Is There Such Thing as “My Truth” and “Your Truth?”

One great challenge in life today is to find truth.  We live in an era that some call “post-truth.”  Others talk about “my truth” and “your truth.”  It seems we have taken the concept of truth and attempted to reform it according to our own understanding and preferences. 
 
Perhaps we can find our way if we look at the definition of truth.  One says, “Conformity to knowledge, fact or logic.”  Another defines truth as “Reality.”  Yet even these definitions might not help today.  We no longer agree on many facts.  We violate the rules of logic to arrive at conclusions we desire. 
 
Some think that these are all good developments.  The belief goes something like this.  “A lot of bad stuff happened in the past.  Some of it occurred because people lived by the wrong truths – like ‘one race is superior to all others.’  Therefore, we must get rid of those wrong truths and replace them with the new truths we’ve discovered for the good of everyone.”    

This sounds inviting.  It assumes that truth is something that humanity shapes and molds as it goes through history.  But what if that assumption is wrong?  What if truth and reality are outside of us?   If that’s the case, then we must look at the past and present differently.  We must evaluate whether our ancestors lived according to truth or lies.  We might find that in some cases they lived according to truth and reality. They planted their crops in the Spring because they learned that if you planted in the Fall, your crops would freeze before they reached maturity.  But some also lived according lies or unreality - as if the color of one’s skin determined class and standing in society.  Most people today would agree with the truth that we are all equally part of humanity. 
 
So our ancestors lived according to truth and reality in some areas.   They lived according to lies and unreality in other areas.  Might this also describe us?  
   
Yet the response might be, “Why can’t we all just live according to our own truth and leave each other alone.  What’s true for you is true for you.  What’s true for me is true for me.  Let’s leave it at that and tolerate each other.”  

Well, consider these claims.  The holocaust happened.  The Nazis build concentration camps and gas chambers to exterminate Jews and other opponents to their ideology.   Most people would say the evidence and historical record reveals the truth of these claims.  We call those who reject this evidence “holocaust deniers” or “truth deniers.”  

But here’s the bigger question.  How would you classify the Nazi’s acts morally?   How about “evil?”  But if you met a devoted Nazi in Auschwitz in 1943, they would not say they did evil.  They were doing “good” to make room for the master race.  Does “what’s true for you is true for you and what’s true for me is true for me” work in this context?   The only way we can resolve this is to acknowledge that there IS such a thing as good and evil; truth and lies; Reality and unreality.  These are outside of us not something within us to be discovered.  If that’s the case, the next question is where do we discover truth that conforms to reality?  

I would suggest we check out one person who can answer that question for all of us. His name is Jesus Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life.  

 "Jesus said to him, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me.""
~ John 14:6 ~