Truth – an understanding
Son,
We talked about faith and knowledge – there is another confusing word TRUTH. Let us begin with an example:
Ptolemy postulated about 200 CE. that the Sun and the stars rotated around the earth. This became the known truth for about 1700 years. It was a very convenient scientific truth because it fit the theology that man was the center of God’s universe. The theology and the science worked well together and everyone accepted the scientific TRUTH.
Copernicus came alone in the 1500’s and said, “No, I don’t think so.” They put him in prison for heresy. It was not enough that he violated the truth of science – he violated and threatened the truth of scripture. Fearful and ignorant Christians condemned him with vigor. He was a little bit wrong. He did not understand that the earth traveled in an elliptical rotation around the sun. That was figured out about fifty years later by Galileo. The Church put him in prison too.
So what was true became not true. That really presents a philosophical problem. If the truth is the truth then should it always be true, could it have ever been not true?
I believe that truth is a constant. We may not understand it or know it – but it is constant. The truths that we know today are only true to the extent of our knowledge.
If one has faith that something is true – then it is a spiritual truth. A scientific truth or a factual truth is not about faith – it simply is.
Dad
Comment by Joe on 10 October 2007:
What a great topic. Truth is constant and deciphering it is difficult. Until you have experienced or seen something for yourself, the truth is…? Its seem to me spiritual truth and factual truth are not distinguished by many as different things.
Theories are not truths, they are theories. They are used in pondering, and as part of the scientific process, which in turn either diproves the theory or proves it as scientific fact. Thus factual truth, not theory.
Politics- Look at the candidates voting records, and pay attention to what they say. The best you can hope to do is exercise some spiritual truth- having faith that what you hear is true.
Spiritual truth is sometimes dangerous, when in the cases of Copernicus and Galileo it was ignorance and spiritual faith that lead to thier problems. I believe that arrogance also falls into this category. It is no less dangerous to be so ignorant in arrogance to force change due to self-importance.
I have a basic system of beliefs that I am building on and is everchanging. I do have spiritual beliefs and I make no attempts to deny them, but I do also respect others rights and beliefs. I am however someone who wants to know the facts and am wary of “truths” others tell me, I am not interested in swallowing the regurgitated ramblings of most of our media sorces but am entertained by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher (if you take either one of these guys too seriously, than its much more difficult to stay focused and find what real truths are).
Truth is a great topic, but more elusive than the jack-o-lope.
Comment by Ohg Rea Tone on 10 October 2007:
Joe,
This is not rocket science – these issues have been around since the first men sat around the fireside – trying to figure out what the heck they were doing there. While it is not rocket science, it is important to our fundamental understanding of ourselves and of theology – before we can have real faith we must understand what it means. Before we can have confidence in truth we must understand what confidence in truth means. These are the basics – once we have them down then we can play some real thoughtful football.
Ohg