Is Truth Relevant To Understanding or is Understanding Relevant To Truth?
Truth At The Cross
Some say that truth is relevant to understanding. If this false premise were so, then truth would be limited to our feeble ability to comprehend the unknowable. Indeed, there would be no truth that could transcend the inadequate knowledge of mankind. Since understanding is disbursed among us on an unequal basis, there would be no absolute truth, and every man should have the unalienable right to pursue that, which is right in his own eyes.
However, when the counterfeit premise is reversed it correctly proclaims that understanding is relevant to truth. This means that our capacity to understand is limited only by our refusal to accept truth as an independent certainty. Truth exists with or without our permission, our knowledge, or our understanding. On the other hand, without truth, there is no knowledge, and no possibility of accurate understanding. Truth declares what is right. It is up to man to seek understanding.
Sometimes we have only a part of the truth. As such, the truth may sometimes appear to change. Yet any correct application of the situation recognizes that it is merely our understanding that changed.
In the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers penned these words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
How did they determine certain truths to be self-evident? What made them so confident that all men are created equal?
By simple common sense, we recognize that not all people are born equal in personal skills, talents, financial status, physical makeup, character, personality, and more. In spite of our fantasies to the contrary, life presents opportunities to some that are never available to others. If our forefathers were merely trying to say that we all start out with an equal opportunity to reach the top of the mountain, they missed the mark of honesty. But if they were saying that all have an equal right to make the best of their own circumstances, then there was truth in the understanding.
Perhaps clarity lies in the closing statement within our great document of freedom:
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”.
Each person made a mutual pledge to give the best of what they had to give. Each person displays confidence in the certainty that a higher truth holds right above evil.
Who is this “Divine Providence”? What is the meaning of the term? Why do these men who establish the words of freedom consistently make mention of the Almighty Creator. Look back and see how that this same Creator is also called upon at the beginning of our Declaration of Independence.
The understanding is in the truth. Seek it and you shall find it. Recognize its value and give all that you have for the cost of it. It will not change. It will not grow stale. The very God that makes it so will uphold it.
Concerning the faith and the beliefs of our forefathers, do not permit liars to deceive you. Do not enable thieves to rob you of the truth. Jesus Christ is God, Redeemer, and Savior. Those who established this nation set it forth upon the truth of a Holy and Righteous God.
Without truth, there is no understanding.
“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding,” (
Proverbs 23:23).
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