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I have spoken from the viewpoint of practical necessity, but this is
not the only viewpoint. No one can be truly religious who is not
zealous for truth. It is the obligation of religion in all respects
"to bear witness to the truth." That is the New Testament phrase:
"to bear witness," not to leave truth standing alone, without
disciples and without defenders.
No one was more sure of the supremacy of truth than Jesus: he knew
that in the end truth is invincible. Yet, it was because the people
would not believe the truth that he wept over Jerusalem. Jerusalem
would not be saved, he said. Not one stone would remain upon
another. All would be destroyed--because the people would not
believe the truth. Disaster would come because the truth was
unbelieved and unbefriended. And disaster did come. It was on its
way while Jesus was speaking, even though there were still several
years to go. On its way while the Temple market greedily prospered,
and the priests chanted their hollow litanies, and the politicians
cheated the people--and Jesus wept.
Not that truth was being defeated. No, truth is never defeated.
Those who should have been the friends of truth--it was they who
were being defeated. They and the enemies of truth. For truth is
stronger, and always will be, than any lie. It is stronger, no
matter how persuasive, how plausible, the falsehoods and the
half-truths may be. And it is stronger for a very simple reason. It
is the thing in itself, the fact, that which is actually so.
Let me put it in an illustration. Suppose I am out at sea in a small
boat, and a storm comes up. Perhaps I do not like the direction in
which the waves are coming. Perhaps I would like to run before the
waves. But the compass says that the way to where I want to go does
not permit of it. Very well. All I have to do is to take a large
wrench or some similar object and lay it alongside the compass. The
needle will immediately swing around towards where I want it. And I
can set the direction of the boat to run before the waves.
Everything now is as I wish it. Except that instead of going in the
direction I want to go, I am on my way to mid-ocean and complete
disaster.
That is what happens when lies prevail. They only prevail in the
same sense that a compass is affected by a metal object laid
alongside. They prevail by misdirecting us--misdirecting us towards
disaster. And this must always be so, because truth is reality.
Truth is what is: and when we try to guide our lives by what is not,
or by what is only partly so, we depart from reality. This means
that our next contact with reality is likely to be a collision.
Whoever ignores reality or misconceives it or distorts it eventually
collides with it. That is the story of all the great disasters of
history. It will be the same in the future.
Truth may or may not prevail in the sense of being accepted; but it
will certainly prevail in the sense of destroying--sooner or
later--whatever stands in its path. It will do so because truth
alone is real.
Whatever betrays the truth eventually crumbles before it. We can no
more build a world on lies than an engineer can build a bridge on
false specifications. And it is in this sense, in this and no other,
that truth is invincible.
But truth can be disbelieved. It can be disbelieved under the impact
of successful lies. But it cannot be substituted for truth as an
actual basis. Lies have always produced calamity and always will.
Only the truth can save us. And whether we side with truth or not,
only the truth in the end can be victorious. As Lowell wrote it in
his well-known hymn,
"Careless seems the great Avenger:
history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt
old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne--
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and,
behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping
watch above his own."
Prayer: O God, show us that the truth we see with our eyes will
never be greater than the truth we love in our hearts. Amen.
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