In the course of a religious discussion a lady was asked if she believed in infant baptism. “Believe it? I’ve seen it!” she exclaimed. This anecdote reflects a problem about truth for many people. Is truth what ought to be or what actually is the case? For Latter-day Saints, truth is what actually is.
The Doctrine and Covenants gives us a plain statement as to what truth is: “And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” (D&C 93:24) We see that truth is knowledge of things. This knowledge is understanding, a mental comprehension of how the thing we want to know about relates to other things. We see a tree. To see it is not to understand it necessarily. To understand it we must grasp other correct ideas which relate it to other things. Those other ideas are represented by questions such as: Where did the tree grow? How old is it? What species is it? How was it propagated? Is it mature? Of what use is its wood? To have the answer to many such questions is to begin to understand the tree, to begin to know it as it really is.
When we have learned everything important about our tree as it is, and as it was, and as it will be, then we comprehend the truth of it. Mere physical inspection of the tree will give us some information about it, but not a very large portion. To understand that tree we need help. That help is available through the Lord. Our Savior and the Holy Ghost are both known as the Spirit of Truth. If we want to know the real truth about anything important, we must gain the truth from them. Truth is a spiritual matter.
Satan is in on the act as well. As the father of lies it is his business to substitute misinformation for correct understanding wherever possible. He propounds his lies directly, in personal revelation, and indirectly through people in their conversations and writing. He fills the world with lies to confuse and misdirect as many souls as possible. He fills the world with lies to confuse and misdirect as many souls as possible. He would have us believe that our tree grows by itself, without any spiritual influence. He would have us believe that its species was created by blind chance and that killing it has no moral involvements. Those lies are bad enough when applied to trees. But of course Satan says the same things about human beings, and many humans believe him.
When we think about it, we begin to realize that everything in the universe is to some degree connected with everything else. Everything shares a common time and space framework, and many things affect others in cause and effect sequences. The result of these interconnections is that there is one giant truth about the universe at every moment. To understand anything completely, we must understand everything completely. Truth is one great whole. Only a being great enough to comprehend that whole knows the real truth. We humans are not that great, and therefore must settle for glimpsing the pieces of truth.
As we glimpse those precious pieces of truth which come to us from our God, we must be careful to admit that we do not understand everything and that when we testify of the fragments revealed to us that is strictly our personal witness. No other person had better get his truth from us. We bear our witness so that our hearers will accept our words, but we entice our hearers to go to God Himself, to seek the Spirit of Truth, that they might be given their own personal glimpses of truth in their own personal revelation.
In the world, of course, there is a good deal of noise about truth, some of which would be amusing were it not tragic. We see some men persecuting and killing others because the others will not accept their witness of the truth. We see some self-righteously pretending to have discovered the real truth about the universe or some part of it from some historical document, and think they can then belittle others who are doubtful. We see worldly fads in “truth” that are like waves on the seashore, dashing all who would think for themselves. We see people strain at a gnat, insisting that the whole world we know is some human mistake a man has made, while swallowing a camel by denying the hand of God in all things, and the while strutting as champions of truth.
The real truth is spiritual and comes to individuals who can receive the Lord and reject Satan. It lingers and grows only with those who live by it, humbly struggling to repent of their sins and to make the world a better place by correcting their own stewardships. Every man’s witness will eventually come back to him. If he has testified truly, by the Spirit of truth, he will be justified. If he has received and believed the myths of the father of lies, they will haunt him to eternity. There is a truth about how things are and were and will be. The wise seek that truth humbly, bear witness gratefully, and above all live what they know to be the will of God.