"... [B]ecause they refused to love the truth and so be saved" (2 Thess. 2:10, ESV).
Our relationship to the truth: We know it, believe it, submit to it, and then love it, according to John MacArthur.
What we witness today is the New Age definition of finding the truth within your own supraconsciousness, and the Postmodern value system that there is no absolute truth, but what may be true for you isn't for someone else, not to mention the prevalent Secular Humanism and their scientism or misuse of science to make statements out of their proper domain, and belief in science as a religion.
"Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (cf. John 18:38, NKJV).
"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17, NKJV).
BY DEFINITION: THERE IS SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OR FACT, HISTORICAL TRUTH OR FACT, AND LEGAL TRUTH OR FACT.
SCIENCE DEPENDS UPON MEASUREMENT, OBSERVATION, AND REPETITION AND MAKING INFERENCES EITHER DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE;
LEGALITY UPON ORAL AND/OR WRITTEN TESTIMONY, AND EXHIBITS OF VISUAL, AUDIBLE, AND ORAL TYPES (LEGAL EVIDENCE NEED ONLY BE BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT TO BE CONSIDERED TRUE);
HISTORY DEPENDS UPON THE VERACITY AND FIDELITY OF DOCUMENTS, CORROBORATING EVIDENCE, EXTERNAL AND/OR INTERNAL RECORDS-- AND EVIDENCE SUCH AS WHETHER IT CONTRADICTS ITSELF AND OTHER CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS.
Francis Schaeffer referred to truth that is objective and true regardless of whether we believe it or not or no matter who believes; it is always true in all situations and circumstances as "true truth." Get over the phrase "It works for me!" as being a valid truth claim. Because something works don't prove its truth, Christianity isn't true because it works, but works because it's true. The Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, who borrowed from Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, saw all truth as God's truth and that all truth meets at the top. God cannot tell a lie (cf. Titus 1:2) and is the God of truth, and John said that we know the truth and that no lie is of the truth (cf. 1 John 2:21), meaning that something cannot be self-contradictory and in violation of the law of noncontradiction (something cannot be something else and not be it at the same time in the same manner). That law is the first premise of truth and we could know nothing apart from this law, for you have to assume it to disprove it. In general, we are to speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) and bear witness of the truth in Jesus as we witness, and the unbeliever is called one who "rejects the truth" in Romans 1:28.
All knowledge of the truth is either a priori (before the fact or happening) or a posteriori (or after the fact or as a consequence). We either develop experience or reason things out, but most of what we accept as true we learned by faith! Paul's complaint was that they were always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth (cf. 2 Tim. 3:7). Jesus said, that "when He the Spirit of truth comes" He will "convict the world" (cf. John 16:8). All truth is revealed truth, for only one of infinite knowledge can know it and God opens the eyes of our hearts. He alone decides whether one perchance repents and "comes to a knowledge of the truth" per 2 Tim. 2:25.
People are born blind to the truth and must have their eyes opened by God: "[Y]ou will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (cf. John 8:32, ESV). Note that there is something known as propositional truth and the Bible reveals it to us this way as statements that are either true or false, right or wrong, but Jesus is the very incarnation or personification of truth itself, known as a person. Jesus didn't say He was telling us the truth, or speaks forth truth, but claimed to be truth--we can experience truth through knowing Him personally because our God is a personal God who can be known--you cannot know truth by following a rigid set of dos and don'ts. A book may be true, but only the Bible is truth and truth transforms the soul. Jesus said in John 17:17 that "[God's] Word is truth." "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17, NIV).
Jesus said He was the personification of truth itself and he who is of the truth hears Him, who came to bear witness of the truth (cf. John 18:37). This implies that we can know the truth and have a relationship with it because it is embodied in a personality. The more we know Jesus, the more we know the truth who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Paul said in Eph. 4:21 that the truth is in Jesus! Another theologian has said quite interestingly that without the way there is no going, without the truth there is no knowing, and without the life, there is no living. We could know nothing if not for Jesus telling us what the truth was and that He was truth--everything would be relative without an absolute standard to judge by, and everything would be up for grabs. In antiquity might was right and Pilate scoffed at the idea of there being a universal truth that was valid everywhere, even where Rome wasn't in rule.
