Unravelling the truth

Controversies rage. The world is divided, sometimes sharply, over different subjects.

In communities opinions are expressed in favour of one thing or the other, or against them.

In families, in societies, in clubs, name it, the debate goes on in an attempt to find the truth. There are opposing views on every subject.

Condemnations assail governments while many stand ready to praise them.

Investigations are instituted; probe panels are raised to get to the root of a matter or of an occurrence.

In journalism, editors say that facts are only facts, they are not the truth.

Truth, it is asserted, is proven facts.

In courts litigants present their respective sides of a case; everyone believes in the rightness of his own cause.

At all times, the question that arises is: ‘Where lies the truth?’ Where parties to an issue cannot agree on the truth, they settle for compromise. Consensus becomes the substitute for truth.

In parliaments, it is the majority that decides.

It is either by show of hands or voice vote and there is the banging of the table with the gavel with the pronouncement, “The Ayes have it.”

The Mace lies there, the symbol of authority. From day to day, in conversations, in debates, the eloquent invariably carries the day.

And the search for the truth continues because in no time, a subject thought settled agitates the mind; it begins to raise again its ugly head.

It is believed it is only the truth that can permanently resolve the matter.

A person can be a hero to a group, but a villain to his enemies.

There are wars and threats of wars each side believing in the rightness of its own cause.

Is there nothing like the absolute truth which stands above the tidal waves of opinions which should form the standard against which everything is measured?

What then is this elusive truth that the whole world raves in search of it? It must lie somewhere.

Can a man be a hero and at the same time is a devil? Everything cannot be relative.

Philosophers invite themselves into deep thinking, contemplating truth and where to find it.

Researchers search and scientists set to work. Socrates, Plato and many others preoccupied themselves with the theory and search for truth.

Joachim believes what is true is the whole complete truth and judgments or beliefs are not the “whole complete truth,” but true only to a certain extent.

The hope is that science will one day, and perhaps sooner than later, come to the rescue and produce result with scientists shouting throatily: Eureka, it is found!

The truth the world is seeking is one that is consistent. It is above crisis, chaos or confusion.

It must be one that is unaffected by revolution or time. It must be universal.

It is one that is the same in Nigeria as it is in Seoul or Johannesburg, Miami or Ottawa.

It must be the same in Melbourne as it is in Cardiff or Amsterdam. It must not be different from the one in Beijing.

It must be valid for all peoples on earth. There must be such truth that withstands time and condition, indeed above all situations and it is timeless.

It must be outside the reach of inventions and technologies or theories.

It cannot be moved by earthquakes or tornadoes. It cannot be anything thought out by any human man.

Human beings can only encounter it, recognize it, relate with it but cannot possess it except only its rays beamed on objects or people, personal or impersonal.

The nature of the truth must be such that it cannot be grasped with emotions.

It must be simple and accessible to logic and reason such that the qualification to grasp it must not lie in scientific learning, reading or ability or skill to write.

It should follow that the said truth must be perfect, not subject to any improvements and must be eternal.

If it is not relative, then it must be absolute. Truth, therefore, must represent wholesomeness.

We say all the time that no man is perfect. This means in effect that because man, the highest creature in this world, is imperfect, the qualities of truth are lacking in human beings.

In other words truth must be looked for outside of man. It must bear stating that the truth we are searching for is remarkable for its constancy and consistency.

It is not relative. That being so, the closest we can recognize as the absolute truth are the eternal principles of life. Principle is synonymous with origin.

The eternal principles of life are expressed in the eternal Laws of Nature which in turn manifest the outworking of the Will of the Creator.

Has it not been shown and proven, for example, that what we sow is what we reap?

Has it not been shown again and again that birds of the same feather flock together? We know that the lighter an object is the higher if floats.

The laws as has been stated in this column time and again are the mechanisms with which the Almighty Creator governs His Creation from paradise to this material world of which the earth is the outermost part.

The laws are unchanging; they are self-acting, bringing reward and punishment to man to the degree of our compliance with them, the ordinance which they represent.

The laws regulate the fish in the bed of the ocean and the birds in the air.

Creation issued out them, that is, out of the Will, and is maintained by them serving as the lifeblood that runs through the entire gamut of life.

If the Laws are the expression of the Will it also means they mirror life. Many have come to realise that Life is Truth, the absolute Truth. Let’s hold life in our hands, gaze at it and contemplate it.

Life is eternal as the Laws of Nature are and the Holy Will is. Any wonder then that the Lord Christ said “I am the Truth and Life.”

No one comes to the Father except through Him, He said.

As Life is Life, the absolute Reality, Christ being Part of the Reality, it stands to reason that He is the Truth and Life, as the Holy Spirit is.

Life is independent, requiring nothing to keep It alive. It is eternal, hence the recognition that It has no beginning and no end.

If He is eternal, it should follow that his Will manifested in the Laws of Nature also known as Divine Laws and Laws of Creation manifest the Truth.

Because everything is dependent on this Truth it cannot be found in man but in Life to which man owes his existence, development, progress and happiness.

Seekers of Truth are those who are seeking orderliness in our world and recognition of ways to eternal life of joy and happiness, absorbing as it were from the Rays of the Light of Truth that illumine all things, ideas, and concepts.