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Jimbo Ivy will never cease to be amazed by the anger and fury it is possible to call up when you dare suggest that mankind does not possess all the answers; about their world, about their god(s), or about who deserves what. While I will, forever, openly acknowledge that you do not know the truth, I would never be so bold as claim I do.
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Aaron J. Rushton But what if knowing the Truth and possessing all the answers don't mean the same thing? Is Truth entirely unknowable?----------------------
Jimbo Ivy You know as well as I my stance on that issue, Aaron, and it ain't far removed for your own, thus our brotherly association. I am addressing those that claim man's understanding of God is complete and unerring, and on the same tack those that claim to know the world through reason and science in a complete and unerring way. When people stop listening, stop learning, and consider their spiritual education complete, that is when truth dies, when truth becomes unknowable. But I will venture an answer to that question: Truth is knowable for men only once their gone; once they cross over. Faith and conscience is what we have until then to inform us of what truth can be for us in this questionable, confusin existence. If God has a literal presence on this Earth, it is that; our instinctual knowin of what is real to us, of what we feel through our experience and sense of the universe, divine or otherwise, that informs us as how to live our lives. I'm just positing that there may not be a lone answer to the question of how to live, how to believe, how to draw breath, just as there is no one way to splice a line, sow a field, or give joy to a heart. I do not know the answers, the whole of truth; but I do not believe these people that live with their eyes and hearts closed to principles of God (which they forget too often are love, forgiveness, and acceptance) know better than me. In fact, I believe my questions are far more faithful than their unflinching assertions. And I believe, if I may be so bold, that you believe that too.
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And this post is what I've got to say to that.
"When people stop listening, stop learning, and consider their spiritual education complete, that is when truth dies, when truth becomes unknowable."
Man, I am so entirely with you on what I think you think you're saying, but I can't actually agree with it the way you're saying it here, and it all hinges on one understanding: what is Truth?
If Truth is ever knowable, then it cannot become unknowable. If Truth ever lived, then it can never die. Truth shines out forever in all directions, and cannot be extinguished, silenced or altered. Truth frees us all, and Truth certainly frees itself.
Truth is eternal.
Truth and facts are not the same thing. It is a stone cold fact that I am not eating Oreos at the moment, but the Truth of Aaron J. Rushton is not "dude who does not eat Oreos." Facts change. Truth is eternal.
Eternity is a pretty crazy thing. Imagine a number line stretching from the infinite negative to the infinite positive, like this:
-∞ 0 ∞
<-------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------->
Now also imagine that we take a small piece of that number line - from 0 to 1 - and look at it more closely, like this:
0 1
|-------------------------------------------------------|
While this may seem like a finite piece of the number line, since it came from an infinite number line, this piece itself is also infinite, right? Think about the divisions we can make between 0 and 1 - 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5... and so on. Or think about 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, 0.0001... No matter how small we choose to go, there is always something smaller. There is an infinite amount of definition in the finite space between 0 and 1.
So if you are looking at the number line we started with, you can zoom out as wide as you like and you will never see the ends of it, or you can move in as close as you like and never run out of room.
I believe Truth to function that way. I believe that if you only know one small kernel of Truth, it is still Truth, and it will lead you to a better understanding of all Truth, if you will let it. But I also believe that you can never know it all, even in its simplicity.
I definitely believe the Truth to be knowable, and I believe the Truth to be this: that we are all created by God to be equal, and that the fullness of His plan for His Creation (that would be us) is to experience the whole of existence in Love, and in the fullness of Love that only God can make known to us.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”- Matthew 22:34-40
The central point, the focus, the origin, the underlying foundation, the absolute cornerstone to everything in the Gospel I preach is Love, and I believe that the Truth of Love may be known.
But I also believe that the Truth of Love is that it never stops. The Truth is that Love is eternal, and if Love and Truth are both eternal, how can anyone ever know the final answer?
But if the Truth is Love, how can there ever be anything else to know? Love is the answer. Love is the final answer in all things. Love solves all problems. Love is the Truth, and the Truth is Love.
So do I know the Truth? I believe I do. Do I know it all? Heavens, no. That, as you say, will only come after concluding the finite portion of an infinite experience. We are temporal creatures housing eternal souls. Truth - Love - is eternal. It's the only thing that matters, and it's the thing that everything else has to be built on for anything to make sense.
I'll be writing more about this later, but I've wanted to say that for a while now...
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