Today people of the postmodern persuasion are convinced that all truth is relative: One prof opened his class by saying, "You can know nothing for certain!" A quick-witted student asked him, "Are you sure?" He replied, "I am certain!" In Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, he explores the absurdity of everything being relative in the absence of objective truth based on God. The very statement "All truth is relative" becomes relative in itself and of no truth value! Something must be certain or we could know nothing and that is where they see themselves--as knowing nothing for certain--leading to absurdity. Academia brainwashes and indoctrinates today's students into buying into this balderdash. What people are wont to say nowadays is that something may indeed be true for you but not for them--denying any objective truth that is true no matter what. People today are not concerned with truth, but only with what is practical and works --Christianity works because it's true, it isn't true because it works, pragmatism is only concerned with successful results.
Note that there are several ways to arrive at truth, but all require the acceptance of some preconceived idea or presupposition we cannot prove or disprove; there is no such thing as total objectivity outside of God's province. All knowledge of the truth begins with faith. Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand." Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke are considered the fathers of modern empiricism or science, the scientific method of research: Experiment, controls and variables, and depending upon repetition and measurement; however, unfortunately, science today has become scientism and people are skeptical of things not verifiable scientifically--when one makes scientific-like statements outside the domain of science, such as a philosophical or religious one, that is scientism (i.e., Carl Sagan saying that the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be). Science cannot make value judgments--it can tell us the know-how but not the know-why nor philosophy of something. For instance, whether miracles are possible is not a scientific question, but a philosophical and religious one and depends ultimately on whether there is a God and the reliability of the sources and documentation. Philosophy or reasoning and speculation from axioms or maxims (self-evident truth) to arrive at a Supreme Good, for example, as the Greeks did. History is another source of truth but it is not repeatable, and therefore must be verified by other means, such as the reliability of the documentation or witnesses' credibility and veracity. One can only ask whether the records are historically trustworthy. Many things that would be accepted in a court of law as true are not verifiable by scientific method, but by eye-witnesses and credible sources. Science cannot prohibit miracles, for instance, as false, because they lie outside its domain and it is like measuring radioactivity with a voltage meter. Logic (this is the relationship between two statements which can be either valid or invalid, while the statements are either true or false--to get a valid and true conclusion, you must have a true premise), known also as the "analytical method" of the Enlightenment--we have both inductive and deductive reasoning, going either from particular to universal or from universal to particular respectively. Aristotle formulated the first laws of logic as we know them and named one syllogism or going from major premise to minor premise, to conclusion. The preferred way to arrive at truth is to accept what is revealed propositionally in Scripture (Theology, queen of the sciences) as the infallible, inerrant Word of God and go from there in faith. The Bible is full of logical statements and Jesus is the Logos or the logic. Cosmos means order and is the opposite of chaos, in which science would be impossible and it is the enemy of learning. We can conceive of something logical that doesn't exist like a magic dragon, but in reality, all that exists must be logical or intelligible--that is why science was born of Christianity and not the Maya or illusion (the concept of the universe) of Eastern thought or faith. Science has its limits and has no right making claims against the supernatural because you cannot put God in a test tube under laboratory conditions, as it were.
The study of the determination of truth and knowledge is known as epistemology. The rules of evidence always apply--whenever one makes an assertion, and anyone can allege something, he must come up with evidence to be credible (for instance Muslims claim our Bible is corrupt without having any evidence and so it is not a valid truth claim). There is a truth known as the correspondence theory of truth or Truth with a capital T that reflects statements that correspond to the objective, real and logical world. The Postmodernist denies this kind of truth and this is called anti-realism--or that there is no "real world" out there to believe in. They insist everyone has their own reality and subjective understanding of reality and there can be no standards to fall back to and set the objective standard of absolute truth. This kind of logic is merely nonsensical and leads to an academic gridlock. whereby nothing can ever be ascertained.
