by A. W. Tozer
Almost everywhere it is assumed that people are seeking truth, that society is literally swarming with dedicated truth seekers.
Colleges and universities are forever releasing promotional material with pictures of strong young men and beautiful girls walking side by side into the sunrise with rays of ethereal light illuminating their upturned faces; the idea being, one would gather, that those who enter our halls of higher learning are one and all burning with desire to walk in the way of philosophers and sages, if not indeed in the way of prophets and apostles, or even of martyrs if God so wills.
This fallacy is obviously maintained by our educators for the time the student remains within the ivied walls, for the baccalaureate orator chosen to do the honors at graduation is almost always one who will go along with the pleasant deception and assure the innocent graduate that after years of searching for the fountain of all wisdom he has at last found it and is now prepared to go out along with his fellow graduates to "build a better and a finer world."
Why this kind of pablum is swallowed so eagerly by the outgoing students and by their smiling and misty-eyed parents can be understood only when we remember that people like to hear what they want to hear and at a time like that they are not willing to spoil the pleasure of it by checking on the accuracy of anything they are told.
The fact is that men have never in any numbers sought after truth. If we may judge people's interests by their deeds, then of the young men and women who stream forth from our halls of learning each year the vast majority have no more than a passing and academic interest in truth. They go to college not to satisfy a yearning to discover truth, but to improve their social standing and increase their earning power. These motives are not necessarily to be despised; but they should be known for what they are, and not hidden beneath a pink cloud of specious idealism.
What are people actually seeking? Of course they seek satisfaction for the basic urges such as hunger, sex and social companionship; but beyond these what? Certainly for nothing as high and noble as truth.
Ask the average American what he wants from life and if he is candid he will tell you he wants success in his chosen field; and he wants success both for the prestige it brings him and for the financial security it affords. And why does he want financial security? To guarantee him against the loss of comforts, luxuries and pleasures, which he believes are rightfully his as a part of his American heritage. The ominous thing about all this is that everything he wants can be bought with money. It would be hard to think of an indictment more terrible than that.
The notion that the world is full of truth seekers becomes stronger as we approach the church and mingle with religious persons. The liberal and humanistic churches bear down especially hard on this point, their ministers constantly flattering their listeners that they are engaged in a heroic quest for the truth. That a few hundred persons will gather in an air-conditioned building once a week to sit on cushioned pews and listen to good music appears to be enough to satisfy the too easily satisfied minister that his congregation is composed of crusaders of the first water.
Either to avoid embarrassment or because he is not sure of his own beliefs the said liberal minister is usually careful to avoid definitions, so no one knows exactly what it is he is supposed to be looking for. But it gives a tremendous lift to a man's self-respect to think of himself, if only briefly and once a week, as a lofty idealist searching for truth, a kind of cosmic prospector digging for gold among the hills of God. If his wife fails to recognize him by that description it really doesn't matter, for no one takes the whole thing very seriously anyway. But it is a relief from the grind of business, traffic and taxes.
The world is full of seekers, true enough, and they gravitate quite naturally toward the church. Seekers after peace of mind are plentiful enough to keep the printing presses busy; seekers after physical health are always with us in sufficient numbers to make our leading faith healers comfortably rich; seekers after success and safety are legion, as our popular religious leaders know too well. But real seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer. And here is why:
Truth is a glorious but hard master. It makes moral demands upon us. It claims the sovereign right to control us, to strip us, even to slay us as it chooses. Truth will never stoop to be a servant but requires that all men serve it. It never flatters men and never compromises with them. It demands all or nothing and refuses to be used or patronized. It will be all in all or it will withdraw into silence.
It was Christ who capitalized truth and revealed that it was not an "it" at all but a Being with all the attributes of personality. "I am the Truth," He said, and followed truth straight to the cross.
The truth seeker must follow Him there; and that is the reason few men seek truth.
( Article taken from The Set of the Sail, Chapter 27 )
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