And Ye Shall Know the Truth…

It would be well at times to turn our attention to Pilate’s timeless question, “What is truth?”—for on the answer to this hangs all we are or ever hope to be. On the answer hang our health and happiness, or peace and purpose, the meaning of life, of time and eternity. (We can never be assured of health of happiness of peace or purpose, unless we face the facts, the truth, about ourselves, and about the things we should or shouldn’t indulge in, the things we should or shouldn’t do.)

“What is truth?” Shakespeare said: “Truth is truth to the end of reckoning,” which is like another definition which says that truth is the absolute opposite of what is hanging and transitory: that “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” Of this, however, we may be sure: Truth doesn’t depend upon the theories and opinions of people. If men are mistaken, and if we follow their mistakes, that won’t change truth. Socrates suggested this when he said: “If you will be persuaded by me, pay little attention to Socrates, but much more to the truth.”

Some fear the truth. Some have reason to. Some suppose it to be dangerous, uncomfortable—and often it is. Truth is so dangerous it sometimes makes martyrs of men. And of course it is fatally dangerous to falsehood. It is disturbing to complacency, to lazy thinking. It is disturbing to minds that are too comfortably closed. And because truth is dangerous and disturbing there are always some who would suppress it, and some who would dispense it sparingly. But disturbing or not, we are faced with this fact: Truth is never as dangerous as falsehood, never as dangerous as error, never as dangerous as deceit, and not nearly so dangerous as ignorance is.

Perhaps the most satisfying utterance as to truth is this sentence from the Master of mankind: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” With this kind of counsel, we must look for truth wherever it is. Theories come and go. Popular opinions persist for a while. Fashions have their cycles, and fuzzy ideas have there seasons of acceptance—but truth is the only thing we can safely count on. We should seek it, see it, speak it, accept, accept it and follow wherever truth takes us—for it is not nearly so dangerous as ignorance is.