What they are saying is that truth is whatever they agree on or reach a consensus on, or whatever they can get away with saying; consequently and generally, the only truths that aren't real are those relating to the Christian worldview in particular; however, their truths are absolute. One might refute their thinking by merely asserting that rape is always wrong under all circumstances and should be illegal as a consequence. If there is one absolute truth, there follows that others most likely exist and that absolute truth does exist. However, if there is no God one could reason that no one has the right to claim universal truth and this is where they are coming from--they don't want to believe in God because it interferes with their sexual (among other) mores.
By definition, truth is exclusive or it's not truth and biblically it's what God decrees and agrees with--He alone delimits and defines truth! John Lock attempted to limit it to what corresponds to reality in the Correspondence Theory of Truth. No matter how we look at it, no one has a monopoly on truth except the personification of truth itself--Jesus. A word of wisdom from Thomas a Kempis is in order: Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, with the Way there is no going, without the Truth, there is no knowing, and without the Life, there is no living!
And in conclusion, truth is whatever God says is true and comes from Him--we appeal to the Almighty. We alone have faith in the God of truth! We don't need all the answers if we know the Answerer! Even moral values are more like a mathematical equation in being set up by a Superior Mind who reckons in good faith, fair play, honesty, courage, good conduct, meaning, purpose, goodness, faithfulness, truthfulness, purity, integrity, bravery, nobility, altruism, gracefulness, generosity, love, mercy, kindness, and even justice. And so it would be logical to deduce God is a person who experiences these so-called divine and human values and standards that we share as being in His image and likeness to some degree, though in tainted and fallen or diminished form. Only God knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for example! But those things which are revealed belong to us as a privilege and responsibility to share and disseminate. Soli Deo Gloria!
Our relationship to the truth: We know it, believe it, submit to it, and then love it, according to John MacArthur.
What we witness today is the New Age definition of finding the truth within your own supraconsciousness, and the Postmodern value system that there is no absolute truth, but what may be true for you isn't for someone else, not to mention the prevalent Secular Humanism and their scientism or misuse of science to make statements out of their proper domain, and belief in science as a religion.
"Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (cf. John 18:38, NKJV).
"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17, NKJV).
BY DEFINITION: THERE IS SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OR FACT, HISTORICAL TRUTH OR FACT, AND LEGAL TRUTH OR FACT.
SCIENCE DEPENDS UPON MEASUREMENT, OBSERVATION, AND REPETITION AND MAKING INFERENCES EITHER DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE;
LEGALITY UPON ORAL AND/OR WRITTEN TESTIMONY, AND EXHIBITS OF VISUAL, AUDIBLE, AND ORAL TYPES (LEGAL EVIDENCE NEED ONLY BE BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT TO BE CONSIDERED TRUE);
HISTORY DEPENDS UPON THE VERACITY AND FIDELITY OF DOCUMENTS, CORROBORATING EVIDENCE, EXTERNAL AND/OR INTERNAL RECORDS-- AND EVIDENCE SUCH AS WHETHER IT CONTRADICTS ITSELF AND OTHER CONTEMPORANEOUS RECORDS.
Francis Schaeffer referred to truth that is objective and true regardless of whether we believe it or not or no matter who believes; it is always true in all situations and circumstances as "true truth." Get over the phrase "It works for me!" as being a valid truth claim. Because something works don't prove its truth, Christianity isn't true because it works, but works because it's true. The Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, who borrowed from Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, saw all truth as God's truth and that all truth meets at the top. God cannot tell a lie (cf. Titus 1:2) and is the God of truth, and John said that we know the truth and that no lie is of the truth (cf. 1 John 2:21), meaning that something cannot be self-contradictory and in violation of the law of noncontradiction (something cannot be something else and not be it at the same time in the same manner). That law is the first premise of truth and we could know nothing apart from this law, for you have to assume it to disprove it. In general, we are to speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) and bear witness of the truth in Jesus as we witness, and the unbeliever is called one who "rejects the truth" in Romans 1:28.
