Craig Gaunt
Christian Faith & Contemporary Worldviews
Essay #2: Truth
One of the biggest philosophical dilemmas facing the post-modern world is the question Pilate posed to Jesus Christ after Jesus responded to Pilate’s interrogation: “what is truth?” (John 18:38). Prominent worldviews attempting to answer this have secularism as its foundation. First, all secular views of truth must be grounded in Darwinism as their starting point, the belief that all life and everything around us is a product of evolution and natural selections, even within the social and cultural realms. As such, Darwinism is not simply a product of scientific theory but an entire worldview. Secularists argue that, because their worldview’s version of “truth” is grounded in science, it cannot be refuted. However, as Pearcey points out, evolutionary ethics does not provide a comprehensive approach to explain all human thought and behavior.[1]
Social Darwinism is based on “survival of the fittest”, leading to the idea of promoting our “selfish genes” to secure survival.[2] However, rape and infanticide are two practices that Pearcey cites that could ensure survival of a species and are practiced in the animal kingdom.[3] Yet, societies across the globe have laws that protect victims and punish offenders of these crimes because humanity does have an innate moral compass that judges these and other behaviors as wrong and evil. Evolutionary psychology cannot point to a genetic trait for the cause of these evils, and it cannot judge them because it has no transcendent, absolute authority to appeal, even though psychologists try.[4] Plus, evolutionary psychology tries to explain and justify both these evil behaviors and our moral outcries against them, which results in no explanation at all.[5] Additionally, evolution does not account for the selfless acts of human behavior without needing to allow the possibility of the divine, which secularists refuse to do. In other words, humanity does not experience morality as an instinct, like Darwinism promotes, but as a law which guides our instincts because it is transcendent.[6]
Other modern and post-modern theories of truth also fail to encompass and explain all human behavior. The pragmatic theory says that truth is both subjective and relative.[7] Therefore, truth is whatever works and is practical. However, as Kreeft notes, what is practical is not always true (a successful lie) and what is true is not always practical (death).[8] Plus, G.K. Chesterton once said that humanity cannot be pragmatic because they are always striving for something higher and better than a pragmatic end.[9] A rationalist theory says truth is only what can be proven by reason. Unfortunately, it leads to an infinite regression because it rules out any room for presuppositions, which is needed to use reason and logic effectively (i.e. law of non-contradiction). Plus, one cannot prove that truth is only what can be proven.[10] An empiricist theory of truth or the belief that truth is only determined by our senses, while true to point, also falls short for a similar reason to that of pragmatism. After all, what is true is not always sensed (someone else is thinking a thought) and what is senses is not always true (hallucinations and delusions).[11] Looking at the coherence theory of truth, it claims to be true because in encompasses all other theories while disqualifying the correspondence theory, which is incoherent to what coherence is meant to be.[12] Turning then to the emotivist theory of truth, truth becomes what one feels, and this is wrong because many truths are not felt but known (history).
With so many flaws in all these different approaches to truth, one must start considering the reality that there is an objective truth and that it can be known. In a post-modern worldview, the idea that there are “absolutely no absolute statements” is both absurd and illogical. Plus, post-modernism is not completely subjective because it rejects all absolutes but one: Darwinism.[13] Pearcey notes that, should Darwinism ever be proven false, post-modernity will die because an absolute must therefore be present.[14] Additionally, post-modernity’s ideal is the rejection of all foundations but this is an impossible goal, because one must know something before one can know anything.[15] Hence, post-modernity, while retaining certain strands of modernity, keeps trying to do what it cannot: overthrow truth and metaphysical realism while trying to replace it with socially constructed meanings.[16] The correspondence theory of truth (explained below) is inherent in any truth claim, and humanity depends on certain absolutes because the mind cannot function without having a sense of them.[17] However, before a pursuit of objective truth can be made, it helps to form a worldview that is comprehensive and explanatory of all human phenomenons and is grounded in one ultimate reality: God.
