What Good Is History?

"Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred..." (1 Chron. 12:32, NASB).
"What experience and history teach is this--that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of History).

We must realize that history is God's redemption story told in real time and God involves itself in history that is called interventionism and he is in control of history as he orchestrates it to the very detail determining the boundaries of the nations in the rise and fall kings. History goes in a direction that is not circular but linear it is headed towards a culmination and a climax when Christ comes and it can be interpreted we must learn from history.  The Bible says history can repeat itself. 

It does in a sense rhyme it comes back in different ways to learn and teach us new lessons and we don't learn them. Like what happens in Germany could happen here we must realize that we are not above being judged by God.  We must hope that history has a turning point and we can change directions we can still redeem ourselves and reclaim ourselves for God's sake in the world and be a light to the world as we once were as America. We can find meaning and history and learn our lessons even to apply to a person alive not just a story and it's not meant to entertain or be entertaining but to teach us wisdom and make us realize that God is in control of history it is his story.

Henry Ford said, "I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world." Businessmen have little use for academic subjects since their line of work is largely practical and commonsensical. It matters little whether Ford knew about the Civil War, except that he mistakenly named one of his cars the Lincoln! (I'll say tongue in cheek!) It has been said (by Georg W. F. Hegel, et al.) that the one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from it! Christianity is a religion of historical significance and is based on history and is dependent upon it as God's redemptive narrative that is headed in a direction at the culmination of Christ's Second Coming and Judgment Day to end all history.

Some erroneous views of history include uniformitarianism (God doesn't intervene miraculously, such as in the Deluge) and cyclical conceptions or views, whereby it's repeated in cycles---we hold it's going in a direction towards a consummation or is linear in conception. History is not the judge, as Communists believe, but a lesson to be studied and learned. We're not doomed to repeat our mistakes! We dare not discard our common heritage and legacy! Why? Our men in uniform have given the ultimate sacrifice to secure a place in the world's stage of nations. Marx thought the point of history was to change it, not just study it! 

However, the world is not as simple as a business transaction or the bottom line--diplomacy is a skill to be sought out and valued. We have a heritage of relationships in our nation with other nations that have taken decades, and many administrations to mold. To throw away and start from scratch every administration would be ill-advised, as well as disastrous. To be specific, we have made treaties and trade pacts that need to be honored, to keep the good faith and integrity of our nation intact. The president really has no right to start from scratch and issue all new treaties unilaterally, just because he disagrees with them. The honorable thing for one president to do is to honor the commitments made by his predecessors. We are finding out too late that George Washington may have been right to warn us of foreign entanglements and treaties, and even of political parties, that tend to divide.

The point of continuity in our foreign policy is to keep credibility and our friends from becoming our competitors and potential enemies or even adversaries by virtue of their alliances. What they say is that a friend of our enemy is our enemy! Don't even flirt with danger! Don't create the vacuum to make this possible! This is no time to be sucking up to our adversaries and trying to mold breakthrough relationships and alliances that are revolutionary and even upset the world order. It is vital that we recognize the world order and the balance of power in the world and not upset the apple cart. America doesn't have to remain the world's police, but we are without a doubt the leader of the free world and this comes with the territory. When America speaks the world listens!

What we have is a failure to learn from history: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," according to George Santayana. The U.S. is not a business venture run by corporate CEOs and is not immune to the lessons of history. Instead of making friends of our enemies, we seem to be making enemies of our allies in one sense of the word. 

Be that as it may, I am mainly concerned that we don't dissolve treaties, and end up going to war because of a lack of foresight or wisdom through good counsel. Do we have to end up in war before we learn our lesson that diplomats and statesmen know something and that it's not all about the bottom line or the pulse of the people, as a populist president seems to think? Soli Deo Gloria!

The Closing Of The American MInd

"The wicked are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead" (Ps. 10:4, NLT).


Allan Bloom wrote a book by the same title, decrying the fact that profs nowadays teach that truth is relative--this is a completely useless proposition and has no truth value: relative to what or to whom? Is that premise only relative? Postmodernism arose out of the aftermath of modernism when scholars thought science had all the answers, now they are part of the problem (WMD), among other things--scientists have problems too!


