And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come;
D&C 93:24
Truth is well-defined. It isn’t nebulous or grey. It isn’t different for different people, or in different situations. It doesn’t depend on the feelings or ideas of individuals. Truth is what it is. It is entirely independent of the observer. It exists separately from all theories. Truth contains all the facts. Truth is independent.
All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.
D&C 93:30
Truth exists independent of God, man and even intelligence. Intelligence is an entity with the ability to choose. Man and God are intelligent.
Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.
D&C 93:29
That which is enlightened by truth is intelligence. God didn’t create it. It exists independently, giving it separation from all else that exists. Because it is independent, intelligence has choice, and in choosing truth gives glory to God.
The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.
D&C 93:36
The organization of intelligence that makes up God requires acceptance of, and dedication to truth. All that is, is known. There is nothing that is not known. Thus, God knows all truth.
Why is it important to know truth?
When scurvy was epidemic among sailors for centuries, the doctors had a lot of treatments. They would give potions, some including mercury and other poisons, bury people up to their necks in hot sand, and blow smoke up their colons. They claimed these worked, and if they didn’t work, they just weren’t doing enough. In spite of such wonderful treatments, ships on long voyages would often lose half the sailors to scurvy. When the truth came in the form of something simple, the doctors all said, “That’s ridiculous! Nothing as simple as a lime could cure a disease as horrific as scurvy!” It took fifty more years of dying sailors before the ships captains decided to defy the doctors and require lime juice on board every ship. The scurvy stopped. Dead. The truth is that important.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a young doctor in the mid-nineteenth century who observed that the midwives had a much lower rate of infection and death than the doctors delivering babies. He had a theory that the doctors were doing dissections on corpses and bringing something from the corpses to the mothers during delivery of the babies, and suggested the doctors wash their hands before a delivery. The doctors persecuted him for suggesting they were the cause of childbed fever, but after a couple more decades of administering death to women, they finally relented, accepted the truth, and washed their hands, lowering childbed fever rates in Vienna dramatically. The truth exists, whether we believe, or not!
Ignorance is death. This may be immediately true for health care, but also applies to all knowledge. It is life-and-death important to know the truth in everything. Whatever we are ignorant of, whatever we don’t know will hurt us. Only the truth brings life, peace, and happiness. Our connection with God requires truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is life, light, knowledge, wisdom, peace, happiness, love, and joy!
Can we know truth?
Each of the circles below represent ideas, theories, and/or facts. One is true, containing all the facts, and no untruths.
The single truth is defined, containing all that is true, and nothing that is false. Everything else is not true. There are an infinite number of false ideas for each truth. If the purple one with the orange dot represents truth, then all the others are false. Even the orange dot that is entirely within the truth doesn’t contain all the facts. The light purple one may seem to be true, and even contain some truth, but it also contains much that isn’t true. The big circle that contains all of them, including all truth, is false because it contains all false ideas as well.
We study each idea and find that they are all possible. We compare them, their merits and contradictions, but we can’t, by our own wits, determine what is truth. We can weigh the evidence and make a decision, but our own observations are always colored by our beliefs. Truth is independent of belief. But, no matter what we do, we’re always going to have colored glasses on, and we can never see everything clearly. Even if we’re told the truth is purple, we can’t be sure what purple is, exactly, first of all, because there are different shades that might be called purple, and second, we don’t know if the colors we’re seeing are the true color, or just appear that way because of our glasses. We want to know things as they are, but we only see things as we are. We’re all color-distorted.
“...a report to Congress in 1843 by Patent Office Commissioner, Henry Ellsworth... states, ‘The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.’” (Wikipedia)
Also, there is no way to know what is truth because we cannot know if we have all the facts. Ellsworth seemed to believe that human improvement was coming to an end. Since then technology has advanced beyond his, or anyone else’s imagination. Just when we have a theory that fits our facts perfectly, another fact comes up to destroy it. Then, we’re back to ground zero, trying to come up with another theory to explain the facts. If a fact is hidden, then we cannot know if any theory is true. One nagging fact always exists, “we don’t know what we don’t know!” Some just take the big circle- -it’s all true! Others just say, “None of it is true,” and quit searching. It’s a cop-out, and laziness, not helping anyone to know anything. It still leaves us lost and useless. We don’t reach Nirvana, Heaven, or life if we call false things true, or true things false, we just continue to live in ignorance. More smoke up the butt will not cure scurvy, nor will more mercury, or a new poison. If there’s a fact missing, we wallow in ignorance as people suffer and die.
Does belief lead to truth?
Since we cannot know what is true, all we have is belief. No truth can be found or understood by us for all of the reasons above so we continue to believe what we’re told. We see what we believe, and throw out all facts that don’t correspond to our beliefs. Therefore, as soon as we define our beliefs we have cut ourselves off from all access to truth. If we believe in the blue circle, then we have no chance of finding the purple one. Only in the happenstance that we define our beliefs as the purple circle can we begin to discover truth, because we will see what we believe.
