What Is Truth?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen. 1:1). Many preachers and theologians have broken this down into "In the beginning God"-"created"-"the heavens and the earth." For the Christian, for the genuine lover of truth, everything begins with God.

Here is a picture of man. What is he thinking? We can photograph his head, measure it, even detect brain waves emanating from it, but there is only one way of finding out what he thinks: to have him tell you.

What is the secret of the universe? Secular humanistic philosophers groping in the dark for meaning can never unlock this. Even the best reasoned arguments of rational, theistic philosophers cannot adequately deal with this. Only a revelation from the true and living God can answer this question. And in the Scriptures we have exactly this--the revelation of the mind of God.

Contrary to the Greek philosophers and the atheist humanists of today, St. Augustine held that to know the truth is not necessarily to do the truth, nor to be able to do the truth.

Between the emotions, the intellect and the will, the essential nature of man is the will. The doctrine of the primacy of the will helps us to understand why education must always be focused on the strengthening of character, first of all, and the development of the intellect, secondly. Love is not so much an emotion as a disposition of the will. Man is created so as to be oriented toward love--that is, to orient his being toward some principle, ultimately some person, with complete devotion. As St. Augustine says "Thou madest us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they they find their rest in Thee!" Whether the true God or some other less worthy object, everyone has this sort of supreme object. Man is incurably religious. This gives him his presupositions, motivations, rationales and goal in life. There is no one without such a "faith" or whatever you want to call it.

No one believes in God unless he wills to, and no amount of persuasion can change an unwilling will. Since fallen man is essentially self-centered and his will has been impaired by the Fall, he will always will something other than the true God. He will love some sort of wish fulfillment fantasy more than truth. Only when he is touched by Divine Grace which changes his corrupt will can he truly love and worship God as the true center of his life.

There can be no severance of philosophy from theology--no genuine reasoning to faith but only from faith. Only from a rightly oriented will turned toward God, the Redeemer, can man discover Truth. Thus we come to St. Augustine's two formulas: "I believe in order to understand" and that theology and proper skeptical inquiry are "faith seeking understanding."

The same thing applies to virtue and good works; they are only such when they are motivated by the love of Christ; this is why good works, though a necessary sign of a Christian life, can never save anyone. If one is not already saved, that is, transformed by the Grace of God, one will not perform properly motivated works. In fact, without Christ, such things are merely "splendid vices". This emphasis of St. Augustine, thoroughly grounded in Scripture, was rediscovered by Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers. They did not originate this doctrine, but found it in the early Fathers such as Justin Martyr.

This brings us to the core of the Christian Gospel: "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Not "whosoever performs good works should not perish but have everlasting life." When unbelievers open their hearts and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, works flow from their renewed hearts as water from a pure spring.

At the end of his masterpiece The Confessions, St. Augustine prays for a godly peace, insisting that the wisdom he has long sought is to be found in one source only: God. There is no other teacher able to bring this precious knowledge to us: "What man will give any man the actual understanding of this? What angel will give it to an angel? From Thee must it be asked; in Thee must it be sought; at Thy door must one knock. Thus, will it be received; thus will it be found; thus, will Thy door be opened."

Previously published on Associated Content.

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