How do we really know what's true?

Recently I received an email from a familiar company that looked legitimate, yet something didn’t seem quite right about it. The email was directing me to confirm my account information. I wanted to do the right thing, but something just felt off.

I took a few minutes to pray about it. I reasoned that as the expression of God, I reflect the divine intelligence and ability to be guided by what’s real and true and nothing else. As a result, I was led to look at the email again, and this time I noticed a telltale sign that the email was a scam attempt to trick me into revealing information that could be used to gain access to my credit account. I didn’t reply to the email, and my account has remained safe.

The willingness to play loose with the truth behind this scam email is a small example of a trend that has larger repercussions. A news program I watched recently described Americans as living in a “post-truth” era. The point was that sometimes it’s really hard to tell what’s true anymore because so many of the suggestions being offered look so authentic. It would seem that “truth” has become whatever people want it to be, regardless of the evidence.

This kind of “truth” is capricious when human minds simply take things at face value and don’t bother to question whether what’s being presented is true or not. How is it possible, then, to know what’s really true?

From the perspective of Christian Science, Truth is a synonym for God. Whatever is true is real and has the authority and power of God behind it. God, Truth, is immutable and immortal.

This enduring nature of Truth is spoken of in the Bible in Deuteronomy: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4); and again in Psalms: “For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations” (Psalms 100:5). If we want to know what truth is, we need to find out what God is.

Christian Science presents this view of unchangeable truth based on what God is and what God knows, and not based on mere human belief or assertion. For instance, in the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Mortals try to believe without understanding Truth; yet God is Truth” (p. 312).

Because the nature of truth is divine, it originates in God and nowhere else. It includes only that which is derived from good, and can never be hurtful or harmful. By understanding more of what truth is, and how it works, we are able to see more clearly what is not true, and to expose it as a lie.

Christ Jesus showed us how to do this. He proved that good always overcomes evil. He revealed that health and harmony are always the facts, and disease and discord yield to this truth that proves them untrue and therefore unreal. He demonstrated the fact that life is never overcome by death, but death is overcome by Life, which always presents the truth of man’s being. And what’s more, Jesus promised, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31, 32).

In my own life, gaining in the spiritual knowledge of divine Truth has healed me when I have been sick, brought solutions to light when challenged by a lack of financial resources, and repaired broken relationships.

In this era, as in every era, we all can recognize and respond to what’s really true when we turn to God as Truth and follow only that which is good.