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My starting point is the famous formulation Cogito ergo sum: “I think; therefore, I am” (or, “I exist”). René Descartes denied what he could, but he ultimately could not deny the truth that he existed. I also know that I exist. But why do I exist? I did not will myself into existence; I did not choose to exist, yet I do. I did not choose the body my thoughts seem to be confined within. So what shall I do with this knowledge of existence? Is it enough to merely exist or must there be a reason for my existence?
The very existence of life leads to questions about life of which answers are demanded by those people who possess life. But who or what can provide these answers about life? And even if we receive answers, how do we know if the answers are correct? For answers to be correct, they must be true. But what is Truth? Is Truth absolute or relative? Can Truth even be obtained? Is Truth important? Why is Truth important? Is Truth knowable?
“Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.”
(Demosthenes: B.C. 384-322)
“But when a man’s fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding, as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes, is himself.”
(Jonathan Swift: 1667-1745 A.D.)
Questioning the evidence against a belief is one thing, but when this reluctance to admit to making a bad investment into a belief rises to the level of denying or refusing to heed the evidence, then what we have is not critical thinking but wishful thinking. Many people are reluctant to release lies and false beliefs because of the amount of time and energy they invested into them. How many lies has the common person accepted and integrated into his/her life? How much time was invested into those lies?
To understand why I exist, I must journey on a Quest for Truth. For only in Truth can understanding about the knowledge of existence be known. But what is Truth? Truth can be understood both from what it is and from what it is not. First, let us examine what Truth is not. Truth is not “what works.” Something that ‘works’ and produces the right results doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. Even when results are in, one can still ask whether the initial statement corresponded to the facts. If it did not, it was not true, regardless of the results. Truth is not “that which coheres.” A set of false statements can be internally consistent. If several witnesses conspire to misrepresent the facts, their story may cohere better than if they were honestly trying to reconstruct the truth. But it still is a lie. At best, coherence is a negative test of truth. Statements are wrong if they are inconsistent but not necessarily true if they are consistent. If everyone is doing wrong, that doesn’t make it right; if everyone believes the lie, that doesn’t transform the lie into a truth. Truth is not “that which was intended.” If something is true because someone intended it to be true, then all sincere statements ever uttered are true — even those that are patently absurd. Sincere people are often sincerely wrong. People can possess good intentions yet still travel in the wrong direction. Truth is not “what is existentially relevant.” What is true will be relevant, but not everything relevant is true. A pen is relevant to an atheist writer. But does that make it true there is no GOD or gods? A gun is relevant to a murderer. But this does not make the former true nor the latter good. Truth is not “what feels good.” Truth may not be convenient. It is evident that bad news can be true. But if what feels good is always true, then we would not have to believe anything unpleasant. Truth is not necessarily the consensus — it is not determined by majority vote. And finally, Truth cannot be relative.
Let us examine what Truth is. Truth is correspondence with objective reality. If it lacks proper correspondence, it is false. The claim “Truth does not correspond with what is” implies that this view corresponds to reality. Then the non-correspondence view cannot express itself without using a correspondence frame of reference. The mind conforms to reality, it is not that reality conforms to the mind. All Truth is absolute. There are no relative truths. The relativist who thinks relativism is true for everyone is an absolutist. The dilemma is this: A consistent relativist cannot say, “It is an absolute truth for everyone that truth is only relatively true.” Nor can the person say, “It is only relatively true that relativism is true.” If it is only relatively true, then relativism may be false for some or all others. Why then should I accept it as true? The relativist stands on the pinnacle of an absolute truth and wants to relativize everything else. If Truth were relative (true for me but false for you), then an impossible would be actual. For if I say, “There is apple juice in the refrigerator,” and you say, “There is not any apple juice in the refrigerator,” and we both are right, then there must both be and not be apple juice in the refrigerator at the same time and in the same sense. But that is impossible. If Truth is relative, then no one is ever wrong — even when they are. The truth is that absolutes are inescapable.