All knowledge of the truth is either a priori (before the fact or happening) or a posteriori (or after the fact or as a consequence). We either develop experience or reason things out, but most of what we accept as true we learned by faith! Paul's complaint was that they were always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth (cf. 2 Tim. 3:7). Jesus said, that "when He the Spirit of truth comes" He will "convict the world" (cf. John 16:8). All truth is revealed truth, for only one of infinite knowledge can know it and God opens the eyes of our hearts. He alone decides whether one perchance repents and "comes to a knowledge of the truth" per 2 Tim. 2:25.
People are born blind to the truth and must have their eyes opened by God: "[Y]ou will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (cf. John 8:32, ESV). Note that there is something known as propositional truth and the Bible reveals it to us this way as statements that are either true or false, right or wrong, but Jesus is the very incarnation or personification of truth itself, known as a person. Jesus didn't say He was telling us the truth, or speaks forth truth, but claimed to be truth--we can experience truth through knowing Him personally because our God is a personal God who can be known--you cannot know truth by following a rigid set of dos and don'ts. A book may be true, but only the Bible is truth and truth transforms the soul. Jesus said in John 17:17 that "[God's] Word is truth." "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17, NIV).
Jesus said He was the personification of truth itself and he who is of the truth hears Him, who came to bear witness of the truth (cf. John 18:37). This implies that we can know the truth and have a relationship with it because it is embodied in a personality. The more we know Jesus, the more we know the truth who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Paul said in Eph. 4:21 that the truth is in Jesus! Another theologian has said quite interestingly that without the way there is no going, without the truth there is no knowing, and without the life, there is no living. We could know nothing if not for Jesus telling us what the truth was and that He was truth--everything would be relative without an absolute standard to judge by, and everything would be up for grabs. In antiquity might was right and Pilate scoffed at the idea of there being a universal truth that was valid everywhere, even where Rome wasn't in rule.
Today people of the postmodern persuasion are convinced that all truth is relative: One prof opened his class by saying, "You can know nothing for certain!" A quick-witted student asked him, "Are you sure?" He replied, "I am certain!" In Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, he explores the absurdity of everything being relative in the absence of objective truth based on God. The very statement "All truth is relative" becomes relative in itself and of no truth value! Something must be certain or we could know nothing and that is where they see themselves--as knowing nothing for certain--leading to absurdity. Academia brainwashes and indoctrinates today's students into buying into this balderdash. What people are wont to say nowadays is that something may indeed be true for you but not for them--denying any objective truth that is true no matter what. People today are not concerned with truth, but only with what is practical and works --Christianity works because it's true, it isn't true because it works, pragmatism is only concerned with successful results.