It has already been noted how evolution cannot explain all of reality and human experience. Without going into too much scientific detail about other flaws of the evolutionary theory, the laws of nature and characteristics of the universe logically point to an intelligent Designer (Rom. 1:18-20). The burden falls on the skeptic to prove that something came from nothing rather than on the believer who says that this Designer, who is eternal and all-powerful, can create everything from nothing. All of humanity can observe this fact simply by using their senses. In this regard, both believers and non-believers can agree on their observation because both are created by this Designer, and He has given humanity both the ability to obtain and understand real knowledge about Him.[18] Following this path, subjective theories of truth can be rejected because we do observe objective reality in experiential data.[19] This data is used to form scientific laws and the presence of these laws point to order and governance which cannot be explained my random evolutionary principles.[20] Hence, truth can only be known and understood if there is an absolute Creator of that truth who gives us the ability to know it.[21] A Christian can trust human reason and observation because we are created in God’s image and our human reason reflects God’s divine reason.[22]
Simply, what is true is what matches the description of reality or how things really are, and the Bible affirms this definition of truth (Prov. 14:25; Acts 24:8; Eph. 4:25).[23] Truth, by this definition of correspondence, must conform to reality as this is the only way we can know anything for certain.[24] Basing all reality in God the Creator, then all truth is, by definition, also exclusive because if it does not conform to God’s standards, it is not truth.[25] With a transcendent, absolute, and all-powerful God as a starting point to measure, truth cannot be error, self-contradictory, or deception.[26] Christians have traditionally affirmed that God’s truth has been revealed in three sources: Creation, the Scripture, and most importantly, Jesus Christ. For the first two of these, humanity can use the tools of logic and reason for determining truthful characteristics. However, in Jesus Christ, truth takes on a whole new definition that is unique to the Christian faith: truth becomes personal.
It has already been touched upon extensively that, through the general revelation of creation, God has made Himself known. Not only this, but God has established physical laws of nature that we can observe, quantify, and study, and He has given us the means and logic to understand them by being made in His image (Gen. 1, 2).[27] It has also been stated earlier that experiential data shows that humanity has a collective moral conscious that cannot be explained by an amoral first cause like evolution. Therefore, it must be noted that there exists an innate and universal moral law. For there to be such a law, logic says that there must be a lawgiver who is transcendent, omniscient (knowing that this law is relevant for all times and all places), and omnipotent (having the power to instill this law into a person’s conscience). This is proof that not only does the Creator want us to know His power through his works, but He also wants us to know truth by His principles.
The truth of the Christian worldview is not only seen through creation and sensed through moral governance but is sadly felt and experienced by the terrible effects of the fall of humanity into sin. The Bible speaks about a choice that God put before the first two humans out of His love and gift of freedom. Humanity, represented in these two humans, rebelled against God and must now live with the consequences of that rebellion (Gen. 3; Rom. 5:12-21). Through their sin, we acquired a sinful nature that is only concerned with pleasing the self and will do any means necessary to commit evil. Although the validity of this reason in explaining the evil in the world may seem almost mythical at first, it is more logical when compared to other worldviews and their explanations. After all, why would humankind strive for something better than this world’s evils unless there is some part of our being that drives us to find the answers which lead us back to our Creator who gave us these answers and whose image we retain? Secularism does not offer an explanation for the evil in the world because evolution does not give it an authority or first cause to pronounce anything as “evil” or “good”. Other religious systems try to treat the problem of evil as nonexistent, part of a heavenly war that is out of our control, an illusion, etc. The only faith that offers both a true explanation for the reason for suffering and a God whose presence is with humanity in the pain of suffering is Christianity.
The second tenet in which God has revealed truth is within His Word, the Bible. Although the Bible itself claims to be God’s truth in several places (Ps. 119:160; 2 Tim. 3:15-16; 2 Pet. 1:19-21; John 10:34-35; etc.), this will not convince the skeptic as it would be circular reasoning. However, God has used the Bible to touch humanity as evidenced by countless testimonies of skeptics who read it for themselves and were transformed by its message. Plus, there have been even more skeptics, like Josh MacDowell, who initially set out to disprove the biblical texts and ended up being transformed by them. In this way, the Bible is true in that it always accomplishes the goal its Author intended for it: to make men wise unto salvation (Isa. 55:11; 2 Tim. 3:15).[28] Furthermore, traces of the divine can be seen in the fact that the Bible was written by over forty different authors from various socio-economic backgrounds over a period of one thousand years. Combine this with the fact that there is one uniform theme throughout its pages and, even though it has been burned, hated, despised, and attempted to be disproved, it has stood the test of time and continues to impact people to this day. It is this truth that is referred to as revelation, a willful disclosure by God of Himself and His character.[29] It is this that makes the Bible so much more than a book to be studied with logic or reason. It is not grounded in finite human reason but in its own authority as revealing God.[30]
The hardened skeptic of truth within the Bible still may not be convinced by the former evidence. However, historically the Bible has provided descriptions of events that have never been refuted. All archeological findings have only confirmed what the biblical text has to offer, including wars, names of kings, places, streets, and other public records. The examples are too numerous to mention here suffice to say that no other holy text can substantiate such claims or have such propositions. However, one of the key tools for determining Scripture’s validity and accuracy is its prophetic predictions of future events. One example is Daniel’s prophecy of the four kingdoms (Ch. 2, 7) which many biblical scholars see as being fulfilled in the eras of the Babylonian, Medio-Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. The prophet Ezekiel in 588 B.C. spoke against the city of Tyre and proclaimed its destruction (Ezek. 26). Three years after the prophecy Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to the city that had since been abandoned, and Alexander the Great later demolished the island city (where most people had fled during Nebuchadnezzar’s siege) and completely destroyed it in 322 B.C.[31] The most intriguing series of prophecies concern the person of the Messiah, and over three hundred references concerning his coming are present in the Old Testament.[32] They have either already been fulfilled in the New Testament (and extra-biblical evidence confirms this) or the Messiah will fulfill the rest upon the second coming.
