Pilate said to Jesus at His trial: "What is truth?" Of course, he didn't wait around for an answer! Jesus had said He came to bear witness of the truth and those of the truth would hear Him. In those days, might was right and Rome deemed no truth as absolute or universal--it was an idea ahead of its time. Today's skeptics mimic Pilate and scoff at the very idea that something could be true for everyone all the time everywhere (universally true)! In today's postmodern culture "truth is a short-term project" and New Age adherents just say whatever feels like the truth to you is the truth. Gandhi said truth is God, and God is truth on the other end of the spectrum. Without God, no truth can be established and everything is conjecture and speculation.
William James, the founder of pragmatism, believed you couldn't judge the truth of an idea, only its results. Today people are just interested in what's practical or what works for them--or what's true for them ("That may be true for you, but not me!"). There is danger in this philosophy because many false ideas do seem to work and are deceptively practical: TM and yoga seem to work for some and they believe they're true because they work. Christianity is different: It works because it's true; it's not true because it works. Christ claimed to be the incarnation of the truth and the way itself and the problem is that it goes untried and not trusted because people are to results-oriented and look at stats or benefits versus risks or pros versus cons. The point is that the truth does indeed work, the fault is that it goes untried due to so many false philosophies that are more alluring and enticing to the popular mindset and way of thinking. As they say nowadays: "It works for me!"
Truth is absolute and not relative as they teach nowadays because Jesus is the personification of it and said, "I am the truth...." Therefore, we can know Him and also what is true. Augustine said that all truth is God's truth or you may say, "All truth meets at the top." His motto was Credo ut intelligam or "I believe in order to understand." He was saying that all knowledge begins in a step of faith. Faith is the essential ingredient to learning truth. In order to know anything, you must assume something you cannot prove--everyone must take this leap of faith and do as Augustine said.
In order to know anything you must know something for sure, and since the only way to know something for sure is by divine revelation and what God tells us, only God knows anything for sure, but He has revealed it to us so we can. The reason only God can know anything for sure is that He knows everything. Skeptic philosophers say you must know everything to know anything! Well, we do know something, and the reason we do is that God has told us. If there was no God, all things would be up for grabs and you could know nothing for sure because everything would be relevant in a world without absolutes. Truth would then be irrelevant and unknowable, having nothing to start from.
Many statements can be true and the relationship between them is either valid or invalid, not true or false--conclusions are dependent upon the hypothesis. But Scripture is unique in that Jesus called it truth: "Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). The reason we have an explosion of knowledge today is that we know something (essentially the scientific method) and a way to find what is true. In the last days, Daniel said that knowledge would increase. What they say is that nature forms you, sin deforms you, school informs you, prison reforms you, but truth (Jesus) transforms you! Jesus is in the business of changing lives and He said that we are sanctified by the truth in John 17:17. Believers are those who have a "love of the truth" according to 2 Thessalonians 2:10 while unbelievers are those who "reject the truth" (Rom. 2:8).
Jesus said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free: These famous words are often misquoted to think that education sets you free, but it is in reference to knowing the embodiment of truth itself, Jesus. There were skeptics in antiquity as well as today who deny that you can know anything for certain: One prof told his class on the first day: "You can know nothing for certain." One bright student quipped: "Are you sure?" He fell into the trap of logic and replied, "I'm certain!" To say that truth is only relative is a statement without any truth value and only nonsensical as well as illogical. What they really want to say is that only the truths regarding Christianity are relative and their secular humanistic philosophy is the only absolute truth.
When we say that all truth is God's truth it is because truth is what is consistent with God and His nature: Truth is whatever God says it is! The whole cosmos is not chaos but like one vast mathematical equation (one astronomer asserts) run by intricate laws throughout according to nearly 50 constants such as gravity, the speed of light, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the charge of the electron, etc. If there were no God there would be no governing authority by definition (God is the one sovereign or in control of all) and we most likely wouldn't see the uniformity of the universe to God's laws or the laws of nature as some call them. What kind of God would be out of control, merely reigning but not ruling?
