For those of you who have seen this before, please forgive me for posting it again. It is the other article that was included in the letter to Garrett, and is necessary in order to clarify the different types of "Truth" mentioned in the first one.
Lonewolf
“What Is Truth?”
To my readers: This article is not for the purpose of “instructing” you in anything, but simply submitted in the hope that you can use some of these concepts or (especially desired) add to them. My thought is that we all use up too much time and effort fighting over our respective “truths” and completely overlook the marvelous opportunity to use other’s insights to advance the body of human knowledge beyond where it is now.
Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) is as apropos now as it was then. Billions of people have pondered that question down over the milleniums.
Ever since mankind has come into existence they have been gaining in knowledge. It was slow at first and gradually picked up speed until, in the past two centuries, it has literally exploded. That knowledge has turned much, if not most, of our ancestor's knowledge on its head.
This steady advance in knowledge is normal, natural, and prophesied. It was mentioned numerous times in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13: 9-12 is a good example, while 1 Peter 1: 11, 12 enlarges on it to the extent that even the angels themselves were looking forward to additional knowledge. Ezekiel's vision as recorded in Ezekiel 47: 1-6 is especially enlightening inasmuch as most authorities understand that the "water" spoken of here is a reference to knowledge and how it increases down through the centuries.
Due to this factor, then, we function on the premise that everything is subject to examination and nothing and no one is too sacred to escape that examination.
The Three Kinds of Truth
A learned friend of mind, a professor of ethics in an eastern university, divided truth into these three categories:
1. Absolute Truth --- That truth which corresponds to absolute reality, and is usually known only to our heavenly creator and to those whom he decides to give it. The term "absolute reality" refers to the totality of knowledge that exists on any given subject as viewed through His eyes.
2. Relative Truth --- The progress that we imperfect humans make toward gaining "Absolute Truth", but never quite reach in spite of our best efforts. There is always more to learn.
3. Relative Truth Believed Absolutely --- A "Relative Truth" that we have gained such confidence in that we refuse to consider any further evidence concerning it.
I find this concept fascinating in that it is a way to structure knowledge and emphasize to all regardless of our education or intelligence, that there is a whole world of “truth” out there that is as yet untouched. To those who understand it, it tends to reduce conflict and encourage the sharing of viewpoints without ego interfering with our helping one another to advance. It is a way to sharpen one another’s “face”, as the scripture says. (Prov. 27:17) It’s a whole new frontier where everyone can explore and be thrilled by their part in it.
It also clearly depicts a danger that we are all prone to make.
Expanded Thinking
We might view it in this manner:
Truth is much like an artichoke. It has many leaves and each leaf has a small amount of nutrient under it. Most people will pull off a few leaves, be satisfied with what they’ve found, and never think that it would be advantageous to pull off a few more to see what is under them too.
To illustrate: Most of us know that 1+1=2. It becomes to many a “relative truth believed absolutely’ that they ‘know’ and won’t question. However, is it always?
What if we are dealing in the binary base where the only numbers used are “0” and “1”? Then it isn’t 2, it’s 10. At one time, such a concept would have been considered a silly mind game, but now that principle is the very heart of the computer world. They wouldn’t work without it. Who would have believed a century ago that the binary base would come to have such importance in the world now?
Or what if we are in the world of biology? There 1+1 can equal 2, or 200, or 2,000, or 2,000,000. It all depends upon how long the 1 has been with the other 1. Look at the rabbits in Australia and all of the environmental damage they’ve caused.
Please note that neither of these “expanded” concepts contradicts the original. They merely add to the standard body of “Truth”.
Another example of the different layers of truth would be a riddle I’ll bet you’ve heard. It’s about a bear hunter and goes like this:
The hunter woke up in the morning, ate breakfast, grabbed his rifle and left camp looking for bears. After walking one mile due south, he spotted a bear to the east. Heading due east, he caught up to the bear and shot and killed it at a point exactly one mile from where he first saw it. After skinning it out, he packed the hide exactly one mile due north, which brought him back to his camp, only to discover that another bear had raided the camp.
Now, what was the color of the bear that raided the camp?
Most people will say that the problem is impossible in the first place, as if one were to go one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north, he won’t be back at his camp. He’ll still be one mile east of camp.
Others, though, will feel good about themselves as they’ve recognized that the clues are in the directions. They can see that if the camp was set up exactly on the North Pole, you would end up right back where you started. The eastern leg would be merely an arc going around the pole. From there the answer is obvious. The bear was white.