Postmodernism is then a skeptical mood that has an anti-worldview worldview! They see no metanarrative (having a disdain for them), as they refer to it as--they have a hermeneutic of suspicion. They are doubtful as to whether any universal/absolute truth exists, and, if it does, whether we can know it: nothing exists; if it does, we can not know it; if we can know it, we cannot communicate it; if we can communicate it, we cannot understand it (according to David Noebel's estimation). I've heard that one prof told freshmen that they can know nothing for certain; one student asked if he was sure; he was certain! Student beware of this new governing epistemology that is highly irrational and anti-intellectual, as I shall expound.


The reason they deny worldviews is because they deny we can see anything from God's point of view or viewpoint, and they are suspicious of God too. They deny objectivity or a God's-eye view. If there is no God, it follows that truth is also up for grabs! But they dodge the no-truth bullet and see truth as a short-term contract. There is, therefore, no reliable truth and no one can judge your truth or what you believe--your claims have no power over another. It is possible that we refer to truth because it exists? You may have heard the common claim that someone says: that may be true for you, but not for me; they are confusing something: it may work for you and what works isn't necessarily true, though what's true does work!


To Postmodernists there is no Truth with a capital T, while Jesus claimed to be the personification or embodiment of absolute truth: "I am the Truth!" But these skeptics don't want to let a Divine Foot in the door, because then they would have to admit to absolute truth; they go hand in hand! Truth not only exists but God has made a revelation of it and we can know it; we have only rebelled from it! Shirley Maclaine said "you aren't in a position to know what's true for another." But Postmodernism patron saint is Friedrich Nietzsche, who said that God is dead! But God refuses to die and is alive today while Nietzsche is dead. What he meant in saying God is dead is that they have killed Him and that He was no longer necessary to explain reality or even no longer relative!


We see Postmodernism in SCOTUS as they see the U.S. Constitution as a living document open to be interpreted by today's understanding and not what the framers intended. Therefore it may have multiple meanings and changes in meaning to suit the times (polysemy). Just like a Shakespearean play may imply something different that he never intended when performed today. Confucius said, "When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom." Truth is not open to many interpretations and is absolute and universal, not variable and personal.



All knowledge begins in faith, it's been postulated, and Augustine said that he believes in order to understand: faith precedes reason and all knowledge is based on some premise he cannot prove and must accept by faith. All absolute truth begins with God as premise and starting point of reference just like Proverbs 1:7, says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...." If we deny God, we have no basis of knowing anything metaphysical for certain. There are only four ways to know something: faith, revelation, reason, experience or observation!


We all have to start believing something we cannot prove, even in mathematics and science! We never could've known for sure of God's existence had He not taken the initiative and revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who entered history and changed it in the process. Socrates said that to gain knowledge, we must admit our ignorance! You will never find the truth unless you're willing to admit you could be wrong and are willing to go where the evidence leads, having an open mind.


This explains why we have modern skeptics like Pontius Pilate, who asked what truth was because people assume they know it all and aren't willing to go where it may lead. Truth conflicts with their principles and ethics or morality, not intellect; no truth equals no virtue, according to Socrates! Postmodernism is a sign of moral rebellion and of stubborn hearts who conveniently deny any Supreme Being declaring Truth with a capital T, that they have to submit to and obey and be accountable to!


There is danger and threat from within the church as some theologians and pastors become taken in by this philosophy and don't think we have "arrived at the truth of the gospel" yet, but everything is still up for grabs and personal interpretation. The church has taken hundreds of years to arrive at its doctrines, and we are to profit from this, not start over each generation, as if it's all up for grabs all over again--deja vu! This is the ultimate result and consequence when man leaves God out of the reckoning or the equation of reason!


In sum, per David Noebel, Postmodernism is theologically atheist, philosophically skeptical, ethically relative, biologically evolutionist, psychologically materialist, politically leftist, and legally pragmatic. This is why it's the primary threat to Christianity and absolute, universal truth as we know it and has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ's person.


