A Truth Universally Acknowledged

"Why?" 

"Why don't you find out for yourself? Go up the hill. He's there." 

-You Are Special by Max Lucado

So... this is really more of a continuation of the thoughts from my previous post, The Tree of Knowledge. It stems from the idea that if we sincerely want to understand what real truth is, we must be anxiously engaged in searching it out.  As I've watched society as a whole, I've noticed a tendency to shy away from this idea: teachers get offended when they are openly questioned by one of their students, mothers worry when their children wonder whether a certain belief system is correct or not, sometimes we even run from ourselves in an attempt to hide from the fact that we don't know everything, that we are still imperfect. But we ARE imperfect. And it is for that exact reason that our perceptions of truth should be questioned, that they can be questioned because real truth will stand the test of time: A tree will always be a tree, no matter which angle you examine it from. If we could really disprove truth, it wouldn't be worth sustained belief in the first place.

I realize that this might be an unnerving idea, but we can't afford to be scared.  As a friend of mine once explained to me, "Fear provides nothing - prudence and caution do: They are wise. But there is no benefit in fear... So don't be afraid." My friend's words echoed those in found the Bhagavad Gita "Fear Not. What is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed." 
-If truth is real, why are we scared to question it? 

God is the Master Questioner. In the Torah, he questions His wandering children "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). In the Book of Mormon He asks His disciples "What is it that ye desire of me?" (3 Nephi 28:1). In the Bible he inquires "Whom say ye that I am?" (Matthew 16:15). In the Qur'an He asks "Is He who creates like him who does not create?" (Surat An-Naĥ 16:17).
 Did God ask these questions because He did not know the answers? Of course not; God is omniscient. I propose that God asked these questions because He saw value in the asking of them. He saw potential in the questioning and the wondering and the discovery.

But He didn't stop at just asking. As in all things, God invites us to become like him. Isn't one of the most repeated principles in the LDS cannon "Ask and ye shall receive?" not "it is expected that you already have in your possession." There is no more explicit invitation than that found in the Book of Mormon. "Experiment upon my words" he pleads and then adds this promise "if it be true, ye will begin to say within yourselves - it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me." It is that delicious enlarging and enlightening that allows us to receive the additional truth into our lives. Therefore, we learn line upon line over the course of our lives.

Truth can stand the test of time. You can question and test and experiment all you want and it will still be true. However, with that freedom comes the duality of consequence. Sometimes it is tempting to try to question and question the truth in an attempt to change it. For some reason, we hope that if we can just ask enough questions and do enough experiments that the truth with suddenly become something more convenient. But real truth will not change: circumstances may, but true, guiding principles will not be altered no matter how many times someone wonders if it will. Truth is constant. Truth is real. 

I would LOVE to hear your view on these ideas. The statements I've just made are not perfect, but I believe them to based in truth. Don't want to take my word for it?  Good.

The Tree of Knowledge

"Some of the Wemmicks admired Lucia for having no dots, so they would run up and give her a star. But it would fall off. Others would look down on her for having no stars, so they would give her a dot. But it wouldn't stay either."

-You Are Special by Max Lucado 

We are beings of truth. One of the most important things that distinguishes human beings from all other species is our ability to differentiate between right and wrong, to recognize Truth. It is obvious that the whole of humanity differs in our opinions of what is "right" and what is "wrong." However, the very sense each of us have that there is a "right" or that there is a "wrong" - even the fact that some believe that they are "right" to believe that there is no "wrong" - PROVES there is some kind of truth that exists outside of ourselves. (For anyone interested in a more in-depth exploration of this idea, the first couple chapters of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is absolutely brilliant... but we are going to move on now. :D) 

If truth is actually universal, then it is something to be deeply valued. Only consider: in a world where "every man profits according to his own genius," where the only constant part of life is change, where it is every man for himself, Universal Truth would bind the entire human race together under a single ideal. Imagine what we could accomplish if we were of one heart and one mind! The problem is that because we are imperfect, because we are weak, our individual perceptions of truth are slightly skewed. Just as my expired contacts don't allow me to see perfectly - no matter how hard I look - neither can imperfect people perceive truth perfectly no matter how hard they try.
Now, just because my prescription does not give me 20/20 vision, should I wash my contacts down the drain? What an absurd idea! I would be completely lost.  Does the fact that I cant quite make out the outlines of the leaves on a distant tree mean that the leaves aren't there? Or that I can't KNOW that the leaves are there? Or how about a more consequential question: Does the fact that my friend (who has a better prescription than I do) sees the leaves in a slightly different way than I do signify that leaves don't have a true form? If it did, my prescription wouldn't matter; contacts would be meaningless because they would only assist me in trying to reach a standard that never existed in the first place.
Thankfully, there is a constant, true form to leaves. Just because nobody on earth can pinpoint exactly what it is doesn't mean that it is not real. In addition, there are a lot of different perspectives from which even people with 20/20 vision can look at the leaf. Someone standing under the tree would have a completely different idea of what a leaf looks like than someone with an aerial perspective. But both are real and both are true and both are part of the leaf and wouldn't it be wonderful for us to know exactly what the leaf looks like from all sides? If we could accomplish that, our knowledge of the leaf would be perfect. How foolish is the perfectly-sighted person who stands with her nose against the tree and insists that she knows what the leaf looks like! Granted, she have some concept of leaves. But is a leaf really so limited in meaning that is can be summed up by a mere glance? No. Each of us must step back and admit to ourselves that our small understanding barely encompasses the reality of what a "leaf" is.  
There are many additional analogies that can be made between eyesight and perception of truth. For example, we go to the eye doctor to come closer to seeing reality the way that it IS. There is a reason that we don't go to the heart surgeon (qualified as he may be) to get our eyes checked. Another analogy may be drawn from the fact that even my father, who has perfect vision, goes in for an annual eye check-up. 
The point is, if we really want to know what truth -real truth- is, we must be anxiously engaged in searching it out. If there is, in fact, Universal Truth that binds each of us to our neighbor, it means there is more to this life than just existing, that there is some kind of purpose ...maybe there is more to this life than meets our eyes.