Those who don’t define their beliefs have underlying beliefs of which they are not aware. The first step is to become aware of our beliefs. Many don’t even know what they believe. Becoming aware requires introspection, and help. Many go to counseling to help them reveal their beliefs. A good counselor knows what questions to ask to bring out beliefs and desires, or the heart.
Very often, those who don’t want to know what they believe, or who don’t want to change their beliefs, become skeptics. Skeptics are those who question the beliefs of others, but not their own. To justify their beliefs and prevent challenge, they continually try to put down the beliefs of others, calling them false. Mostly, they don’t know the truth, nor are they even aware of the actual belief of another, using vague generalities, having done no research, knowing little about the evidence, or lack thereof. For example, atheists consider themselves skeptics, not knowing what they believe, using all kinds of straw-man arguments to attempt to prove that God doesn’t exist. They simply wallow in ignorance.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (The Big Short, attributed to Mark Twain)
Truth cannot be found by skeptics because it requires humility, which is just the opposite of skepticism. Humility is the ability to accept the beliefs of others, and question our own. Seeking evidence that might change what I hold dear is a hard thing to do, making humility a rare trait. But without humility we are doomed to ignorance. We must be constantly questioning what we believe, seeking evidence for what others believe, and changing our theories. This leaves us without a foundation. This is the truth. Life is not firm, it is not as we see, or even as we hope; life is different. Our search for truth requires that we give up all we think we know. Others have a different point-of-view, or different colored glasses, which could give us a different perspective in finding what is true. Thus, being humble allows us to work together to discover truth that we could not know alone.
Why is truth so scarce?
First, there are an infinite number of possible false ideas for every truth. We can look at anything false as sin, because it is against God.
There are two sins only:
1. Ignorance
2. Rebellion
These are the only two things that keep us away from God, or truth. If we’re ignorant, then we can’t keep the will of God because we don’t know it. The only other way to sin is to know the will of God for us, but not do it. By far, ignorance is the greater, or more common, sin, while rebellion is the greater, or worse, one.
Our beliefs prevent us from learning truth. Those who have the truth in front of them, but deny, neglect, or resist it are the worst kind of ignorance. Most humans prefer the Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Nothing has changed since 1984. The television is spouting these same slogans every minute, but we don’t always see it. Our newest enemy is North Korea. We can have financial freedom by acquiring debt. Science has all the answers. We want to be ignorant. We want someone else to do the hard work of finding truth so they can spoon-feed us. Sunday schools are filled with people who want someone else to do the thinking for them. They believe so they don’t have to know. It’s hard to be humble. Both the skeptic and the believer deceive themselves due to laziness, and will never come to know truth.
Why is it important to know that God knows all truth?
Because we can never find truth for ourselves, we must have a standard of truth. There is only one source of truth. Thus, it is essential to understand that God knows all truth. Only One who knows all truth can help us find truth. God can never be surprised. He knows everything. He is in all things, and through all things. There is nothing that He doesn’t know, so, if He tells me something is true, then I can be sure it is true. He will never lie. I’m not going to find another fact later that negates or precludes the truth that I know, because God already knows. He knows the end from the beginning. Without specifically receiving intelligence from God we can never know truth, but by receiving intelligence from Him, we don’t need to believe, we know.
Thus, access to truth requires a connection with God. There is no other way. There is no substitute, nor is there any second-best. There is one truth, so whichever falsehood you believe is irrelevant -- it isn’t the truth. False ideas are all the same. We are often given a choice between two false ideas, and told that one of them is true. Politics and religion is famous for this. The Republicans and Democrats fight over which is right by accusing the other of being wrong. Ironically, this is the only truth they both teach -- that the other is wrong. False religions continuously fight each other, accusing the other of being untrue, and, again, they are both right. Only God can tell us what is true. There is no other way. Everything, and everyone, else is suspect. Only through a personal connection with God can I know what is true. If everything presented to me is false, then only He can lead me to truth. People just don’t know. Even those who have a connection with God, and know truth don’t know everything, they can’t. Thus, God is our only personal resource for truth.
How can we know the truth?
Work. Read. Ponder. Pray. Search. Be humble. Obey the truth that you know. Dedication to truth requires constant vigilance. Any idea we have is suspect, until we know from God. “God told me.” is the only foundation we can have for truth. Everything else is suspect, and may change as we get more information. Thus, the largest part of our search for truth requires that we build a relationship with God, come to know Him, and develop trust in Him. This is done just like any other relationship, through time, and shared experiences. It takes time to get to know some one. It also takes effort, as we try to discover who He is. He will reveal Himself little-by-little. He knows me from the beginning, I’m the one who needs to come to know Him. Beliefs are irrelevant in the face of truth, and must be let go. Without humility we cannot come to know Him. Our search for truth must include a relationship with the Source of all truth. While we can support each other, we each must seek truth on our own.
"Seek, and ye shall find."