However, we can take this one step further. There is an infinity of other places upon the earth where we can follow the same directions and still get back to the same place. Can you tell me the general locale where they exist, and what the route will look like?
It is this “expanded thinking” that can be extremely valuable. It is from there that we gain new knowledge and add to our ‘”relative truths”. Just like wandering through an unexplored wilderness, one never knows what will be discovered.
Identifying Those “Leaves”
One way to discover new knowledge is to search for commonalties or “patterns” in things that are seemingly unrelated.
An excellent example of one would be the experience of Dmitri I. Mendeleev and the way he came to formulate his Periodic Table of Elements. He noticed that some of the various elements had similar qualities, and that they appeared on a predictable basis in relationship to their atomic weight. (For further information, please check him out in the encyclopedia.)
But let’s look at an example in another subject. The need for love, peace, kindness, honesty, integrity, and a host of other qualities are yearned for by people of all races, languages, and eras. The laws as set forth by Genghis Khan reflect an astonishingly similar value system as that of the laws given to Israel, even though the man was neither Christian or Jewish nor familiar with either. That these same feelings are found in all peoples is de facto evidence that this is the way that Jehovah designed us, as well as a witness to His qualities.
I would say in regard to the ‘heavenly court case’ that is going on right now between Jehovah and Satan, that a good attorney could make a beautiful ‘closing argument’ on the basis of that one commonality alone. Satan keeps maintaining that all humans prefer his ways of doing things, but when humans strive to get as close to Jehovah’s ways as possible even when they are unaware of them, it makes Satan look like a fool.
It has been said that much can be told about an artist by examining his works. If even the stones can bear a witness (Luke 19:40), how much more can a living thing? This is why I have always laughed at the concept of removing all windows from Kingdom Halls, ostensibly for the reason that the young will be less distracted from the proceedings under way. If the truth was known, the average tree can give a better witness to Jehovah’s qualities than the average elder. One just has to know how to “read” the language.
Of course, both are valuable, each in its own unique way. They compliment each other.
Another Valuable Resource
There are those who frown on reading or dealing with contrary thought. Those who do, appear to have forgotten a few things. In 1 Cor. 9:19-20, Paul speaks of how he strove to become different things to different people in order that “ . . . I may become a sharer of it (the good news) with others.” To do that means becoming familiar with what and how they believe. At times it is necessary to know their beliefs even better than they do.
Of course, that by no means indicates that we should become exactly what they are, even as the passage points out more than once. Rather, he’s saying that it is necessary to know their thought processes. In a very real way it is like learning another language, it’s just that the two languages happen to use the same words.
Then too, we might just ask ourselves these questions: Is truth weaker than falsehood? If not, then why are we afraid?
Here are some other advantages to knowing contrary thought:
a. Contrary thought provides the questions that need answered.
b. Most advances spring from unusual, independent, or heretical thinking. Even if an idea is totally crazy, it may trigger a good one in someone else’s mind.
c. In looking over our work, we can contrast it with the old and see the advantages for ourselves.
d. So that we will have the tools and freedom necessary to make a decision for ourselves, and glory in that freedom, which incidentally, is the only way to formulate the type of answer that Jehovah requests of us.
A Matter of Perspective
We need to keep in mind that the “truth” we possess right now is miniscule in comparison to everything that can be learned. Look at it this way:
If, in the 1600's, we would have walked across the room, flicked a switch on the wall and a bright light suddenly appeared in the ceiling, we would have probably been hung for witchcraft.
Or, to use another example, picture two of the most intelligent men of their age, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, trying to understand and fix one of today's computers when it was broken down.
When we look into the past and compare our knowledge now with what they had then, we appear to be light years ahead of them. That makes us feel good and flatters our egos. But in the process we tend to forget that there is far more yet to learn; many more “leaves” to discover on our “truths”.
We could say that we are like a sand flea on the beach in Alaska. Every evening at dusk they migrate down to the water line and every dawn go right back up to the vegetation line to sleep during the day. All we are is like the one who decided to go a little farther, climbed the 15 foot bank above the shore and looked out at the magnificent view that no other sand flea in history ever saw.
He would be quite proud of himself, wouldn't he? He may even wish to lord it over his fellows and claim to have all knowledge. But what he doesn't realize is that a few miles further inland, there is a mountain that goes up another 20,305 feet. That rather dwarfs his measly 15 feet, doesn't it? How are we any different?
How foolish we are to allow any of our "truths" to become "relative truths believed absolutely"!