["They traded the truth of God for a lie" (Romans 1:25, NLT). "...because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them" (2 Thessalonians 1:10, NLT). Unbelievers are those who reject the truth, according to Romans 2:8!] Raise the war cry: there's a Truth War that we cannot afford to lose by default; we must not make any concessions to evil. Soli Deo Gloria!

Can Man Live Without God In The Picture?

I'm not saying what would happen if there were no God (Acts 17:28 says, "For in Him we live and move and have our being..."), but how man's worldview is affected without a foundation in God--we must begin with God and explain the universe, not begin with the universe and explain God away!  Athanasius said that the only system of though that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point. 



Man cannot survive without conceiving of God; His manifest reality is known to every tribe, nation, and tongue or civilization.  Man isn't naturally an atheist or agnostic, but religious to the core; he has been dubbed Homo religiosus or the religious being.  They also call him Homo divinus, or the divine being (in the image of God or imago Dei).  Man is meant or hard-wired for worship, and if he doesn't find God, he will worship someone or something else, which is idolatry.  There is a gap or vacuum that must be filled and only God can adequately do the job.  Pascal did say that only God can fill this empty space and Augustine said that we are restless till we find our peace or rest in God.



When you take God out of the reckoning, man becomes uncivilized, as witnessed and documented in Romans 1, where God gives man up to his perversions.  Yes, we need God, He doesn't need us!  We can only find our fulfillment in Him and serving Him.  There is indeed purpose in life when one knows the Lord and serves Him; the chief end of man, according to The Westminster Shorter Catechism, is "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever"--taken from Isaiah 43:7, which says we're created for His glory.  We are the icons of God, bearing His image to the world and God has something to say through us; we are His voice to spread the Word, not angels! 



Without God, man has come from nothing, has no meaning in life, and is heading nowhere!   We must be able to answer the ultimate questions of life to have meaning and fulfillment:  Where did I come from?  Why am I here?  Where am I headed or going to?  What is man's destiny?  Is there a difference between right and wrong?  The Bible answers all these questions and science cannot because they are out of its domain or turf.  Science cannot make philosophical, religious, ethical, nor metaphysical judgments--neither can it make any value judgments, it is the "know-how," not the "know-why."  Yes, science is limited and we must not put our ultimate faith in it to solve all our problems or answer all our questions.



The scientific method doesn't apply to the metaphysical answers to the physical and to the spiritual, religious, ethical, nor moral domains.  For example, you cannot measure three feet of love, nor five pounds of justice, yet they exist and are real.  Love exists, yet you cannot prove or disprove it either!  In science, you have to have laboratory conditions, be able to measure, observe, and repeat an experiment with variables and controls to get a working hypothesis and finally a theory, and then a scientific, verifiable fact.   



Note that it's only because of the Christian worldview that science was made possible and the first scientists were Christians--there's no final conflict between science and the Bible, which is not a science text, but has no scientific absurdities or erroneous ideas.  Where it does make scientific claims, the info is correct and has been proven ahead of its time--such as the discovery of the water cycle, and ocean currents, the fact that the earth is round and is hung on nothing in space!   When science alienates Christians and becomes their enemy, they become unscientific and dogmatic, which is not scientific. 



When we try to establish ethics without God, it is impossible to have a foundation.  Fyodor Dostoevsky said that without God all things are permissible or up for grabs.  God is the source of absolute truth with a capital T and if there is no God, there can be no absolute Truth!  And so, without God, man is like a ship without a rudder with no anchor nor moral compass!  We are a law unto ourselves and each of us can make up our own ethical system as we go along, and morality is simply what we decide it is as a group, and it changes over time as we get more "civilized."   The Ten Commandments are then obsolete and too binding for our free lifestyle, which has no restraints nor limits.  



"Law is merely the majority vote that licks all others," to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes.  The Bible says in Psalm 11:3 that "when the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"  We have then lost our moral fiber as a nation and become free spirits, each man doing his own thing and what is right in his own eyes, the way Israel did before it had a king (cf. Judges 21:25).  God cares a lot about right and wrong and we have His moral law in our hearts in the form of conscience (cf. Rom. 2:15)--unfortunately, some choose to ignore it do evil.  We were meant for something better than anarchy and immoral, unethical society.