It is objected that Truth cannot be absolute since we do not have an absolute knowledge of truths. Even most absolutists admit that most things are known only in terms of degrees of probability. How, then, can all Truth be absolute? Take for example the old belief that the world was flat. At the time that the old belief was accepted as truth, the truth was that the world was round. Truth never changes. Humans do not ever alter Truth by their beliefs. For while Truth is absolute, our understanding of absolute Truth is not absolute. Truth can be absolute no matter what our grounds for believing it. There is never a ‘new’ Truth created; rather, it is only a matter of us discovering the ancient Truth for what it truly was and is. Truth is. Truth doesn’t change; rather, our perceptions of Truth and understandings of Truth changes. When science truly progresses, it does not move from an old truth to a new truth; rather, it moves from error to Truth. Truth is absolute. Truth is narrow, but it is correct. That’s the way Truth is. Each truth claim excludes contradictory truth claims. For example, 3 + 4 = 7. Absolutely, 3 + 4 is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or any other number; 3 + 4 = 7 and only 7. But then someone can assert that 5 + 2 = 7; therefore, that person can reach the same Truth by different means. And this is why different beliefs and religions exist. However, the person would be neglecting to realize that the absolute Truth never changed. The Truth is 7 and only 7. Likewise, regardless of the equation of life, the absolute Truth is narrow and exact.
Someone once wrote to me, “What you think is right. What I think is right.” Now, there are instances when this may be true, such as in a conversation where Person 1 looks at a banana and says, “It’s yellow, looks delicious, I’m hungry, and so I’m going to eat it.” And then Person 2, looking at the yellow pencil next to the banana says, “It’s yellow, it does not look delicious, and it doesn’t matter if you’re hungry — no one should eat it.” In that scenario, both Person 1 and Person 2 can be right. However, in an argument concerning the same specific issue, someone would be wrong. If Person 1 looked at a real banana and said, “This banana is a fruit,” that person would be right. If Person 2 looked at the same exact banana and said, “this banana is a pencil,” that person would be wrong.
Consider another example: Let’s say Person 1 sees a “6” written in the sand on the beach. But then Person 2 approaches the writing from the opposite side and sees a “9”. Person 1 proclaims, “It’s a six!” Person two proclaims “It’s a nine!” Person 1 states, “What you think is right. What I think is right. They’re both right.” However, this is illogical. Truth is absolute and never relative. There’s only three options: (1) Person 1 is right and Person 2 is wrong; (2) Person 2 is right and Person 1 is wrong; (3) Both Person 1 & 2 are wrong. In this this example, Person 3 approaches Person 1 & 2 and says, “Text without context is pretext. Examine the evidence. Clearly, there’s a “5” written before and a “7” written after. Thus, it’s not a nine, but a six. Context matters.
Truth is knowable. We do know certain things about reality. If it is true that in certain cases we do have knowledge, then it must be the case that we can in fact know truth. The field of philosophy that deals with how we know is called epistemology. Essentially, it is the study of knowledge. We know many things without being able to prove that we do or without fully understanding them. Even the skeptic who claims we cannot have knowledge assumes he/she knows we cannot have knowledge. Believing we really do have knowledge is inevitable. Aristotle and many other philosophers argue how evidence relies on first principles. First principles are the foundations because they are self-evident. There exists a reality that is independent of the human mind, to which the mind can either conform or fail to conform. Aristotle considered the law of noncontradiction to be foundational for all other knowledge — and I agree. The mind is predisposed to Truth. Avicenna suggested that those who deny a first principle should be beaten or exposed to fire until they concede that to burn and not to burn, or to be beaten and not to be beaten, are not identical. Someone might claim that there is no Truth that corresponds to reality, but to that person I ask, “Is that true?”
Now, the important argument is between either “GOD/gods exists” or “GOD/gods does not exist.” These two statements cannot both be true. If one is true, then the other is false. And since they exhaust the only possibilities, one of them must be true. Someone might ask, “Is it necessary to care if GOD or many gods exists or not?” Absolutely. Yes. We should care. It matters. Why? We exist. Our identity is determined by our origin and our purpose by Truth. For once we know the Truth of this matter, we will have the right foundation on which to build our lives and live our lives. Purpose is directly linked to whether GOD/gods exists or not. For if GOD/gods exists, we were created for a specific purpose and we should live in alignment with that purpose; however, if GOD/gods does not exist, we were created by chance and must endeavor to create our own purpose. So, yes – it matters. If we were created by chance, we only have a few years within this lifetime to create our own purpose and also find reason to believe that our created purpose will actually matter and serve a purpose after we are gone. So then, does GOD/gods exist? All beliefs must be investigated. The quest for Truth begins with questions…
Quest For Truth 
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