Veritas

I decided to write about something that has been on my heart lately…no idea why…but here it is:

What would it be like to know…everything…that was knowable.  One scholar suggests that Aristotle was the last person to know everything there was to be known in his own time.  Aristotle was a teacher and a thinker.  He taught all the subjects that existed three to four hundred years before Christ was born and wrote about them too.  I like to think of him as a mix between the stodgy old college professor and the monk who sits under a tree and contemplates the deeper meanings of the bird songs he hears.  Many consider that the writings we have left from Aristotle were what he used for lecture notes.  In his fourth book of fourteen on the subject of metaphysics he makes this statement:

“…to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true; so that he who says of anything thatit is, or that it is not, will say either what is true or what is false; but neither what is nor what is not is said to be or not to be.”

This is the statement that is considered by most scholars to be the absolute root of any definition on what truth is.  As an aside:  You might recognize the last few words as those spoken by Shakespeare’s character Hamlet.  Hamlet was speaking of existence.  In other words, to exist or not to exist.  I believe there is a correlation between Hamlets statement and a contemporary of Shakespeares named René Descartes who is considered to be the father of modern philosophy.  It is Mr. Descartes who said; “I think, therefore, I am.”  The opposite of which is if you aren’t thinking then you don’t exist.  So, here is my own personal formula of the three:  To be or not to be = To exist or not to exist = To think or not to think.  ( You won’t find this correlation anywhere in the entire world except right here in this blog! )

…..and then, just for fun…I can prove that the answer to the question is actually…Not to be!  Here is the mathematical proof:

To be = 2b

2b + 2b = 4b

2b – 2b = 0

2b * 2b = 4b²

2b / 2b = 1

At no time is the answer 2b.  So then, we must say the correct answer to the question is not 2b!

Ok, back to Aristotle.  The statement he made seems really, really simple.  But no one had ever put into words exactly what truth was.  The wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, also wrote really, really simple things like this:

Ecclesiastes 11:3 (NIV)

 ³ If clouds are full of water,
       they pour rain upon the earth.
       Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
       in the place where it falls, there will it lie.

Can anyone say Duh?  So, anyway, once Aristotle had set his thoughts to paper, then others were free to paraphrase, add to, subtract from…etc.  One of those people who used Aristotle’s work as a starting point and went much farther was Thomas Aquinas.   He was a priest in the Catholic church about three hundred years before Shakespeare came on the scene.  He wrote many things but arguably his greatest accomplishment was the Summa Theoligica.  It is a book that is Christian doctrine in scientific form.  The “Summa” contains 38 Treatises, 612 Questions, subdivided into 3120 articles, in which about 10,000 objections are proposed and answered.  I haven’t read it all…but he is quoted as saying that “he had learned more in prayer and contemplation than he had acquired from men or books”…and I believe him.  Question #16 in the “Summa” contains eight articles on Truth.  Some of what he said will turn your brain inside out…but there is a very good point that I would simply like to quote here:

From the response in Article 1…”Now we do not judge of a thing by what is in it accidentally, but by what is in it essentially. Hence, everything is said to be true absolutely, in so far as it is related to the intellect from which it depends…”

I want you to think of this statement in terms of the scriptures as the “thing” being judged and I will restate the quote in that light:

Now we do not judge the scriptures by what is in them accidentally, but by what is in them essentially.  Hence, the scriptures are said to be true absolutely, in so far as they relate to the intellect (God) from which they depend.

From this statement you might infer that I am proposing that some of the scriptures are in the bible by accident….I am not.  I believe that the scriptures as we have them, are exactly as God intended for us to have them.  To understand what Thomas means by the word “accident” you would need to read Article One fully but basically what he means is that there is other information attached to truth….for our purposes here, it would mean that there is other information “attached” to or “in” the scriptures…that are not the “thoughts of God”.  I will show you what I mean:

Genesis 4:4-5 (NIV)

⁴ But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Is the anger that was in Cain the truth that God wants you to learn about in this passage?...or do we go a little farther…

Genesis 4:4-7 (NIV)

⁴ But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

 ⁶ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? ⁷ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

I believe that what God wants you to learn in this passage is in verse 7.  This is a prime example of what I want to show you.  There was true information (Cain was angry) attached to the truth (Do what is right…)

So, here is my whole point….and it is something that you should give serious consideration to when evaluating what someone is teaching from the scriptures:

Everything in the scriptures is stated truly…But not everything in the scriptures is Truth!

All of the stories, the events, the words that people said, what they thought….everything that is written about in the scriptures actually happened and God put all of that information in there for a purpose…..but….God is Truth and if someone uses a particular scripture to try and teach a principle that doesn’t line up with who God is….then it isn’t truth….no matter how much scripture they quote.

It is learning lessons like this that will help you to discern when a person has wrong doctrine or is even trying to teach something from a cult.  Always listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to your spirit.

btw…the word in the subject line, Veritas is the Latin word for truth.  The hyperlink itself has a sound bite that will show you how it is pronounced in Latin but it doesn’t easily show you how to pronounce  it in plain ol’ English ….Ver - a - toss