“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate sneeringly asked those words of our Lord some two thousand years ago, and many of us still haven’t found the answer. All too often we like to pretend that truth is relative and subjective as opposed to objective. This terrible error is to our own detriment because it prevents us from embracing the beauty of truth. The existence of objective truth can be easily proved, and it is important to understand its ramifications.
So how do we know that there is only one truth? Deep down, we all actually already know this simple fact, but we often choose to selectively apply it to our lives. The truth is harsh, they say, and it is quite true that we often can’t handle the truth. But no matter how we may feel about the truth, nothing we think, do, or say can ever have any affect on the truth. We accept this every time we use any scientific principles. Newton’s laws are true no matter what anyone says about them. When our favorite sports team loses the championship, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to reverse that truth. We accept the notion of one truth in these everyday circumstances, so how can we think any differently when it comes to things like morals that really matter?
The problem is that we have relegated morals to the realm of tastes. When it comes to tastes, there is not only one truth. My favorite ice cream may be chocolate, while yours may be vanilla. This is perfectly acceptable because the question of tastes is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But morals are not. Morals form the basis for all of our actions, and thus morals determine everything. We are none the worse if the majority of our population decides vanilla is their favorite ice cream, but we are in serious danger when a majority begins to support immoral things such as adultery.
Our own American society has largely chosen to abandon the notion of one truth as it pertains to morals, and we are certainly reaping what we have sown. Nearly every possible undesirable action within a society is now on the rise. And how can we reverse the trend when we have no argument to use against these atrocities! Indeed, the relegation of morals to the realm of tastes has been the precise cause of our cultural death spiral. We are now left defenseless as the degenerates use this very argument to justify their crimes. How can we logically condemn an adulterer or child-molester when we constantly preach tolerance of so-called alternate lifestyles? Are not the lifestyles of these immoral persons simply “alternate?” The moment we attempt to condemn any immoral action we are implicitly acknowledging the idea of one truth. We have to follow this notion to its logical conclusion, no matter how much pain it may cause us.
If morals are of the utmost importance, then the book from which we have learned so many of these morals is crucial to our cultural success. The dilution of the Bible goes hand in hand with the disintegration of our morals. In much the same way as morals have been reduced to a matter of simple tastes, the Bible has apparently been left to “individual interpretation.” The absurdity of such a claim is evident when one considers that teachers are required to walk through textbooks with their students in order to give those students a full understanding of the texts. How much more so do we need direction then when it comes to the most important book of them all!? The Bible is no mere school subject–it is a fundamental building block of our lives. Just as there is only truth when it comes to science subjects in a textbook, there is only one truth as it pertains to the Bible. We are not permitted to simply devise our own theories of meaning for the Sacred Scriptures any more than we could do such a thing for science texts. Every verse in the Bible has only one meaning, one truth, and we must seek out instructors who know that truth in order to learn it from them.
The truth can be a very hard thing to accept because it hits so close to home. All of us are affected by the truth. All of our actions are based on our morals, so it is imperative to have the correct morals. This is not a matter of mere taste, and we are not permitted to have “alternate lifestyles.” There is only one truth. We must each seek it out, and then embrace its beauty. The truth is referred to as such because of its intrinsically individualistic nature. A lie is simply one version out of an unlimited cesspool. We cannot evade the truth of one truth forever, so let us all determine today to embrace it while we still have the choice.
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