WHERE THE GOOD COME FROM

Pictured to the left is a statue with a placard above that reads:

“The inquiry, knowledge and belief of truth is the sovereign good of human nature.”

My wife showed it to me after she noticed it on that TV show “Who Do You Think You Are” where famous people research their ancestry. Tim McGraw was the focus of this episode and was at the Library of Congress discovering that his family had a much more significant back story than he ever realized.

I transposed the words and worked up a paraphrase to make sure I understood the quote accurately. The sovereign good of our nature lies in the way we question truth, learn truth and believe truth once we find it. Posted in the world’s largest library is a statement that assumes that truth absolutely exists and not only that but the best in who we are rests in our orientation to it. That is to suggest that minus a life lived in pursuit of truth, we can only hope to be less than good. Is that a fair conclusive deduction?

So why is truth so disputed? Why do people quibble and say your truth is not my truth when no one has ever been sat down and told to “tell me A truth.” I believe the chastising refrain goes, “Tell me THE truth.” What is THE truth about your role in your workplace, your family, your marriage, your sports team, etc.? What is THE truth about promiscuity? What is THE truth about the anger you harbor? What is THE truth about how family comes second to everything in our society?

Speak in absolutes and someone deems you either naive or dogmatic. And yet there’s an antiquated quotation esteeming the very truth we’ve made so relative. Perhaps The Library of Congress was on to something invigorating. The notion of learning is rooted in a hunger for truth and it’s infinitessimal applications. How could the sovereign good of human nature stifle life? The sovereign good in human nature feeds the hungry, clothes the naked and keeps me from going crazy when life is unfair. How can the truth that brings these things be so bad?