The very existence of truth has been rejected by many individuals today, but the fact of an objective truth is an important foundation for belief in God.
Have you ever tried to influence someone to consider in Christ, only to be told, ‘well, that is true for you, and I’m completely happy for you, nevertheless it’s not true for me?’
This attitude is a recent development in our societies, through which ‘truth’ is effectively seen as just an opinion slightly than objective and real. In contrast, in times passed by, human beings tended to agree that there was a “truth” to be found, and searched hard to seek out it – often disagreeing vehemently along the best way.
Perhaps this potential for conflict is the rationale why the brand new belief that truth is ‘just what a person perceives it to be’ has develop into so popular. It appears on the surface to be tolerant and accepting. We cannot argue, fight, or wage wars on the idea of ‘truth’ if we just accept that there is no such thing as a one truth to be found, and let people make their very own minds up.
This is a foundation of contemporary, liberal, secular societies – they’re imagined to allow for a plurality of beliefs with no strong imposition of values from the authorities, and so allow an individual to be free.
Yet the fact of this recent world of supposed tolerance is that our culture is now breeding some alarming extremism. In almost every political and social group, indignant intolerance is spreading. Multicultural societies are not working well, as their different communities and groups develop into increasingly hostile to 1 one other. There has been a rise in lots of other problems equivalent to mental health, family breakdown, crime and other woes.
Christians often point to those troubles in society and argue that their very own worldview, and the truths of the Christian faith, are the reply. There is a very good case to be made. However, in a world that has rejected the notion of ‘truth’, we’d first need to look at how and why the trendy secular worldview has rejected truth, with the intention to then have the opportunity to argue in favour of Christianity.
The philosophical foundations of ‘truth’
Although most individuals pay little attention to academic philosophical movements, the roots of the trendy attitude lie in arcane mental discussions.
A movement that known as “postmodernism” has proved to be very influential. This is the source of a whole lot of the strange, modern ideas which can be rapidly changing society, especially about biological sex and gender, and even about discussions related to the history of colonialism and racism. In a postmodern mindset, truth just isn’t real but as a substitute ‘constructed’ to serve the interests of the person, often to assert or hold on to power, it’s alleged.
Yet the fact is that these postmodern beliefs are subsequently selling their very own version of ‘truth’, they usually seem just as keen to impose their very own ‘truth’ onto others as other worldviews ever did – the intolerance of the recent upsurge in activist movements bears witness to this. In any case, it doesn’t make sense to assert ‘there is no such thing as a truth’, because it itself is an announcement of truth.
Ignoring the issues that their very own ideology creates – many postmodernists use their ideology to assert that Christianity was merely a way by which powerful people oppressed others, pointing to the era of Christendom when the faith did have a strong influence on ruling authorities and atrocities were done in its name. They consider the claim of Karl Marx that religion is the ‘opium of the people’.
These ideas are very blind to each Christian history and belief. For example, the fact is that the early Church had no power, was intensely persecuted by the powerful, and throughout history has been the means by which many oppressed people have been let loose – each physically and spiritually. The New Testament is the stories of individuals with no worldly power apart from what God gave them for the healing and liberation of others of their immediate surroundings. As Jesus said, his Kingdom just isn’t of this world.
Even when Constantine converted and Christianity became the faith of the powerful Roman Empire, and it retained its power in the course of the medieval period, the Church often acted to support the liberation of individuals. For example, slavery was outlawed in Europe in the course of the Middle Ages attributable to the persuasion of individuals like Pope Gregory I and Anselm of Canterbury. Although European countries were complicit in the brand new slave trade to the Americas for a time frame, it was a gaggle of devout Christians equivalent to William Wilberforce who put an end to this travesty.
In other situations where the Church is accused of being complicit in evil, equivalent to in Nazi Germany, many Christians spoke and acted against the regime at great risk to themselves, equivalent to the Bishop of Munster Clemens von Galen, whose public speeches were the rationale the despicable regime was forced to finish its mass slaughter of individuals with learning disabilities.
There were many heroes who hid Jewish people and helped them to cover from certain death, equivalent to devout spinster Corrie ten Boom, the villagers of Le Chambon and their pastor Andre Trocme, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and orthodox nun Mother Maria Skobtsova. These are all inspiring examples of how Christian faith inspires its holder to liberate the oppressed from the powerful through works of affection.
But the rationale the Church did act in favour of the oppressed in this manner was because they believed a truth – the fact of God and the morals that He instituted, equivalent to the intrinsic value of human life. These heroes didn’t adopt these truths to have power over others, as postmodernists claim, but as a substitute they saw the sweetness, goodness, love, freedom and truth of Jesus Christ, and sought to live that out of their day by day lives to assist others to flee evil and discover the identical divine reality, each spiritually and physically.
So what’s truth?
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “truth is one in all the central subjects in philosophy. It can also be one in all the biggest. Truth has been a subject of debate in its own right for hundreds of years.”
Because a lot of these academic discussions took place inside Christian societies, there is a large amount of Christian influence on the philosophical debate, equivalent to the thoughts of the nice medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas, for whom the existence of truth was very real.
However a Christian understanding of truth began to be questioned by atheistic philosophers in later centuries, which accelerated within the nineteenth Century, when Friedrich Schleiermacher questioned the historicity of the Bible, Charles Darwin doubted the Creation story, and Friedrich Nietzsche said “truths are illusions which now we have forgotten are illusions,” doubting that God exists or that there’s any real meaning or purpose on the planet.
Then within the twentieth Century, philosophers increasingly questioned the connection between language, mind and reality, resulting in postmodern thought. But perhaps this was more to do with the rise of atheistic ideas? If it’s true that there is no such thing as a God, and that each one that exists is the fabric world and what we will surmise about it through science, then truth becomes a far more debatable concept.
Yet most individuals can see intuitively that there’s more to life than simply the fabric world of atoms, molecules and scientific laws. Deep inside, we all know now we have a soul and that there’s meaning on the planet – indeed when someone does lose this sense, it is commonly accompanied by great grief and distress.
The evidence in an odd life is overwhelming: the sensation of affection whenever you hold a newborn in your arms; the incredible fantastic thing about nature or an exquisite murals of music; the experience of the love of God in lots of conversions; even the fact of mathematical and scientific equations, which have been said by many scientists to point to God himself. These all reflect the fact that’s beyond our material world.
And Jesus explicitly addressed the existence of truth with some powerful statements: “I’m the best way, the reality, and the life” (John 14:6) and “If you hold to my teaching, you might be really my disciples. Then you’ll know the reality, and the reality will set you free” (John 8:32). In total, there are 137 Bible verses that consult with truth.
For those that know that God is real, it is simple to consider in a ‘truth’ that exists over and above the fabric, physical world. God is the source of truth, and what truth is grounded in.
We can still be humble and tolerant and recognise that our own human frailties mean that we may be deceived, and that we must always take heed to the opinions of others with respect and without force. But that doesn’t mean we must always ever must abandon the fact that there’s a real, objective and essential truth to be found, and that it is predicated on the One who told us that he’s ‘the Truth’.
Heather Tomlinson is a contract Christian author. Find more of her work at https://heathertomlinson.substack.com/Â or via X (twitter) @heathertomli
