Quid Est Veritas? (What is truth?)

QUID EST VERITAS?

 

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-4

 

Rev. Jon M. Ellingworth

St. John Lutheran Church – Waverly, IA

 

It’s graduation season once again! What a festive, celebratory, and joyful time! Even if you don’t have a family member or close friend who is graduating, the hopefulness, potential, and possibility set before our young graduates is both exhilarating and contagious. It’s natural to get caught up in the jubilation. I personally know several high school graduates from W-SR and college graduates from Wartburg, Hawkeye, UNI, and ISU. No, I’m not intentionally leaving out IOWA, I simply do not know any graduates of that venerable institution personally this year. I am excited for all of them even as I recall my own graduations past and reflect upon the great adventure set before them.

 

Along with the excitement of adventure, however, there is always a little anxiety, concern, and even fear, for with adventure there is necessarily risk and even danger. This was true when I graduated many years ago, and the world is, arguably, fraught with more risk and danger today. There is so much division, anger, hatred, and violence in America today. It is no longer possible to simply mind one’s business, live and let live, and hope to not be impacted by the chaos surrounding us. Today silence is considered violence and a person is labeled either privileged or oppressed based upon the color of their skin. Not long ago that was the very definition of racism.

 

Why is this? Surely there are many reasons, but the expansive growth of technology, particularly in communications, has to be at the top of the list. Thanks to the internet and social media we can know what happened moments ago in another state or nation, and peoples’ views on the matter will also be known almost instantaneously. It wasn’t that long ago that, here in Iowa, we wouldn’t know about a subway death in New York, or about a school shooting in Texas. That would have been local news. However, today we know about these happenings instantaneously, and just as quickly they are politicized and cause us to become even more polarized.

 

Generally speaking, I believe that knowledge is good and to be desired, however not all knowledge is useful, and without wisdom, knowledge can even be bad. It’s no coincidence that the original sin of Eden involved knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil. God declared the world so newly made and everything in it, including humankind, to be – not only good – but VERY GOOD. Evil was not a part of God’s good creation, but a rebellion against it.

 

That rebellion continues to this day, and it continues to grow progressively worse. Harvard University’s motto “Veritas” means “truth.” Sadly, much of what passes for education today is a close-minded ideology, not an open search for truth. Only consider the debate on global warming, Neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory, novel untested gene therapies masking as vaccines, gender orientation, critical race theory, and identity politics. To be on the wrong side of these ideological dogmas is to be labeled anti-science, anti-intellectual, bigoted, sexist, and racist. But true education requires critical thinking and intellectual honesty, the ability to admit that, when the findings disprove your hypothesis, then what you had believed, no matter how strongly held a viewpoint, is wrong. Those who truly want to support education should defend the right of free discourse, including dissent. Those who stigmatize dissent do not protect education from its enemies. Instead, they subvert the very education, discovery, and knowledge they claim to revere.

 

This is why my excitement for our graduates is mixed with some trepidation: Our graduates are emerging from institutions that have largely ceased the search for truth and instead promulgate ideological lies in its place. As the serpent directly contradicted God’s Word and lied saying, “You will not surely die,” so the truth is directly contradicted and lies are substituted. The truth remains, however, death is real and we all die. Likewise, all lies will be exposed for what they are in time. In the meantime, please pray for our graduates, guide them, support them, and encourage them. It’s not their fault that they’ve been lied to, but it will be our fault if those who know the truth remain silent.

 

Rev. Jon M. Ellingworth

Pastor, St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church – Waverly, IA