"Truth does not change according to my ability to stomach it." --Flannery O'Connor
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (cf. Prov. 1:7).
"Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (cf. John 18:37, NKJV).
"... We hold these truths to be self-evident..." (The Declaration of Independence).
"Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn, pernicious kind of unbelief. Clouding the truth nurtures unbelief." --John MacArthur, The Truth War
"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (cf. Prov. 1:7).
"Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (cf. John 18:37, NKJV).
"... We hold these truths to be self-evident..." (The Declaration of Independence).
"Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn, pernicious kind of unbelief. Clouding the truth nurtures unbelief." --John MacArthur, The Truth War
"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis
BY DEFINITION: "Truth is what corresponds to reality," (John Locke) --actually, God's reality!
Today we wonder: are different versions of the truth? Is truth really relative? This controverts the Bible, which claims to be the exclusive truth, and Jesus Christ its very personification, who was asked by Pilate, "What is truth?" There is no universal belief, but reality is founded upon universal and transcendent truth. Yes, the very notion of truth is in question, and some doubt the ability to be certain on anything, and this means the Bible's integrity is in jeopardy because we claim to know the truth, just as Jesus promised truth would set us free. Not knowing the truth is a kind of cynicism and shows a lack of faith. Doubt can be healthy, but cynicism as a mindset is wrong. Postmodernists claim that there is no truth with a capital T as a consequence and all truth is relative except their truths.
All knowledge is contingent and takes a leap of faith starting with some unproven presupposition. When the postmodernists say that it's just our interpretation or that truth doesn't matter, they are contravening God who alone delimits what is truth as its final arbiter. Truth has power and when they claim that your truth has no power over them, they are lying and do not know the truth. The catchphrase that it may be "true for you but not for them" is nonsensical--is that statement true for all and for whom? The Bible claims all knowledge begins in faith and the fear of the Lord--if there is no God, then truth is irrelevant at best. The sign of a believer is that he has a love for the truth and has been set free by it! Unbelievers reject the truth at their peril (cf. Romans 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:10ff).
This has a lot to do with our faith since a lot of believers don't know what they believe and cannot even defend their faith or explain why they have it; this is a form of unbelief. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15) and we are witnesses of it. Christians are dedicated to defending the truth and taking their stand for it and should make no unnecessary concessions. Augustine said that we believe in order to understand, and this proves faith is the starting point and skepticism leads to confusion and contradiction. We're not talking about subjectivity: Differences of opinion, values, and tastes. But we're fighting for what God decrees, His expression, and what corresponds with reality. Objective truth exists whether believed or not and never changes or adapts to situations, known as relativism--a denial of all absolutes.
The stakes have never been higher and it's not only our duty to defend the truth, but also to combat error and heresy. This so-called "truth war" is worth fighting as we "contend earnestly for the faith," (cf. Jude 3) and the faithful will take up arms and prepare themselves for this war against the devil and his minions and cohorts who are bent on destroying any vestige of the truth, and of reality as a consequence. The church needs to prepare members in what they believe and realize like Augustine that there are negotiable as well as nonnegotiable teachings (Heb. 13:9 says to beware of "strange teachings"), but need to be dogmatic on the essentials, showing liberty on the gray areas and charitable toward all believers who disagree in order to maintain a witness and unity of the body (cf. Eph. 4:3).
In short, we shouldn't just compromise our faith in the name of collegiality and sing kumbaya at the campfire celebrating unity when we are denying the notion of dogmatic truth and taking a stand. Augustine said that "all truth is God's truth" and Aquinas added that "all truth meets at the top." The truth is an antiseptic, but you must be willing to go where it leads to become changed and convicted. CAVEAT: NO ONE HAS CORNERED THE MARKET ON TRUTH OR HAS MONOPOLIZED IT! NB: The Greeks of antiquity nobly sought the true, the good, and the beautiful. Soli Deo Gloria!
Today we wonder: are different versions of the truth? Is truth really relative? This controverts the Bible, which claims to be the exclusive truth, and Jesus Christ its very personification, who was asked by Pilate, "What is truth?" There is no universal belief, but reality is founded upon universal and transcendent truth. Yes, the very notion of truth is in question, and some doubt the ability to be certain on anything, and this means the Bible's integrity is in jeopardy because we claim to know the truth, just as Jesus promised truth would set us free. Not knowing the truth is a kind of cynicism and shows a lack of faith. Doubt can be healthy, but cynicism as a mindset is wrong. Postmodernists claim that there is no truth with a capital T as a consequence and all truth is relative except their truths.
All knowledge is contingent and takes a leap of faith starting with some unproven presupposition. When the postmodernists say that it's just our interpretation or that truth doesn't matter, they are contravening God who alone delimits what is truth as its final arbiter. Truth has power and when they claim that your truth has no power over them, they are lying and do not know the truth. The catchphrase that it may be "true for you but not for them" is nonsensical--is that statement true for all and for whom? The Bible claims all knowledge begins in faith and the fear of the Lord--if there is no God, then truth is irrelevant at best. The sign of a believer is that he has a love for the truth and has been set free by it! Unbelievers reject the truth at their peril (cf. Romans 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:10ff).
This has a lot to do with our faith since a lot of believers don't know what they believe and cannot even defend their faith or explain why they have it; this is a form of unbelief. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15) and we are witnesses of it. Christians are dedicated to defending the truth and taking their stand for it and should make no unnecessary concessions. Augustine said that we believe in order to understand, and this proves faith is the starting point and skepticism leads to confusion and contradiction. We're not talking about subjectivity: Differences of opinion, values, and tastes. But we're fighting for what God decrees, His expression, and what corresponds with reality. Objective truth exists whether believed or not and never changes or adapts to situations, known as relativism--a denial of all absolutes.
The stakes have never been higher and it's not only our duty to defend the truth, but also to combat error and heresy. This so-called "truth war" is worth fighting as we "contend earnestly for the faith," (cf. Jude 3) and the faithful will take up arms and prepare themselves for this war against the devil and his minions and cohorts who are bent on destroying any vestige of the truth, and of reality as a consequence. The church needs to prepare members in what they believe and realize like Augustine that there are negotiable as well as nonnegotiable teachings (Heb. 13:9 says to beware of "strange teachings"), but need to be dogmatic on the essentials, showing liberty on the gray areas and charitable toward all believers who disagree in order to maintain a witness and unity of the body (cf. Eph. 4:3).
In short, we shouldn't just compromise our faith in the name of collegiality and sing kumbaya at the campfire celebrating unity when we are denying the notion of dogmatic truth and taking a stand. Augustine said that "all truth is God's truth" and Aquinas added that "all truth meets at the top." The truth is an antiseptic, but you must be willing to go where it leads to become changed and convicted. CAVEAT: NO ONE HAS CORNERED THE MARKET ON TRUTH OR HAS MONOPOLIZED IT! NB: The Greeks of antiquity nobly sought the true, the good, and the beautiful. Soli Deo Gloria!
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