The end result is that man worships himself, fame, fortune, power, popularity, success, possessions, and even does hero worship, all of which are unfulfilling false gods and idolatry, that cannot meet man's inner longing for a relationship with God, not merely acknowledging or knowing He exists.  Jesus promised abundant life to all sincere seekers and God will authenticate Himself to everyone who diligently searches for Him (cf. Heb. 11:6)--He's not playing cosmic hide-and-seek, but will not reveal Himself to triflers!



An so the biggest question and issue facing man today is whether he can live without God, according to humanist historian/philosopher Will Durant, and our government becomes the highest law, in the land and is accountable to no one as final Judge.  Consequently, there is no Judgment Day, no Lawgiver, and no Ruler of man, no hell to shun, and no motive to be good, all because man doesn't put God in the equation.



Just like Friedrich Nietzsche declared God dead, or irrelevant and unnecessary, we must find out for ourselves the hard way, because man refuses to listen to the modern-day prophets and heed what Scripture says; man is ultimately headed nowhere and history has no meaning or purpose, with no climax, conclusion, or consummation either.  Man becomes a glorified ape or hominid, without the dignity of being in God's image, having any restraint on evil, and being able to communicate and know Him. 

 Soli Deo Gloria!

Defending Christian Worldview

"O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you." (1 Tim. 6:20-21, ESV).

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:2, ESV).

"My people perish for lack of knowledge" (cf. Hosea 4:14).

"For lack of knowledge My people go into exile" (cf. Isa. 5:13).

Our worldview, which outshines all others, the terminology taken from the German Weltanschauung, is our outlook or worldview (i.e., the sum total of convictions [e.g., is there such a concept as sin, a God, life after death?], ideas [philosophy and interpretations], beliefs [religious], values [patriotism?], but not opinions--note: you hold opinions, but convictions hold you!) and our worldview concerns our viewpoint in toto on life, our view of God, man, and the relationships and duties they owe each other--on reality in general. How do we make sense of the world when we encounter ideas whose time has come? It also answers the basic questions of life: Where did we come from or who are we? What is our purpose and meaning in life? What is wrong with mankind and how can we solve his dilemmas? And where are we going, or what is our destiny. Athanasius said that the only worldview that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point! "Christianity is Christ," according to John Stott, "all else is circumference!" If we take God out of the equation, we head into natural catastrophe and disaster--our lives become chaotic with no purpose or aim, busy, but to no avail, going nowhere.

The Bible is basically our Owner's Manual to guide us to do God's will on earth. We are basically here "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" (cf. Isaiah 43:7; and The Westminster Shorter Confession of 1646). The only worldview that gives dignity to man is the Christian one, for we see man as in the image and likeness of God, though tarnished by sin, it's still there and we are not dumb animals (cf. Job 18:3). If you see yourself as a grown-up germ or descended from blue-green pond scum or algae, it will affect your self-esteem and worldview. Teach man he's an animal and he will act like one! We become disoriented from God's design without God in the reckoning, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "Men have forgotten God." The word "purpose" is a dirty word to secularists, who deny that there is meaning and purpose in life, which is true without God in the picture and the end result of futile speculation and a fool's errand searching trying to "find oneself" or one's purpose in life.

We have a purpose in being here to do God's will: rule or subdue the earth; be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth; fulfill the Great Commission, and be lights in the world representing Christ doing good deeds in His name. We don't own anything, but are only stewards of God's blessings. We were designed to know God! However, culture has run amok in its abandonment of God and taking Him out of the reckoning. God sets the agenda and to disobey His will is called sin--of which is the root of the problem.

