God is Absolute Truth

The theme of Spoudazo (If you don't know what this is, this has a pretty good description:  http://www.flc-ne.org/youth/Spoudazo.html) this year is "The Truth Will Set You Free."  Since I found out about this theme, it seems like several things about truth (or Truth) or fairness or equality or absolute morals have come up since then.  So I want to share a few, reflect on a few.  This blog is just as much a journal for me to look back on later down the road as it is a place to share the things I'm discovering through God with others that choose to read.  :)  This post is going to reference a few links, you don't have to follow them unless you are interested in reading further.  I'll try to explain the point each link makes as I write.

First, truth.  What is truth?  The literal definition tells us that truth is a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, or principle.  However, in our society, name one thing that is indisputable.  Beyond basic things like mathematical principles (2+2 is always 4, I'm not sure anyone would or could dispute that) and physics principles (the apple will always fall down from the tree, it doesn't hover in space or fly up in the air without some other force...) that govern how our world operates, that's about where the indisputable things of this world stop.  Outside of this, there are a lot of opinions, a lot of false truths, and a lot of gray area.

Something else that tends to come up, at least in academia, is the thought that there is no such thing as absolute truth.  While I've always disagreed with this view, it was put in a really interesting way in this post:  http://spoudazo2011.blogspot.com/2011/06/does-absolute-truth-exist-absolutely.html.  Basically, Tim (the author of this post) says that while many claim there is no such thing as absolute truth, no one actually believes that.  No one's words and actions actually reflect that.  For instance, if a person takes a stand on anything and uses the argument, "It's not fair" or "It's not right"-well, "fair" is a moral standard, an absolute truth!  But who determines what "fair" or "rightness" is?

And that brings me to my next reference.  I was reading a devotion the other day, and there was a quote that really caught my eye.  The devotion was about right and wrong and questioning how we usually go about making a decision.  It definitely caused me to re-evaluate my decision making process in life, to at least think about why or how I make decisions and how I SHOULD make decisions.  Anyway, the part of this devotion that really caught my eye was this:  "Right and wrong are determined by God, who is the original, the universal, the absolute standard for everything that is good and right.  For example, lying is wrong because God is true.  Stealing is wrong because God is just.    Hatred is wrong because God is love."  (Parts of this devotion can be found:  http://www.josh.org/site/c.ddKDIMNtEqG/b.4186681/apps/s/content.asp?ct=7792551).  How cool is that?  I've never thought about it in quite that way!  We have the commandments that show us how God wants us to live-but why does He want us to live that way?  Why are the commandments the "right" thing to follow?  They are the right thing to follow because they are the character of God!

And this brings me back to the point of Truth.  In our world, there are many things that are true.  My car is blue, I am fairly well-off financially (especially when compared to other parts of our world...), I am a fairly small person...but all of these truths come from comparisons.  They aren't Truths.  Some people could call my car gray-blue.  A child who grew up in Beverly Hills would probably consider me pretty poor.  A child in Africa who is lucky to get one meal a day would probably not consider me very small at all.  These things are my truths, but they are not Truth.  Truth with a little "t" is influenced by our lives, our cultures, our opinions, and the way we view things.  Truth (with a capital "T") is more along the lines of the dictionary definition-an indisputable fact.  It's how God see things, and it is perfect or absolute Truth because it is the ONE right way.    As I said earlier, 2+2=4 -that's pretty indisputable.  But what about big ideas, like fairness or equality or morals?  Where is the Truth in these?  It's in God!  When we find what God thinks fairness or equality is, we can truly learn about this big ideas.  Granted, we are humans, as long as we are on this Earth, we can't help but to view things through the lenses of our societies and viewpoints that result from that.  However, because He created our world-we should be reflections of Him.  We should be looking to Him for the answers to what things are fair, what our moral standards should be.  Going back to the quote from the devotion, we can find these truths within the character of God.  God is love...therefore, we should not hate.  We should strive to know God, so we can know and understand the types of things He desires for us.  We are made in God's image-and our life will be most fulfilling when we live it in the way God wants us to-as a reflection of Him.  :)

Thought for the day:  How do we learn who God is?  What are some ways we can strive towards Truth instead of the truths (that are multiple and variable) that we create in our world?