Note that there are several ways to arrive at truth, but all require the acceptance of some preconceived idea or presupposition we cannot prove or disprove; there is no such thing as total objectivity outside of God's province. All knowledge of the truth begins with faith. Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand." Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke are considered the fathers of modern empiricism or science, the scientific method of research: Experiment, controls and variables, and depending upon repetition and measurement; however, unfortunately, science today has become scientism and people are skeptical of things not verifiable scientifically--when one makes scientific-like statements outside the domain of science, such as a philosophical or religious one, that is scientism (i.e., Carl Sagan saying that the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be). Science cannot make value judgments--it can tell us the know-how but not the know-why nor philosophy of something. For instance, whether miracles are possible is not a scientific question, but a philosophical and religious one and depends ultimately on whether there is a God and the reliability of the sources and documentation. Philosophy or reasoning and speculation from axioms or maxims (self-evident truth) to arrive at a Supreme Good, for example, as the Greeks did. History is another source of truth but it is not repeatable, and therefore must be verified by other means, such as the reliability of the documentation or witnesses' credibility and veracity. One can only ask whether the records are historically trustworthy. Many things that would be accepted in a court of law as true are not verifiable by scientific method, but by eye-witnesses and credible sources. Science cannot prohibit miracles, for instance, as false, because they lie outside its domain and it is like measuring radioactivity with a voltage meter. Logic (this is the relationship between two statements which can be either valid or invalid, while the statements are either true or false--to get a valid and true conclusion, you must have a true premise), known also as the "analytical method" of the Enlightenment--we have both inductive and deductive reasoning, going either from particular to universal or from universal to particular respectively. Aristotle formulated the first laws of logic as we know them and named one syllogism or going from major premise to minor premise, to conclusion. The preferred way to arrive at truth is to accept what is revealed propositionally in Scripture (Theology, queen of the sciences) as the infallible, inerrant Word of God and go from there in faith. The Bible is full of logical statements and Jesus is the Logos or the logic. Cosmos means order and is the opposite of chaos, in which science would be impossible and it is the enemy of learning. We can conceive of something logical that doesn't exist like a magic dragon, but in reality, all that exists must be logical or intelligible--that is why science was born of Christianity and not the Maya or illusion (the concept of the universe) of Eastern thought or faith. Science has its limits and has no right making claims against the supernatural because you cannot put God in a test tube under laboratory conditions, as it were.
The study of the determination of truth and knowledge is known as epistemology. The rules of evidence always apply--whenever one makes an assertion, and anyone can allege something, he must come up with evidence to be credible (for instance Muslims claim our Bible is corrupt without having any evidence and so it is not a valid truth claim). There is a truth known as the correspondence theory of truth or Truth with a capital T that reflects statements that correspond to the objective, real and logical world. The Postmodernist denies this kind of truth and this is called anti-realism--or that there is no "real world" out there to believe in. They insist everyone has their own reality and subjective understanding of reality and there can be no standards to fall back to and set the objective standard of absolute truth. This kind of logic is merely nonsensical and leads to an academic gridlock. whereby nothing can ever be ascertained.
What they are saying is that truth is whatever they agree on or reach a consensus on, or whatever they can get away with saying; consequently and generally, the only truths that aren't real are those relating to the Christian worldview in particular; however, their truths are absolute. One might refute their thinking by merely asserting that rape is always wrong under all circumstances and should be illegal as a consequence. If there is one absolute truth, there follows that others most likely exist and that absolute truth does exist. However, if there is no God one could reason that no one has the right to claim universal truth and this is where they are coming from--they don't want to believe in God because it interferes with their sexual (among other) mores.
By definition, truth is exclusive or it's not truth and biblically it's what God decrees and agrees with--He alone delimits and defines truth! John Lock attempted to limit it to what corresponds to reality in the Correspondence Theory of Truth. No matter how we look at it, no one has a monopoly on truth except the personification of truth itself--Jesus. A word of wisdom from Thomas a Kempis is in order: Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, with the Way there is no going, without the Truth, there is no knowing, and without the Life, there is no living!
And in conclusion, truth is whatever God says is true and comes from Him--we appeal to the Almighty. We alone have faith in the God of truth! We don't need all the answers if we know the Answerer! Even moral values are more like a mathematical equation in being set up by a Superior Mind who reckons in good faith, fair play, honesty, courage, good conduct, meaning, purpose, goodness, faithfulness, truthfulness, purity, integrity, bravery, nobility, altruism, gracefulness, generosity, love, mercy, kindness, and even justice. And so it would be logical to deduce God is a person who experiences these so-called divine and human values and standards that we share as being in His image and likeness to some degree, though in tainted and fallen or diminished form. Only God knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for example! But those things which are revealed belong to us as a privilege and responsibility to share and disseminate. Soli Deo Gloria!
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