The Fundamental Truths

I believe that there are fundamental…..foundational truths in life. These are universal……they do not change……..they are eternal. Knowing them is the key to happiness. Violating them causes us pain.

These truths are so critical that they are “written on our hearts”…..we were born with them………they were put there by our creator to guide us. If you cast aside your desires, your politics, your emotions, your physical wants and needs………if you strip away everything that our culture, your computer and your TV tell you and carefully search your heart you will find these truths. It should be no surprise that the greatest truths in life are built into us……programmed into us.

In our busy lives, these universal truths often get buried beneath layers of ideas that our culture feeds us. The ideas that the culture sells us may very well have some truth in them. They are certainly pounded into us every day by an endless stream of politicians and other “talking heads”…….but, they are not universal……. and they are not eternal. The ideas that the culture feeds us are like a fashion that comes and goes. In a word, the moral framework that our culture accepts…..the rules that our society insists that we follow……are constantly changing. No wonder we have trouble keeping up……no wonder we get into fights over which rules to follow. Every day we get beat up because someone says that we should follow the latest rule instead of following the rule that was “fashionable” last year.

In my search for peace, I have tried to seek out the foundational truths of life…….and I doubt that I have been completely successful. But, here it is………my list of universal truths:

There is something………a form of existence……after physical death. In a word, there is an element of spiritual immortality in each of us.

We are driven by love…..the need to be loved and even more so, the need to love others. The love of a parent for his/her child is the purest earthly example of this love.

Pure good exists. There is some good in all of us. But there is also a reservoir of pure good that is external to us.

Evil exists. It is everywhere around us…….it also lives inside all of us……..it lives inside me. But, there is also an external reservoir of evil.

The good that we do……..and the bad that we do……… will return to us…….either before……or after we die. We have an abiding trust that there will be justice……..in the end.

We know that on the spectrum from good to evil, we are somewhere in the middle. We want to be good…..we want to avoid evil……..but we just cannot get all of the way there. In a word….we know that we are flawed. We need outside help.

We have a drive to promote ourselves as well as a need to help others.

So…..there they are……..the fundamental truths that are built into all of us. We often ignore them. Sometimes we run from them. But…….. if we search deep in our hearts……..we know that they are real…….that they are true.

Life….death….immortality…..love……good…….evil…….justice….failure

In the Bible, we see these ideas codified.

Creation…….death……..paradise……..love………God…..Satan……judgement……mercy

This is why the Bible is the most enduring piece of literature in the history of man. It touches on the fundamental truths that we sense deep in our hearts. It gives us a moral compass that is stable……..one that just works better than the current…… and transient …….moral fashion of our culture.

That is why I trust the Bible. That is why I use it as my moral code.