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+On Personal Truth
+#################
+
+:date: 2016-10-02T18:57:39
+:status: draft
+:category: faith
+:tags: postmodern
+
+Our pastor was talking today about the distance between head and heart,
+and that it is absolutely crucial to transform truths which we have only
+in our head to those which are in our heart, and which are the only ones
+which actually drive our behavior. He suggested the Lord’s Supper as one
+God-given tool for surmounting. I completely agree with. The Lord’s
+Supper is one mighty tool we were given for this purpose.
+
+However, I don’t think it is the only tool. Yes, knowledge limited to
+our head will not save us, unless it gets down to our hearts and thus
+truly to our lives. However, it often feels from many evangelical
+teachings that the solution for the lack of heart-knowledge is to
+increase our head-study. I don’t think it makes much sense. I think we
+need to get down to find out more what prevents the content of our head
+to get down to our heart.
+
+    […] and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
+
+    -- John 8:32 NET
+
+It may be a presumption, but I would add here to the Biblical text “and
+ONLY the truth shall make you free”.
+
+Postmodern philosophy is often accused (a bit unfairly I would think,
+but that’s another topic) that its basic tenet is that everybody had
+their own truth. It is certainly nonsense, if it means that there is no
+single objective truth and what matters are only diverging opinions.
+However, despite disagreeing with this, I don’t think we should throw
+away this statement as such. In fact, I believe we all have own personal
+Truths, set of things we truly deeply believe in, they are just so. This
+set is product of our upbringing, education, experiences, etc. These are
+truths for which we are truly willing to put down (to use the Czech
+medieval phrase) our throat, honor, and estate, or at least we know we
+should (if we were not such cowards).
+
+    The Lord is both kind and fair; that is why he teaches sinners the
+    right way to live. […] The Lord always proves faithful and reliable
+    to those who follow the demands of his covenant. […] The Lord shows
+    his faithful followers the way they should live. […] The Lord’s
+    loyal followers receive his guidance, and he reveals his covenantal
+    demands to them. 
+
+    -- Psalm 25:8-14 NET
+
+And yes, plenty of these truths we believe in are wrong. After all each
+of us, who did not grow up in faith, had once as one of those heart
+truths a belief that God does not exist. Of course, I do believe that
+the best (if not only) measure of our faith and life is the Revelation
+of God. Plenty of these truth we got wrong, we misunderstood what God
+meant to tell us, we are influenced by our surroundings, wounds, our
+pride and sin. So, we have to continue to educate ourselves, to
+eliminate error from our thinking, look for new revelation, to be humble
+over our understanding of the world. Yet, I still believe He reveals to
+each of us all we need to follow him and do his will.
+
+These are truths for which we are responsible, and these (personal,
+heart) truths are the ones by which we will be judged. We are not
+responsible for understanding everything, but for what has been already
+revealed to us. We are responsible for bringing these truths to action,
+we are responsible for preserving them, we are responsible for sharing
+with our neighbors, and defending them against their opponents even upon
+that throat, honor and estate.
+
+However, there is also other side of this, and here we get to that
+distance between our head and heart. I believe we are also responsible
+for **not** confessing truths which have not been revealed to us. Did we
+ever confessed anything just because it was the easy way out of the
+situation, because we wanted to be accepted, because we were afraid? If
+we did, I believe we were blunting our judgement to discern the truth,
+we were actually lying. We live in the middle of the secular world, and
+even in the Church we live amongst sinners. When was the last time we
+stood up and said that what is commonly believed or what we are pushed
+to confess is not true or we just don’t believe it? When was the last
+time when hearing a sermon you said to yourself (you don’t have to
+create a protest movement) “this is not the Father I know”, or “I don’t
+think I believe this”? If we accept any junk which the world throws at
+us, we cease to be able to recognize the truths we actually should hold
+as our own.