Pursuit For Truth

Have you ever asked, SO WHAT! So what to the trivial things in life? To things that we already feel we know the reason for its existence or function. What difference does it make? But Solomon said “it’s the simple things that confound the wise.” That led me to ask the following:

• Are answers knowable to the mysteries of our existence in our Universe?
• Is there any guidance from God our Creator that makes it our business to find the answers to the functions and mysteries of our universe?
• Why should it matter what happened at or ‘in the Beginning?’
• Can the pursuit for truth be knowable but still remain incomplete?
• IF secrets of nature are unknowable, is our quest misguided?
• Can there be an Ordination from God for seeking Reasons?
• Does it matter that my heart ticks a little stronger when I find Reasons to my inquiries?

It turns out; God asked Job similar important questions.  In the book of Job, God demanded answers and facts that were not understood for centuries. These questions direct our thinking to pursue understanding. Our search for the truth can produce answers to the existence of nature.  So I listen to what God does by asking His questions to Job? He starts with mysteries.

God talks about the stretching out of the universe (9:8).  This force is one of many mysteries described.  God asks Job and his friends (38:1) “Do you know the laws of the heavens?”  Notice, this is with a challenge that is suitable for our time.  If it is knowable, then this gives us a clue that it is not wrong to seek answers of what are the laws of physics within creation.

The continuous, ongoing expansion of the universe is found in many other verses of the Bible: Palms. 104:2; Isaiah, 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Zechariah 12:1); this concept was not understood until Edwin Hubble detected it in the 1960’s.

If expansion is one of many concepts found in the Bible, and God wants us to know the physics of our universe, then what does that mean?  If there is an expansion of a singularity then that means there was a beginning and if you follow that expansion backwards, you find a singularity and you find Geneses 1:1.  The problem is people know little of what the Bible says, and how it points to what is “made” to prove God.  The two books of truth are namely 1) Nature (General Revelation) and 2) Bible or God’s Word (Special Revelation).

So consider God’s General Revelation as knowable and not an eternal mystery. “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse….” (Rom. 1: 19, 20 – Amplified Version) God’s handiwork proves his existence because it has intelligence in its design.

Science is our friend when it shows and proves God made the universe. God asks, “Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind?” (Job 38:36 NASB)   There are some great Christian/Science books that are in step with this understanding in the Bible. Check out Reasons to Believe at http://www.reasons.org. The Bible commands us to “Test the spirits to see if they are true!”  If we do not test truth in terms of science and Scripture, we do not follow this command.  The Bereans tested what Paul said in Acts 17:11 when they pored thru the Scriptures. Apparently they approved with his teachings.

In my personal journey of pursuing truth it was Frances Schaeffer who confirmed what I was suspecting was the truth about nature and the Bible. I was both pleasantly surprised and shocked at his understanding and what he said about truth. Sometimes I had to read his work over and over to see what he was saying about science and the Bible.  I soon understood there could not be divisions or opposites of God’s truth.   Frances said there is order and logic of both Science and Scripture because it made “understanding to the mind” Job 38:36. Frances was a forerunner to the truth of what is today the Christian Old Earth understanding of creation.

In some of my early writings I loved quoting Frances Schaeffer because he gave understanding to truth.  I am grateful to him for pointing out how interpretation could lead to rabbit trails of untruth. He said personal interpretation was not always inerrant Scripture. In Chapter 2 of “The Great Evangelical Disaster” he argues that we cannot separate faith from fact; fact meaning nature. “Evangelicalism is divided, deeply divided. And it will not be helpful or truthful for anyone to deny this.  It is something that will not simply go away, and it cannot be swept under the rug.” Again he said, “Unless the Bible is without error, not only when it speaks of salvation matters, but also when it speaks of history and the cosmos, we have no foundation for answering questions concerning the existence of the universe and its form and the uniqueness of man. Nor do we have any moral absolutes, or certainty of salvation, and the next generation of Christians will have nothing on which to stand.” This is a very powerful commission for us – to KNOW and SAY what is going on and to be very right about it. He said “All that society has today are relativistic values based upon statistical averages, or the arbitrary decisions of those who hold legal and political power.”

With truth we don’t do statistical averages to know it, to find what it is.  What is required for us is to get our “what is knowable” facts straight when we SAY anything.  If what we SAY is something that was told us to believe by blind faith, then our message is false and not credible.  Holding truth dear is what gives us the right to be qualified as an “insider Christian.”  Truthfulness cannot be something blindly mimicked without being tested for authenticity.

“Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind?” (Job 38:36 NASB)  –  God is the author and giver, the father and fountain, of all wisdom and understanding. If we know not our own spirit, how can we comprehend that Spirit which is infinite and eternal?

‘What Difference does it make?’  Wisdom and understanding comes from the “doing” direction of what God says I am to do. He says, “Test the Spirits to see if they are true.”  He has already given us the understanding of His handiwork and the knowledge of the mind to tell the truth of the book of nature to those who need the knowledge of His existence. To know the first cause Creator is to know salvation thru His Son.