Even what we were taught as historical truth is now in question. Did Columbus really discover America in 1492? The answer is, at best, "sort of." In one sense, all history is revisionist, as it is always seen in retrospect through the historian's particular lens. As Obi-wan explained to Luke in Return of the Jedi, many of the things we accept as true really depend on our point of view.

It seems to me, at this point in my life, that truth is simply Whatever God Says. It’s really that simple. If you accept the presupposition that God alone existed prior to creation, that He created everything out of nothing, then it follows that whatever God says is true, is true. There’s really no point in arguing anything, is there? So, for example, if God were to say today that 2 plus 2 now equals 5, then it would be true no matter what our limited reasoning would lead us to believe. (If you have a problem with this hypothetical, try working out the math for the feeding of the five thousand.) The miraculous, after all, is essentially God doing what our rational minds tell us shouldn’t happen.

There has been a tendency for modernists, including modernist theologians, to act like truth is something that exists on its own in co-eternal existence with God. However, that line of thinking causes all kinds of logical and theological problems. Jesus, the logos, the Living Word of God, is of course the Way, the Truth and the Life. Truth, per the Word of God, has its complete source in the Godhead. There is no other source of truth or proof for truth available.

So the question should not really be "what is truth?" but rather "how does one gain access to truth?" The Garden narrative provides us the answer: the only viable source for truth is in relationship with (and through revelation of) God Himself. Any attempt to gain a foundation for truth through that which is created, e.g. Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, brings only death.

To buy into this non-scientific idea of truth presents some obvious challenges to those of us who were programmed with a modern concept of truth. It means we cannot rely on doctrines, creeds or theological concepts as a foundation for our faith. Of course, we never could. Recall Jesus pointing out to the Pharisees, "You search the scriptures, thinking that in them you have eternal life. But they merely point to me." The bottom line here is that Jesus – the Word of God who became flesh – is the Truth, as unfathomable as that is. And the only way to access Truth is through relationship.

As a wise man once said, "It's all in who you know." Or, as an even wiser man said, "I know in whom I have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12).

Alden Swan