The Truth About The Truth

For my 12th grade AP English class, we read 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien. This is a book about the Vietnam war as well as war in general. It plays on several issues, including this contrast between story-truth and happenings-truth. The happenings-truth is what's really going on; it's the truth as we know it. Story-truth, on the other hand, can be a made-up story as long as the principle of the story is felt. That's what makes it true.

Truth is a difficult concept for adults to vehemently say they have a handle on. What is true? We have a lot of beliefs about religion, politics, sports, and other controversial items. Whose to say what is true? We can only say what we believe to be true.

Since truth, then, is often based on belief, it can be very subjective. But isn't that the exact opposite of what truth is actually supposed to be? You want truth to be solid, a rock, a foundation that can never move. My mousepad is black. That's the truth, no matter if you think it's a different color or not. My wife would chime in with the deep, philosophical question, "what if everyone sees a different color and that color they identify as black is really what looks green to you?" That's a different topic for a different day.

Let's suspend the idea that truth is subjective. That's not the point of this post, either. I think that people oftentimes want the whole truth right now. If you're hiding anything, then it's not completely true. I want to show you that truth is still truth, even if it's not given in a complete form.

This topic was born yesterday as Jodi and I were discussing Joseph Smith and polygamy. I think many people feel it's not honest of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS to "hide" the fact that Joseph practiced polygamy until after they're baptized. The 'truth' is this information is available publicly, so anyone at anytime can see it. You may want to stay away from places like exmormon.com, though. I don't think I want to learn about the Catholic church through a place called excatholic.com.

The reason missionaries don't go around answering this question, or all investigators questions for that matter, is because those questions don't matter; they're not important. One of the purposes of an LDS missionary is to teach about the gospel of the restoration, provide the investigator with the fruit of its prophet, Joseph Smith, and have them find out for themselves if all of this is true. If that person receives a personal witness of the divinity of that book or that prophet, then it must mean that this is the true church. If not, then it must mean it's not. But either way, that is the only important question. Questions pertaining to polygamy don't matter if you come to know that the LDS church is true in its beliefs.

So missionaries are accused of hiding the truth from investigators. This isn't true. No one is hiding anything, really. The fact is that, as someone newer to this religion, you don't need to know everything all at once. It's the same for anything. If I'm learning how to do a new job, I don't need to know a lot of things yet. I'll learn them over time.

When you're little, you're taught that making sentences rhyme is called poetry. Later you learn that some of the best poetry doesn't rhyme at all. As a little kid, you don't yet have the capacity to understand complex poetry structure; so teachers have you create sentences that rhyme. It's not that teachers are evil and want to hide the truth from you; you're just not ready for it yet. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!! (hence my picture of Jack)

As a child, you're not taught a lot of things. When you're ready, parents are willing to teach you. Truth should be given line upon line, little by little. So if I don't tell you everything you think you need to know about something, that doesn't mean I'm withholding truth. It means I'm waiting until you're ready. Sometimes people misjudge that. They tell people things they aren't ready to hear. Or they don't tell people things when really they are capable of handling it. That's a gauging problem, not an integrity problem. And that's the truth.