Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That's all history is, after all: scar tissue.
--Stephen King
What is truth?-- A question that philosophers and the common man alike have wrestled with over the ages. Many people especially in today's postmodern society would say that truth was a mirage. Something that everyone is searching for and claiming to have but in reality only hold empty claims and void ideas. Is truth just a mirage, a noble idea that does not exist? Or is it the oasis that our minds and hearts are thirsting for?
According to the English Oxford dictionary truth is defined as: that which is true in accordance with fact or reality. But how do we know if something is fact or fiction? The only way to determine as a desert traveler if what you are seeing in the distance is a mirage or an oasis is to go and see for yourself. Your testing and experience will confirm to you if it is water or heat waves. The same approach is taken to determine what is true and false in philosophy, theology, and ethics. When it comes to forming your worldview and determining what is true and false you will have to put truth claims through the test of logic. Does it hold up under the laws of rationality? Is the claim that is being put forth in accordance with fact and reality?
It is generally agreed upon that truth does exist. If nothing were true we and the world we live in would be nonexistent. We all agree that we are real. We live in a time-space continuum. When we hit our thumb with a hammer it really does hurt! This is not a dream. Reality demands truth. Reality can't exist if it's not true. To say that truth does not exist would be impossible, because if truth does not exist then the statement itself becomes self-defeating. Because reality exists truth exists.
If truth and reality are connected and we are searching for truth, then naturally, we must find what makes reality. We know things are real because of evidences that prove that they are real. We know there is a dog that lives next door because we hear it bark. We know there are stars because we seem them glow. We know a fire is hot because we can feel the heat. So how did reality come to be? How did we become beings that process sounds, smells, sights, and movements? This leads us to the question of origins. How did we and the world we live in come to be? Who made reality real? The evolutionist would say that nothing made reality and reality makes truth. That is like saying, non-reality made reality and that makes truth. That statement is not in accordance with fact. If reality came from nothing then reality is not real and truth does not exist.
In the other corner of the ring stands Christianity, that claims that a transcendent, eternal God created all that is and made our world reality. Truth demands reality and reality demands a reality giver, a greater power than can give meaning to all that is. The God of the Bible is the only answer to the demands of reality and truth. Without him reality and truth cease to exist. No wonder, Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh declared, "I am the way, the truth and the life". The maker of reality, the source of truth is Jesus Christ.
So is truth a mirage or an oasis? Well, when you follow the trail of rational thought back to Christ you will find Him to be an oasis who will give you rivers of living water!
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