How Can We Know What 'The Truth' Is?

By Precilla

There are probably hundreds of religions in the world today, with a few of them accounting for the vast majority of religionists. In addition to these religions are the several others that existed in the past but that have, for some reason or the other, gone extinct. Considerable multiplicity has thus always been a characteristic feature of humankind’s religious story.

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While many, if not most or all, religions share a few things in common, each religion, as a whole, is unique by itself. It has its own distinct cosmology (i.e., theory of the universe), its own understanding of the purpose of life, its own dogmas and doctrines, its own set of religious practices and its own code of conduct. Along with this, many, if not all, religions consider themselves as the Absolute Truth, in some sense or the other.

Perhaps most, if not all, theistic religions, which believe in a Creator (as the only God or the highest among many gods), consider themselves as the one and only right path, God’s chosen religion, the best or even the only way to commune with God and win His favour. Many adherents of these religions insist that only by believing in and following their particular religion can one please God and gain a place in Heaven after death. They regard belief in, and practice of, the supposed one and only true religion as of immense importance for how one lives in this world as well as for one’s fortune in the world to come.

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Given the fact that many different religions lay claim to being 'The Truth' and the only or best way to please God and win His favour, how does one really know which of these religions, if any, is indeed 'The Truth', the supposed sole vehicle of salvation? This is a question that a person who seeks Truth must ask.

But many people simply do not ask that question. Typically, they accept whatever they had been taught as children by their parents, having been socialized into believing that their inherited religion is the supposedly one, true way to God. Laziness, fear of angering God, pressure from their families and society if they question tradition or seek for Truth outside what they received in childhood and sheer indifference could be some of the reasons why such people do not think it important to ask questions about what Truth might be and whether it might be different from what they have learnt in the name of religion. They are simply content to ‘go with the flow’ and blindly believe and follow as they had been taught by their parents when they were little, and this is constantly reinforced even when they are adults. And so, many people continue to remain fervent believers in the particular religion that they were brainwashed as children into believing is the one and only way to please God and go to Heaven, not once stopping to think that this belief of theirs might actually be completely unwarranted.

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If knowing 'The Truth' is of immense importance for one’s life, in this world and the world that comes after this one, what is the way to find it? If blindly following a belief system that one has inherited at birth, as it were, is not the way to find 'The Truth' (simply because this belief system might not really be 'The Truth' that it and/or many of its adherents claim it is), how should we go about it? How, amidst the seemingly bewildering variety of absolutist and exclusivist truth claims put forward by votaries of different religions, can we discern which, if any of them, is true? Is there, in fact, any such thing as ‘The Truth’ or ‘The one and only way to please God and go to Heaven’, as some religions and their adherents claim? And if indeed there is such a thing, how can we judge between the different belief systems and decide which, if any, of these is the supposedly only true one? Is mere human reason, which is so fallible and limited, adequate for this purpose?

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To these seemingly perplexing questions, there is a simple answer: We only need to turn to the Creator, the One who brought us into being and sent us into this world, to help us in this matter. All we need to do is to request Him to guide us into the Truth and along the path of Truth, for surely, He knows what the Truth is and He will certainly guide to the path of Truth those who sincerely ask Him to.

Discerning the Truth is really as simple as this! One does not need to study many different religions and consult all sorts of so-called religious experts for this purpose. Approaching our Creator directly, we can simply request Him to guide us to the Truth in words like these:

Dear God, please guide me to the Truth. There are so many different religions in the world that claim to be the one and only way to You. I cannot, using my own reason, which is limited and fallible, decide which, if any of them, is true. Maybe the Truth—that is You—actually lies beyond all such belief systems, beyond all religions.

God, I want to follow the Truth, not a mere belief system that claims to be the Truth and which may not actually be so despite what it and its adherents might insist. God, You are Truth, so You guide me to Truth—that is, to You.

In this way, not binding ourselves by blindly believing in any particular religion (for that would mean coming to a conclusion about what is true on our own, without asking for and heeding God’s guidance in this matter), we can approach the Source of all truth—the Creator God—directly and seek His assistance to lead us to and along the path of Truth.

This really appears to me to be the only solution to the seemingly insoluble problem of finding out what 'The Truth' is.