I’ve titled this series “True? False? Or Who Cares?” I’m concerned that the “who cares” crowd is winning. Someone asked me the other day what I thought of subjective truth. My problem is that I don’t even understand what this means. In my reply, I used this example: Suppose one of your friends doesn’t believe in absolute truth. All truth is subjective, he thinks. Ask him to do this – when he gets his next pay check, he should cash it at the bank, bring all of the currency home, wad it up, and burn it in the middle of the driveway.
If there is no such thing as truth, then there is no such true statement as, “That $1500 worth of currency can buy me food or pay down my mortgage.” That’s just a matter of personal opinion and therefore burning it is no more significant than leaving it intact. Now, we all know that this whole example is stupid. In the real world, we work with true and false all the time. It’s just when it comes to religion and morals, and maybe politics, that everything is questionable. And we know what the reason is. No one really wants some Being to be able to tell us what to do.
I started this series by referring to Dr. Willard’s discussion of “profession”, “commitment”, “faith”, and “knowledge.” He was primarily discussing religion and the fact that we often emphasize profession and commitment without the foundation of knowledge or truth. This is not only a religious problem, but a problem in most areas of human life and is at the root of the collapse of so much discourse. Let’s take it out of the field of religion and use the words, feelings, opinions, beliefs, and truth. I maintain that our problem is that we argue at the level of our feelings and opinions. People operate on the assumption that if they feel something is true or are of the opinion that it is true, then it must be true.
It used to be that discussions and arguments were carried out at the truth level. People would say, “What you are saying is not true because of these three facts.” Someone else might respond by stating that fact number 2 isn’t true for the following reasons….
That’s not how arguments go today. People say things like, “I just don’t think you’re right because I just feel that….” Or, “You can’t say that because how will people who disagree with you feel about it if they think you are saying they are wrong?”
We need to get back to focusing on what the truth is and how we discover it. We need to base our arguments and discussions at that point.
Back to the religious aspect for a minute. When someone makes a profession of faith, it should be faith in something that is asserted to be true, not just in some mystical feeling. The Christian teaching is that in real time and space, Jesus Christ was literally born from a virgin. At some point he was executed on a Roman cross and he died, i.e., his heart stopped beating and his brain ceased to function. Three days later he came alive, proving that he was God in a human body. We assert these things to be true meaning we believe they actually happened.
When we get careless and begin to think at the level of our feelings, then we are exactly where Dr. Willard describes – profession and commitment become dominant, and the grounding in truth that people need won’t be there to sustain them through all of the challenges of life.
Jesus is “The Truth” and his character does not reflect the god of the old testament or the god of revelation. After walking with Jesus for the last 17 years my view has changed dramatically. I now see everything through the lens of the incarnation (God made flesh). For me it clears everything up and answers every question I could ever ask. Jesus made it so simple. Thanks for your blogs.
Thanks for commenting. I’ll assume you are a real person and not a bot. The main question I’m trying to address in this series is, “What is true and how do we know?” I think our main goal should be to find out what is actually true, then believe it and respond accordingly. Our feelings and emotions will follow along in due time. In your comment you made several statements that are either true or false. You said, “Jesus is ‘The Truth’.” You should ask yourself how you know this is true. Where did you get this information? You don’t need to answer my questions. I’m just suggesting things to ask yourself. You also said that his character does not reflect the god of the old testament. Ask yourself the same question. How do I know this is true? How do I know what Jesus’ character is like? Where did I get that information from? And how do I know what the god of the old testament is like? And how do I know their characters are not the same? The Bible says that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament. Should I believe the Bible on that? If I don’t believe that part of the Bible, how do I know that the bible’s portrayal of Jesus’ character is accurate? Or do I know about Jesus’ character from some other source and if so, how trustworthy is that source? Do you see what I’m getting at? We need to find the truth, believe it and act on it. Take care, and thanks for interacting.