What Is Truth?

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Dr. Walter Thomas

I define truth as whatever God says and whatever God knows. God is the source of all truth. The Omniscient One is the Repository of all truth and the Arbiter of all truth claims. Everything else is merely a truth-claim at best, waiting to see if it agrees with what God has revealed to us as His truth.

Obviously, God’s knowledge and wisdom, from which God’s revealed Truth comes, is limitless. However, God chooses to share with His created ones, the truth messages that He deems we need and from which we can benefit. It is way more than we need or grasp. In comparison, the Bible says the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight ( Corinthians 3:19).

The study of truth is called epistemology in philosophy. I don’t think of myself as an epistemologist or philosopher. I’m just one man who is committed to my Lord and God as the source of all truth, all righteousness, all beauty, all meaning and all value. To some of the wise of this world, that makes me a quack.

God’s truth comes to us through revelation, which is what God says, what God demonstrates and what God creates. God shows us His incomparable truths through what He says and what He does. God’s revelation comes to us in four ways:

1. God has revealed His truth through His written Word, the Bible. He has spoken to us through His prophets, apostles and Messiah in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. This is the written and inspired “logos” Word. Truth is Torah and contains God’s decrees, instructions and expectations for those who would seek Him, who would know His Truth, and who would obey Him. We are told that if we seek God with all there is of us, He will let us find and discover Him.

2. God has revealed His truth through His only begotten Son, Yeshua the Jewish Messiah. Christ is the Word in person, and He said that He speaks nothing that His Father has not told Him to speak. As Messiah, Jesus Christ spoke prophetically and in teaching, preaching and in demonstrations of Kingdom Power and Truth. He said, “I am the “truth.” John 1:1 describes the Word who created all things and that the Word is God and came from God the Father. Christ is Logos Word personally sent from God to tell us what the Father wants us to know.

3. God has revealed His truth through creation, because He spoke it into existence and His words are truth. Truth, the Word, is in every created thing. Paul (Romans 1:19-20) declares, “For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.” If scientists are fair and objective, they will discover embedded Truth in all of the natural creation, and the tools of the physical and biological sciences will always lead to Truth and corroborate what Truth has already revealed in every atom, every molecule, and in every system in the universe. Science will never disagree with God’s truth, but many scientists will disagree with the Lord of the Universe because of deception, ignorance and unbelief; sometimes after it is all said and done, some will not believe because of their personal rebellion against God. It is hard to find a molecular biologist or an astrophysicist that doesn’t admit to an infinite mind of a Creator somewhere. It is too big or it is too complex to have come into existence by any other means than an infinite creative mind with infinite creative power. It is also too complex to be sustained on its own. Creation screams its own source and power dependence.

4. God has revealed His truth through His Holy Spirit, whom Jesus called the “Spirit of Truth”, who will bring to mind any and everything Jesus taught us. The Spirit of Truth will bring information to us and make it spiritually alive to us, and it becomes personally revealed Truth. The Spirit speaks and we are given Truth. The Spirit of God dwells within us, and serves as a computer cursor that points us to God and to His truth. The Spirit of God actually speaks to us for helping us discover the Truth of God. Even when you are reading the Holy Scriptures, the Spirit of Truth will “quicken” the words read, and make them to “come alive” to you in your spirit at that moment. This is referred to as “rhema” (Gr) word in Scripture (two words translated "word" in the Bible: logos and rhema).