Opinion are likes noses, they say everyone has one. and one very common nose is that this bit of received wisdom means that we never really can know the truth. That, of course, is a truth claim, and therefore contradicts itself. But perhaps one of the reason our postmodern culture has a tendency to embrace relativism is that it is coming out of a modernist culture that was over-confident in its capacity for knowledge. Being tired of living in a culture of know-it-alls, we have instead become the know-nothing culture.
The pseudo-science of psychology perhaps has been most given to epistemological hubris. One pop psychologist claim to be able to read people's postures, telling us in the best selling body language that crossed arms are a sign of hostility and folded fingers a sign of perceived superiority. Sigmund Freud claim to be able to tell us why some folks chew pencils and other are overly fastidious. The subconscious mind, we told, was out there in the open for all of us to read. The underground man is always coming up for air.
"The truth is that we don't always know the truth". Such should not send us scurring into skepticism, just appropriate humility. We ought not to claim to know more than we do, especially about the motives of others. Instead it should gives pause before we trust our own assessments. It also means we should beware of base motives when others are speaking well of us.
Consider Paul's before Felix, the Roman governor of Judea. The Sanhedrin had hired a mouthpiece a lawyer named Tertullus, to make the case against Paul. First Tertullus set the stage Felix: "" we have enjoyed a long period of peace under you, and your forsight has brought about reforms in this nation. Everywhere and in every way, most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with profound gratitude. But in order not to weary you further, I would request that you be kind enough to hear us briefly'" (Acts 24:2b-4,NIV ). Felix should have heard that he was about to hear from a manipulative lick-spittle with no interest in the truth. What he probably heard was a "wise man," one of the few to recognize his own beneficent rule. Both the speaker and the hearer were caught up in their own deceiful hearts.
Gentile Tertullus then turned his attention to the accused: '"we have found this man to be troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him'" ( vv.5-7 ). Tertullus may well have believe that he was now speaking the truth. This may in fact have been his perception of the events surrounding Paul in Jerusalem. The distinction, however, between truth and falsehood is not grounded in the sincerity of the believer. Paul was equally sincere in his belief that he was guilty of none of these charges.
The wise in our age would affirm that both are right and that neither is right. Because people sincerely disagree, it is all a matter of perception, and no real truth exists. But in our age are fools. Paul went and preached the Gospel. He did so with a clean conscience. His goal was that his brother in flesh would come to worship the Messiah for which they had been waithing. That preaching pricked the hearts of those who heard, and they turn caused trouble and rioted. But the truth is that neither Paul nor the truth caused the trouble. Instead it was the hatred toward the truth that caused the trouble.
Had Paul not been sincere, however, he still would not have stood guilty. He had there been a battery of court-appointed psychologists at the trial to testify that Paul had a titanic case of megalomania, (see, look at the way he fold his fingers, and how he sign his name with such big letters ), he still would not have been the cause of this riots. The only issue for Felix to decide was whether or not the message of paul was true. If it was true, those who rejected it were to blame. If it was false, then paul was to blame.
Sin are like the pores in our skin everybody has a lot of them. One of the reasons that we go out in search of knowledge that we cannot possibly find, one of the reading we seek to probe our darkest parts, is that we can use the knowledge we think we have to trump the knowledge that is as plain as the noses on our faces. If Felix could get at Paul's motives, he have no trouble over the truth claim that was making. And if he could avoid that, Felix could avoid the claim of Jesus Christ on his life. "We seek what we cannot know so as to hide from what we do know." At the end of the day , Tertullus' message to Felix was one of praise and peace. And if Paul was right, Felix had to repent, admit his sins, and serve another King. And so Paul remained a prisoner.
We would do well to judge better than Felix, to aspire to believe that which is true, because it is true, no matter what it says about us. We would do well to heed the wisdom of the true King, who told us that we would know the truth and that it would set us free. We must believe what we know, and leave the rest in the hands of the One who knows us.
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