The Truth Is Always The Truth, No Matter Who Says It
Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
There is no doubt in this world but that the sun rises in the east every morning and sets in the west every night.
There is no doubt in this world but that spring follows winter, summer follows spring, autumn follows summer, and winter follows autumn.
At all times, and in all places, these things, and many more besides, are always true.
Yet because such things are always true, they remain true even if the most inveterate liar of all says them. No matter what lies, no matter what hatreds, a man may utter, if he says to anyone, “the sun rises in the east”, he is still speaking the truth.
Thus we may immediately know something about the nature of truth: it is necessarily absolute. It relies on no condition, it hinges on no aspect of the speaker. No matter who speaks the truth, it is always the truth.
Thus we may understand something else: when we hear the truth, if we reject it because we reject the one who speaks that truth, we are turning away from the truth. If we refuse to hear someone because we reject his past, or his politics, or his philosophy, or any aspect of him at all, if in that moment he should speak the truth we reject that truth.
Truth is absolute. It does not rely on a particular sort of messenger. It is not made more nor less true by the selection of these or those words. Whatever is true is still true even when we despise the one who speaks that truth, or are discomfited by the words used to express that truth.
The teaching that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves is just as true when said by the most devout Christian as when said by the most committed atheist.
However, this absolute nature of truth, and its independence of the one who speaks it, leaves us with a problem: how to recognize when truth is being spoken?
Not everything that is said is necessarily true. Those whom we trust and love most dearly can still speak things which are not true. They can be inaccurate. They can be wrong. They can even be untrustworthy, opting to lie in the moment because the truth somehow discomfits them.
Our enemies can speak the most noble truths. Our friends can speak the foulest of lies. The atheist can quote Bible verse perfectly. The Christian might struggle to conceal the most contemptible of personal lies.
How can we be sure that the most committed atheist is articulating moral truths or moral abominations?
How can we be sure that the most devout Christian is articulating moral truths or moral abominations?
The only way to know whether what people say is true is to listen—to set aside prejudice and bias, and genuinely listen to what people have to say. Even if most of what people say is not true, if we do not listen effectively we will miss the moments when what they say is true. If we fail to hear even those we dislike, we risk missing moments of truth, never knowing if another such moment will come to pass.
We must listen to everyone we encounter, even when most of what they speak is one form or lie or another. Whether we love someone or hate someone, to dismiss what they say is to potentially dismiss a vital truth.
Is that a risk any of us truly wishes to take?
Conversely, if we ourselves utter lies, how are others to know when we speak the truth? If we speak anything but the truth, do we not in some degree conceal the truth?
In all things, is not truth the essential teaching? Is not truth the wisdom we all seek and prize above all else? And if we prize the truth above all else, and seek it, shall we disdain from receiving it because of where we find it, or from whom we hear it?
If we prize the truth above all else, shall we withhold it from others by speaking lies?
The truth is always the truth. The truth is eternal. The truth is timeless. The truth is the true north for every compass, moral or otherwise.
It matters not who speaks truth, who holds it, who passes it on. It matters not where we find truth. It matters that we receive truth when we find truth. It matters that we share truth with those around us.
No matter who is speaking around you, listen for the truth. Hear the truth. Be open to the truth.
For the truth is always the truth. No matter who speaks it, truth will always be truth.
More of your admirable traits, Peter. You are rigorously fact-based, you highly value knowledge, you seek the truth, and you remain open-minded to all you encounter, because you recognize that anyone may speak truth and you are open to it. This is wisdom.
I would add that we must remain open to finding ultimate truths in the broadest possible sense. Cosmologists have stated that 94% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy, ‘dark’ in the sense that we know absolutely nothing about it. As science discovers attributes regarding these unknowns, who knows how the new knowledge will overturn scientific ‘truths’ we accept as fact today?
Personally, I think much of the dark energy may turn out to be Consciousness (all that is God, however we conceptualize Him), but science doesn’t have a way of dealing with this yet. We need to remain open-minded and open-hearted to be receptive to the Truths that are imparted from that realm.
A major reason I stopped going to church was because they always quoted this guy Paul instead of the actual words of Jesus himself. I ended up playing a game where I counted up who was being quoted. The final score was always around 8x from Paul, 1x from the OT, and 1x from Jesus. I found this not only bizarre but also disturbing because Paul seemed to say different things from Jesus. If Jesus is all we need, why Paul?