Conversion Zindabad — 5
Is there only one truth?
Many of my friends shy away from talking about truth. One said, “You cannot know the truth”; another one quipped, “There is no such thing as absolute truth”. What they really mean is, truth is relative, like the above Escher’s lithograph. On the other hand, they boldly say that such and such a person is corrupt. When I ask, “how can you say that taking bribes is corruption when we cannot know the truth or morality?” then the conversation takes a turn to another topic.
But this friend of mine from the previous conversation was honest enough to ask that if Jesus is the truth, can there be other truths? That was an intriguing question. I liked his candor. So we had a serious conversation later.
When we resumed the conversation we started with the question, “Can everything be true?” If everything is true, then nothing is false. And if nothing is false then it would also be true to say everything is false. That is nonsense. To make an assertion is to deny its opposite. Therefore, truth by definition is exclusive.
As my friend travels to the US often, I asked him if he ever tried to give contradicting answers to the immigration officer when questioned? We both laughed about that. Being an Indian citizen with an Indian passport, if he tells the immigration officers that he is an American citizen hence he does not need a visa, he will not be allowed to enter the country. His statement did not correspond to reality and is also not coherent with the other known facts.
Any truth claim that does not correspond to reality and is not coherent with other set of related propositions, is false. Two contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense. In the same way, two contradicting beliefs cannot be true. Either one or both are false. Then I asked my friend, can you now believe that all religions are true? He replied that, he once believe that all religions are the same. But, later he noticed that they fundamentally contradict each other.
That is a reasonable conclusion for now. Then I asked him, are we free to know the truth? If so do you want to know it?
‘Conversion Zindabad’ series is a partly fictional and partly actual conversations on the concept of ‘freedom of conscience’. If you like these posts please clap and if you want to be notified on the new posts, follow us by clicking the ‘follow’ button below.
