The Search for Truth
Imagine that truth, with a capital T, meaning the Truths that come directly from God, unencumbered and untainted by Man, can be found stashed and hidden away in the Himalayan mountains range which is the tallest highest mountain range on earth. But let’s just suppose that every square foot of that entire range can be trod by the legs of any ambulatory adult person – if they choose to take the time and give the searching the attention that it deserves. Suppose that in one small area lies the answers to the purpose of life, in another area the true nature of God, and that along the way there is a vast array of other information that helps determine all biblical doctrines, practices and views.
Suppose that there are guides who, for their entire adult life, climbed, traveled and searched high and low through this range and have returned to the base of the mountain after 40 or 50 years of travels. A little forethought might help us realize that every minute of every journey this person took, every step and moment served to reveal something, some piece of the puzzle, some insight to the overall picture, large and significant or small and unassuming, that contributes to this person’s world-view. We would also then realize that the same amount of time to explain what they discovered would be required to explain what they discovered. In other words, for someone who traveled for ten years in the mountains of truth it would take them ten full years to rightly describe what they have found and chosen to believe.
The Burden of Knowledge
So standing there at the base of the Himalayan Mountain range is a man who have taken a fifty year trip. Then someone who has never stepped foot in the range walks up and asks, “What are your findings on the Nature of God?” The question is so vast, so incomprehensible, so intimate and intimately grasped that any kind of answer will prove itself utterly limited the moment it is proffered. Another person might walk up and say, “Tell us about eschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More?” Or perhaps something more specific like, “Who are the two witnesses that will lie dead in Jerusalem?” Perhaps another traveler is standing there too and though he or she has only traveled in the mountains of truth for a year, they may, in their limited understanding, try and offer up what they have found. But the traveler of fifty years has too much to say; so much, that there is only one reasonable response to give – “I can’t learn it for you. You have to discover these things for yourself.”
Faith and Personal Discovery
This is the reality of the subjectively lived faith. Yes, you can try and hear and see from the point of view of those that have gone before you, but the fact of the matter remains – the only way to really truly know something and to take responsibility for then believing it comes about only when you choose to either embark on your own journey or to absolutely trust the travels of another. Religious traditions are founded on those who are willing to take and trust others who claim to know; who claim to have done the traveling. We suggest that there is absolutely no comparison between choosing to seek and know for yourself what is Truth verses embracing the modified, curated, driven by popular opinions of others who claim to have walked in the Mountains of Truth, but have really only driven along the super-highway of religion paved and repaved afresh with certainty.