You cannot say that you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth unless you are God--we see dimly only as God reveals to us and only know in part like Deut. 29:29 and 1 Cor. 13 say, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God...." And "For now we see in a mirror dimly...." Men have a curious desire to delve into the unknown or what is called the occult but God has given us all we need to know in Scripture for every need we face. Soli Deo Gloria!
William James, the founder of pragmatism, believed you couldn't judge the truth of an idea, only its results. Today people are just interested in what's practical or what works for them--or what's true for them ("That may be true for you, but not me!"). There is danger in this philosophy because many false ideas do seem to work and are deceptively practical: TM and yoga seem to work for some and they believe they're true because they work. Christianity is different: It works because it's true; it's not true because it works. Christ claimed to be the incarnation of the truth and the way itself and the problem is that it goes untried and not trusted because people are to results-oriented and look at stats or benefits versus risks or pros versus cons. The point is that the truth does indeed work, the fault is that it goes untried due to so many false philosophies that are more alluring and enticing to the popular mindset and way of thinking. As they say nowadays: "It works for me!"
Truth is absolute and not relative as they teach nowadays because Jesus is the personification of it and said, "I am the truth...." Therefore, we can know Him and also what is true. Augustine said that all truth is God's truth or you may say, "All truth meets at the top." His motto was Credo ut intelligam or "I believe in order to understand." He was saying that all knowledge begins in a step of faith. Faith is the essential ingredient to learning truth. In order to know anything, you must assume something you cannot prove--everyone must take this leap of faith and do as Augustine said.
In order to know anything you must know something for sure, and since the only way to know something for sure is by divine revelation and what God tells us, only God knows anything for sure, but He has revealed it to us so we can. The reason only God can know anything for sure is that He knows everything. Skeptic philosophers say you must know everything to know anything! Well, we do know something, and the reason we do is that God has told us. If there was no God, all things would be up for grabs and you could know nothing for sure because everything would be relevant in a world without absolutes. Truth would then be irrelevant and unknowable, having nothing to start from.
Many statements can be true and the relationship between them is either valid or invalid, not true or false--conclusions are dependent upon the hypothesis. But Scripture is unique in that Jesus called it truth: "Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). The reason we have an explosion of knowledge today is that we know something (essentially the scientific method) and a way to find what is true. In the last days, Daniel said that knowledge would increase. What they say is that nature forms you, sin deforms you, school informs you, prison reforms you, but truth (Jesus) transforms you! Jesus is in the business of changing lives and He said that we are sanctified by the truth in John 17:17. Believers are those who have a "love of the truth" according to 2 Thessalonians 2:10 while unbelievers are those who "reject the truth" (Rom. 2:8).
Jesus said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free: These famous words are often misquoted to think that education sets you free, but it is in reference to knowing the embodiment of truth itself, Jesus. There were skeptics in antiquity as well as today who deny that you can know anything for certain: One prof told his class on the first day: "You can know nothing for certain." One bright student quipped: "Are you sure?" He fell into the trap of logic and replied, "I'm certain!" To say that truth is only relative is a statement without any truth value and only nonsensical as well as illogical. What they really want to say is that only the truths regarding Christianity are relative and their secular humanistic philosophy is the only absolute truth.
When we say that all truth is God's truth it is because truth is what is consistent with God and His nature: Truth is whatever God says it is! The whole cosmos is not chaos but like one vast mathematical equation (one astronomer asserts) run by intricate laws throughout according to nearly 50 constants such as gravity, the speed of light, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the charge of the electron, etc. If there were no God there would be no governing authority by definition (God is the one sovereign or in control of all) and we most likely wouldn't see the uniformity of the universe to God's laws or the laws of nature as some call them. What kind of God would be out of control, merely reigning but not ruling?
You cannot say that you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth unless you are God--we see dimly only as God reveals to us and only know in part like Deut. 29:29 and 1 Cor. 13 say, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God...." And "For now we see in a mirror dimly...." Men have a curious desire to delve into the unknown or what is called the occult but God has given us all we need to know in Scripture for every need we face. Soli Deo Gloria!
No comments:
Post a Comment