as the adversary (the devil) worked/works more and more to deceive, humans need a written standard that they can always go back to as a touchstone. 

To make things even more constraining and complicated, the author then states, "It [the Word] can be rightly-divided by studying to show ourselves approved unto God, or used to purport the adversary's ideas. It can be understood and believed because it interprets itself in the verse, its context, or how it has been spoken of previously! Truth does not contradict itself from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21."

So now in order to understand a universal creator, who is God my Father, I have this written standard that I have to figure out? But I have to be diligent because it can be distorted into whatever way the devil wants in order to purport his lies?

And the whole spiel about the Word interpreting itself in the verse, in the context, and used before sounds like gobblygook. On the other hand, if one thinks about it, that is how written language works, along with definitions and multiple aspects that grammarians and linguists and sociologists and other "ists"  have studied.

Should I do the same with my kids? Give them my written standard and tell them to read it in order to know me and understand me, but be sure to interpret it properly because there's a devil who'll twist it? So my kids ask, "How do we know when he's twisting it?" I answer, "My motive is always love. So if it contradicts love, it's wrong. Just keep reading. And remember, it all has to fit with no contradictions."

All this feels like a straitjacket trying to squeeze the life right out of life.

~*~

As I continued to read the rest of the author's epistle on "What is Truth," I got to thinking (yet again) about myth and belief.
I guess from the time humans tried to start answering the question "Why?" they have surmised and calculated and invented "answers" to help cope through the hardships and turmoil and heartbreak and evil that life can pound. These answers form beliefs that, in addition to explaining the evil, give more meaning to the magic of life, the inexplicable happenstances, the beauty, the power of nature and the cosmos.

So it's about survival. Trying to cope with and explain life.
And we cling to that which resonates for us -- our beliefs.
That resonance is different for different people.
Beliefs can be good, as long as those beliefs aren't used to manipulate and harm, which is sadly too often the case.

~*~

I often wonder, What do I really believe?

I believe there are forces, unseen and still undiscovered, that can cause circumstances to appear as if they are supernatural. I do not believe these yet undiscovered forces or their resulting impacts are any more supernatural than the current discoverable forces of nature, which are beyond incredible. Humans have not yet even conceived of measuring tools to illuminate these yet undiscovered currents or forces. And once we invent those tools, there'll probably still be a multitude of yet undiscovered layers.

I wonder if we'll ever stop trying to peer beyond?

I wonder if we'll come up with a belief measuring tool?
That's a scary thought.

Do I believe there is a benevolent creator behind those discovered-and-undiscovered forces?
I want to, but I still can't say for sure.
But I want to believe there is "something" and that I'll be delightfully surprised in the hereafter. 

Perhaps, nature is my "god" now.
I certainly hold her in great awe.
And I've taken up praying to trees.
I swear they hear me.

God's Acre, Bethabara