Skip to main content

Truth Seeking?

It's very "in" to question everything.  In fact, people take great pride in refusing to accept at face value what their parents, teachers, and religious leaders tell them.  Now, there is definitely something admirable in this.  Standing for truth in a sea of lies is difficult and respectable.  Having the intellectual honesty to believe what you believe despite what you wish to believe is rare.  There is a point, however, at which we must all confess our own limitations.  No one has all the information. We are finite creatures with finite minds with which to process the finite information we do have.  At some point we must come face-to-face with this finitude.  Sometimes the truth is beyond an individual's ability to grasp it and there's nothing immoral or shameful in admitting that.

Such modesty is not nearly as popular as this "question everything" attitude.  Much of the time the underlying issue is really just pride.  People see themselves as seekers of the truth, but they're really just blinded by and to their own arrogance.  They project a persona of intellectual honesty, but they really just refuse to be told anything that disagrees with their own preconceptions.  Case in point: the Internet.  There are so many people out there voicing opinions and spouting "facts" when they should be reading books and listening to their elders.  Trust me, I've been there and done that (the former, not the latter).

I often wonder why my generation refuses to listen to our elders.  Is it the Internet?  Probably.  Is it the timeless impertinence of youth?  Of course.  There's something more though--something deeper. It's called human depravity and it transcends my generation and this era.  The age of information is merely exacerbating the pride problem that exists in the human heart.  Access to information and the ease with which it can be disseminated encourage us to reject the advice and wisdom of those who have actually experienced real life.

My point is this.  It's great to have a curious mind.  It's great to thirst and search for truth.  It's good to investigate things personally and to have well-informed opinions, but you can't call it truth-seeking if you think you already have all the truth.  That's called having an ego.

That's just my two cents.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Father, Forgive Them"

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness is hard.  Forgiveness is really, really hard. It’s difficult to forgive others who have genuinely harmed or offended us.   It’s easy to say , “I forgive you,” but it’s extremely difficult to feel it–to make peace in our hearts with the injustices that others have perpetrated against us. It just doesn’t feel right.  Sin should be punished!  Wrongs should be righted!  Right?! It’s difficult to forgive others when they ask for it.  It’s even more difficult to forgive them when they haven’t asked for it–when they don’t even recognize what they’ve done to hurt us. As our Savior hung upon His Cross, He asked the Father to forgive those nearby–those who were unwittingly contributing to the greatest injustice in the history of the world. These thieves, soldiers, and standers-by had no idea what was happening.  They had no idea that the jealousy of the Jews had placed Christ on that Cross...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Reasons I Want my Wife to Start Wearing a Head Covering during Corporate Worship

    Of late, the issue of head coverings has come up in my circle.  Okay...my cousin and I have been discussing it, but the point is, the issue has been bouncing around my head for the past few days.  It is a topic that I have avoided for some time.  Every time I read through 1 Corinthians, I would tell myself, "We'll get around to that."  The reality is that I didn't want to be "that guy"...that guy who people view as a chauvinistic jerk who wants to make sure everyone--especially his wife--remembers that he's the head of his home.  I think I'm beginning to respect "that guy"--those men who have cared enough to stand for what they believe.     Let me be clear that I am referring to head coverings for women (those old enough to leave them on...)  DURING CORPORATE WORSHIP.  I am not advocating head coverings at all times.  Though I see nothing necessarily wrong that practice, I don't see any command for it either.   ...
15 comments
Read more

Paedocommunion: Consistent Covenantalism or Anti-Confessionalism?

    Being raised as a paedocommunionist (that means our kids get to eat Jesus, too), I have always been amazed by how passionately credocommunionists (that means their kids don't get to eat Jesus until they articulate a "credible" profession of faith) dislike the practice.  I would think that they could look at paedocommunion and at least respect it as an attempt to live out Covenant Theology in a consistent way.  Instead, paedocommunionists have been widely viewed as being on the fringe of the fringe (yes, that far) of Reformed Theology.  I like to think that I have been able to agree-to-disagree in an amicable way with my credocommunionist friends.  However, I will admit that being discounted as "unconfessional" (trust me, I've been called worse) has made many paedocommunionists (you'd have to ask my friends whether or not that applies to me) act in a manner that lacks Christian grace.     So, the question remains, is paedocommunion a view hel...
4 comments
Read more