It is this Messiah that this paper now focuses on and how truth becomes not only correspondent, propositions, and factual but takes on a new power. The apostle John makes this evident in his gospel and epistles of the New Testament. John views truth as not just having right propositions but actually something active; it does something. By knowing the truth, Jesus says, it will set us free (John 8:32). This is where post-modernity’s deconstruction of texts and truth in the name of freedom fails to comprehend the true purpose and nature of Christ as recorded in the Bible. His truth liberates not oppresses. Jesus’ claim in John 8 is a claim that He is the “personification of the history of God’s acts in the world”.[33] This truth frees when recognizing who Jesus is, not simply making propositions out of what He said.[34] It forces the believer to not simply to make statements about belief but to live and think differently about the world in the way Jesus lived, taught, and died (Rom. 12:1, 2).[35]
When Jesus says that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” in John 14:6, he is making a statement that those who do not know him do not know God.[36] Those who come to God must come through Christ himself not just by his teachings.[37] John continually emphasizes in his writings that one must have Christ to know the real truth (1 John 5:12; John 6:53-58; John 14:ff).[38] The truth here results in moral freedom from sin not simply intellectual freedom from ignorance, a common Gnostic misconception.[39] Christ is the truth in that He is the ultimate reality. In John’s writings, truth is both a matter of propositions in affirming that Jesus was with God in the beginning, and the truth of ultimate reality affirms the proclamation that Jesus was God (John 1:1,2). This proclamation in Christianity now forces the believer not simply to have the right propositions of truth, as Augustine affirmed before his conversion, but to have a living, personal relationship with the Savior and to see truth as embodied, living, and active.
[1] Pearcey, Nancy R. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity Wheaton. Crossway Books, 2004 pg. 212.
[2] Ibid., pg. 215
[3] Ibid., pg. 211-212
[4] Ibid., pg. 216
[5] Ibid., pg. 212
[6]Kreeft, Peter, and Ronald K. Tacelli. Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994. pg. 379
[7] Ibid., pg. 365
[8] Ibid., pg. 365.
[9] Ibid., pg. 365
[10] Ibid., pg. 365
[11] Ibid., pg. 365.
[12] Ibid., pg. 366
[13] Pearcey, pg. 243.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Mohler, R. Albert. “What is Truth? Truth and Contemporary Culture” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society. 48 no. 1 (March 2005). Pg. 72
[16] Ibid. pg. 71
[17] Ibid. pg. 72
[18] Pearcey, pg. 42; Sire, James W.. Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept. Dowers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004. pg. 82.
[19] Ibid., pg. 395
[20] Ibid. pg. 316
[21] Ibid. pg. 245
[22] Ibid. pg. 231
[23] Geisler, Norman. “The Concept of Truth in the Inerrancy Debate” Bibliotheca sacra, 137 no 548 O-D. 1980 pg. 328, 332.
[24] Slick, Matt. “What is truth – John 18:38.” Christian Apologetics and Resource Ministry. Available from http://www.carm.org/devotions/truth.htm. Internet; accessed 18 October 2008.
[25] Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. pg. 149.
[26] Slick, Matt. “What is Truth?.” Christian Apologetics & Resource Ministry. Available from http://www.carm.org/relativism/whatistruth.htm. Internet; accessed 18 October 2008.
[27] Mohler, pg. 73
[28] Geisler, pg. 331.
[29] Mohler, pg. 73.
[30] Ibid. pg. 73
[31] Carswell, Roger. Why Believe? Bletchley: Authentic Media, 2004. pg. 20
[32] Ibid. pg. 21
[33] Kinghorn, Johann. “John 8:32-The Freedom of Truth” International Review of Mission, 79 no 315 July 1990, pg. 315.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid. pg. 316, 318
[36] Dahms, John V.. “The Nature of Truth.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, no. 28/4 (1985): pg. 458.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid. pg. 459