Truth

“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” John 14:6

Man and culture have distorted the concept of truth. When asked what is truth what does man say? What examples might he give? Man requires breath to live? That is truth. Water is required for things to live. That is a truth. Or is it? What is truth? Does man know truth?
Truth and fact have long been intertwined throughout the most mundane and abstract of conversations. This interchanging is quite wrong for they are not the same. The word ‘fact’ has its known origins trace back to the 15th century. It came from the word ‘factum’ which meant deed or done. However, the word ‘truth’ has Old English and Old Norse origins. The word used in Old and Middle English was trēowth, which meant faith or loyalty. The dictionaries man has at his leisure use, for the most part, the same words as a definition for both terms. Both are associated with the word ‘reality’. It is a truth that you’ll get wet if you step into a pool. It is a fact that you’ll get wet if you step into a pool. Both are assumed correct in the current state of language in our society.
Let’s use the original definitions, or meanings, of both words in the same sentence and check the “reality” of the statements. It is a faith that you’ll get wet if you step into a pool. It is a done deed that you’ll get wet if you step into a pool. Which seem to imply a reality? It is quite clear that ‘fact’ does. Why would a ‘fact’ seem more real... because it is something that has been done before. From this stance, it is clear that anything that is considered a fact is something that has been done before. It is an accomplished deed. It is a fact that a deciduous tree loses its leaves in the Fall because it has been done. The deed has been witnessed and experienced by man, therefore, it can be assumed as fact. Let’s base this back to the concept of reality. Man’s reality must be based on things he has seen done or a deed he’s seen completed. Does this mean man’s reality is simply based on facts he’s witnessed? Yes. This notion is also the reason why the word ‘fact’ and its basis in man’ s current reality is flawed. Not all deciduous trees lose their leaves in the Fall. What about the one or two that don’t? Every fact has its rarity in which it does not occur like it has done so many times before. Fact is flawed thus man’s reality is flawed.
How does truth come into play? It is interesting that truth is derived from a word that means ‘loyalty’ and ‘faith’. What does this loyalty and faith speak of in regards to the definition of such a word? Faith is having a belief in things unseen, therefore, faith does not share an essence with the word ‘fact’. You might be wondering, “What about the wind? You can’t see the wind but it is there right? It’s a fact.” That argument simply stakes the claim that truth must be an entire different thing than man has allowed himself to know. Man knows wind because he can feel the effects of it. It is unseen yet it is seen because man can feel it. Feeling is seeing to the physical man. Once again, this must mean that the reality man has come to know is simply flawed. A belief in things unseen must mean that the ‘unseen’ is the things man can’t experience by his physical body. There must be more to this ‘truth’.
Man’s inner being, his soul, has longed for, since its creation, for a truth. How does man have a slight “sense” of truth? It is mostly likely because man is being that was simply created to search; to seek and discover. No man in history has ever come to a point in his life where he stopped searching for some answer in the facts or reality he lives in. Since no man has come to peace in his longing to live and discover ‘new facts’, it is evident that ‘truth’, even before the term was created by man, is something entirely different.
What makes truth so different than fact? Jesus. When a man came into the world and presented himself as the truth. He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He did not say, “I am the Way, the Fact, and the Life.” If he had said he was ‘fact’ (or a derivation of the word), it would’ve have been evident he was fake in his claim of who he was. He would’ve been void. Jesus did not live or was he from the world that man created; the facts man had come to know to shape his reality. He was something entirely different. He claimed he was truth. Let’s plug in the original definitions of the word truth. “I am the Way, the Faith, and the Life.” Wow. “I am the Way, the Loyalty, and the Life.” Wow. Here was a man that claimed HE was the truth, the feeling the physical body could not sense, that man had been looking for. In his very own words, he said he was faith. He said he was loyalty. He was the way. He was life. What is truth? Truth is what man experiences when he accepts Christ as his personal savior. Why are the words ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ not interchangeable? Because they can’t exist with one another. Man lives off fact. Christ lives off of truth. To know truth, to live truth, to be truth, Man must know Christ, then, and only then, can man throw fact away. Fact is the closed door in man’s heart and mind that truth is always knocking.