Reason, Truth, and Emotional Currency

“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils because they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.” ~Martin Luther

 

Scholarly debate exists on whether Martin Luther actually uttered the last sentence of “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.” But whether he did or didn’t actually say this doesn’t lessen the merit of these words.

Human beings have a fundamental need to believe in something worth standing for. It is our nature.

Our need to defend something compels us into the fray.

Too often, we do so when wisdom would have us guard our words instead.

Oh, that this would be the year we discover what that something worth fighting for is.

The problem isn’t our need to take a stand. It’s that we’ve slipped into a place of confusion about what we should be defending. We don’t, as Martin Luther stated he must, wait to be “convicted by Scripture and plain reason.”

Plain reason has taken a back seat to “feels right” emotion.

We find ourselves fighting passionately for an idea or a cause with our feet planted firmly on shifting sand … which is not a good place to make a stand.

Luther’s statement doesn’t say “unless I am convicted by Scripture and my heart,” probably because he knows the prophet Jeremiah was right when he wrote: “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The only secure, trustworthy place to stand is the solid bedrock of truth. Unfortunately, we live in a time where truth is bought and sold with the emotional currency of the day.

It might be a wise time to consider who profits when our emotions rule our actions.

So what is truth? Is it science? Philosophy? Or is truth merely something that can’t be proven false?

Contrary to one current line of thought, we don’t each get to determine our own truth. What a world of chaos that would be!
But unless we test our beliefs—unless we apply the wisdom of plain reason—concerning what we feel so passionately about, how will we know when we’re standing on truth?

I’d like to suggest that we’ve made the search for truth much harder than it really is. We’ve been deceived into treating it as some mythical, magical entity. A shape shifter that can be altered to fit the emotional needs of the moment.

Truth must be the immutable basis for everything. It is only when we fear it that we seek to change or ignore it.

So how do we know truth?

Scripture and plain reason. Not Scripture and what I feel. Not Scripture and what everyone else feels/says/believes. Not even Scripture and what I wish were true.

The way back to truth is by renewing our desire for God’s Word, and then using it as the lens through which we view the world.

It is essential that we find the truth for ourselves, and stop accepting as fact everything fed to us through the often deliberately distorting lens of emotionally charged social media posts and around the clock news.

Step away from social media and news outlets. Spend time in God’s Word, and then take a walk through your neighborhood seeing the world with the fresh eyes of truth.

Before we decide in which field to take a stand, let’s make sure it’s situated on the solid rock of truth and not the shifting sands of popular emotion.

And then, like Luther, we will say with confidence, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”