What is Truth? Quid Est Veritas

John 18:38 ~ Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

I was essentially asked by a friend what I thought about the death toll being touted by the Chinese government. I essentially told him it was a dangerous lie but didn’t come right out and say ‘dangerous lie’.

To answer I cited George Orwell's 1984. A book set in an imagined future, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent totalitarian government surveillance, historical negation, and propaganda. Not unlike today. Two of the quotes in that book haunt me now...

(1) “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

(2) “‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”

The rise of alternative truths and facts in the current culture and world society have led us all to question what is true especially now when lives are at risk. Truth takes on much more gravity when a loved one’s life is on the line. Mortality makes us search harder for what is really true. In the face of death only truth is worth dying for. Alternative truths or when everyone’s truth is true. Admit it, Democrats and Republicans both do it. There are no ruling parties there is only the party. There is a ruling bourgeoisie and a proletariat. In 1984 the Party rewrites the past because "if you control the past, you control the present." George Orwell demonstrates people can be controlled through cultural conditioning. Because people will put their faith in a government that they believe tells them the truth, a Ministry of Truth was created.

It is ironic that Pilate essentially alluded to the same 2000 years earlier. Pilate attempted to assert his authority over Jesus when he refused to answer the Jews charges against him.

John 19:10 ~ So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”

Essentially truth is what Pilate (the State) said it was. Pilate at the moment of this question believes he has ultimate authority to either free or kill Jesus. Pilate believes he has the ultimate authority to determine what truth is. In essence making truth relative. Pilate (the state) attempted to define what truth was…or so he thought.

The Chinese government now has a Ministry of Truth and China is now immersed in the reality that is 1984. The history and facts of COVID-19 in China is what the Chinese Ministry of Truth says they are. I fear the same is true of us soon in America. We're getting dangerously close to this paradox. We tear down our history to fit the most current cultural norm. If we have no truth or no actual truth/rule giver than truth/rules mean nothing and all things are permissible (The Brothers Karamazov).  If we don't have a real past to refer to, we will repeat just as easily as those who have forgotten it completely. What would be the difference? There would be no difference. Changed or forgotten are the same thing. Because we didn't have the truth and full scope of what happened in China from January and February, we, rest of the world are already repeating them. It looks like we're going to be 100x worse too.

China’s dystopian fascist capitalist model of government that manufactures truth as it sees fit has now had a dreadfully negative impact on the whole of humanity. A godless fascist capitalist government mind you. A government that appeals to no moral law only to the State as the measure of morality. A godless immoral ship in a sea of capricious humanity devoid of truth.

The real truth really matters. I believe the death tolls coming out of America are closer to the real ‘truth’. Part of the coming horrendous death toll is a direct product or outcome of China’s untruth. China’s lie.

Truth is simply this… In the very first axiom of philosophy/logic, the law of non-contradiction also known as the law of contradiction or principle of non-contradiction states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e. g. the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive. In other words, in any given context two truths cannot be true at the same time. Only one can. Truth is therefore absolute not relative.

China rewrote the truth and it had deadly consequences. Now we see the USA making the same mistake. The truth is not relative. Truth cannot have subjectivism applied to it without destroying its essential nature of being the truth. Once truth becomes relative logic dictates that it is no longer truth. It becomes an opinion. Said another way… If “accepting” or “agreeing upon” something makes it true, then truth, in fact, does not exist.

John 14:6 ~ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Sadly, what we see in the interaction of Pilate with Jesus and China concealing or twisting information...is the one who perpetuates the lie in light of having the truth does indeed have the blood of others on their hands.

That bloodguilt will remain no matter how many times they wash them….

Matthew 27:24 ~ So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”

No one is innocent. The Bible told us that on many occasions.