"What is Truth?"

Jesus stood in front of him.  His wife had been bothered about this man, Jesus, in her dream last night.  It literally woke her up.  And now, here He is.  This beaten, bloody, itinerant rabbi who’d often been seen preaching openly in the temple.  He was celebrated just 4 days ago. Monday He triumphantly entered the city to cheers.  Now, here on Friday He was in front of Pilate.  Many of the powerful Jewish religious leaders seemed either convinced that this man, Jesus, was a heretic, or a lunatic.  What they didn’t think was that He was God Almighty.  With that backdrop, Pilate began to question Jesus about His identity.  Are you King of the Jews?  Jesus questions Pilate’s question.  He is getting to the heart of Pilate’s interest.  Does he really want to know the truth.  It soon becomes crystal clear.
     Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.  Matthew 18:37-38
The irony of that conversation is that Pilate was speaking with the personification of Truth.  Jesus called Himself, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Yet, when he threw out the question, “what is truth,” to the one who IS the truth, instead of waiting for the answer, he went back outside to take care of the political power brokering that was going on in the quest to be done with this Galilean preacher.​
            We live in a day where there are lots of Pilates, men and women who claim to seek truth.  Many of these people take on academic titles and form the intellectually cool, “New Atheists.”  I have listened to a great number of them.  Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchins, Michael Shermer, among many others.  These have made it part of their lives’ meanings to spread the word about the “truth” of atheism.  I don’t have the training of these men, and yet, at times, the foolishness of some their arguments is apparent. 
            So, to start our discussion of building a rational defense of our faith, keep in mind that the so-called “intellectually elite,” are just people.  Some of their points are sound and have a good logical basis.  Some betray a heart, mind, and soul, that just has to have it this way. 
            A starting point in developing a solid apologetic and a worldview that works, is coming to the conclusion that truth is real.  It is absolute.  And, it can be known.  The law of non-contradiction cannot be violated and maintain truth claims.  For our purposes our definition of truth is:  That which conforms with reality as it actually is.  There are people who will get into discussions about this.  Many will almost immediately begin to use self-defeating statements and their premises will be rendered useless by their own confusing rhetoric.  As a believer, I believe that God is truth.  I believe He reveals truth.  I believe He intends for us to use truth to make appropriate life decisions. 
​       Next, we will discuss how we discover truth and how we confirm and refute truth claims.  We will also begin to start working toward reason to believe in a God.  Not necessarily the God of the Bible.  That will come later.  Right now, we are building from the basic building blocks.  Be sure to pass this along to any of your atheist friends.  I’d love to have friendly, respectful dialogue with them.  Always remember that a good argument is not what brings someone to Christ.  The Holy Spirit does that.  God may use good logic and our love to remove obstacles, but ultimately, He is the one who gets it done.