And so man rebelled against the loving God and chose his own way over God's wisdom and provision--he chose not to trust God; we do the same thing and only duplicate that sin and folly. We are not victims of circumstances or of nature and are not pawns of our genes and we can blame no one but ourselves since we are all born in sin and all have fallen short of God's glory and ideal. This was called the Fall and we all dittoed that sin and are individually responsible to God and it's a cop-out to blame anyone for our own faults and shortcomings or sin. The crux of the problem is that sin has entered the innocent world that God created.

God's remedy is the cross whereby He paid the price to redeem us and set us free from our sins. We are at the mercy of God because He is a God of justice and will judge all sin. What we need, is not an educator, nor an economist, nor a scientist, but a Savior to stand in the gap and put a hand on both us and God in reconciliation. God has solved the sin problem by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus!

It is a challenge to live up to a Christian worldview because the whole world has become secularized and people want us to privatize our faith. The Bible is not passe or obsolete, but relevant to all our problems! The biggest problem is what Jesus said, "You are wrong because you do not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God," cf.. Matt. 22:29. The Bible has all the answers to man's dilemmas, and his chief enemies are the devil, the sin nature in himself, and the world system. Equipped with Scripture, we will know what God thinks, get our thinking straightened out and have a Christian worldview, so necessary to defeat the devil's world. The world has fallen for Satan's lies and is deceived, and we are to preach the gospel so that they can know the truth and the truth will set them free (cf. John 8:32).

Ideas and worldviews have consequences and affect how we live. "If there is no God," Dostoevsky said, "all things are permissible." Atheist mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." Hamlet summed it up in Shakespeare's Macbeth: "[Life is a] tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," This is the bleak outlook and belief system without God in the picture. Will Durant, the famed humanist historian, said the biggest issue of our day is whether man can live without God. George Bernard Shaw said that no nation has survived the loss of its gods. The Bible has something to say about every major academic discipline and they all find their origins in Scripture. Modern man basically believes that science can solve our problems and has given up hope in religion as the solution. It takes faith to believe this! Secular Humanism is the prevalent worldview academically and socially, whereby the theme is "Down with God, up with man!" The deception of this worldview is that it strives for good without God! They see "man [as] the measure of all things" (in Latin homo mensura), and refuse God as the "moral center of the universe" with transcendent laws.

And the Postmodern era has become rather skeptical of the existence of absolute, transcendent truth, and posits all truth as being relative; relative to what? Saying truth is relative, with no Truth with a capital T; we can know nothing for certain, an epistemology of skepticism--it's a contradiction in terms and is itself a truth claim of no truth! Actually, the only truths they are really concerned about as being relative are the ones related to Christianity. This philosophy is in sharp contradistinction to the Bible's claim of propositional, incarnated, and absolute truth with no wiggle room for disagreement. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning point of all knowledge (cf. Prov. 1:7). All knowledge begins in faith, it's not just Christians who have faith, they just don't put faith in science as the sole arbiter of absolute truth.

What Secular Humanism does is deify man and dethrone God-man has wanted to make a name for himself ever since the tower of Babel (cf. Gen. 11:4). Their two main presuppositions are that evolution is unquestioned scientific fact and that the supernatural doesn't exist--they believe science has undermined the Bible! Christians are called to show their colors, be "Daniels," stand up and be counted, and be informed and show discernment: Men who "understood [interpret] the times, with knowledge of what to do," as it says in 1 Chronicles 12:32.

C. S. Lewis summed it up for our marching orders: "We must not remain silent and concede everything away [and lose by default]." That means our faith is defensible in the market square and open marketplace of ideas and we need not privatize it. We are in the world, but not of it (cf. John 15:19) and there is a war of "isms" going on, but Sir Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge is power!" (Cf. Prov. 24:5). R. C. Sproul, influential theologian, said it well: "With God we have dignity and without God we have nothing."

In sum, it is written: "In the beginning God..." meaning that we start with God and explain creation, we don't start with creation and explain or explain away God! In sum, Christian worldview outshines all others and had the best explanation of reality. Soli Deo Gloria!

All Truth Is God's Truth...

NB: WHERE YOU BEGIN VIRTUALLY DETERMINES WHERE YOU'LL END UP.

But the truth that Postmodernists just want to maintain is that the truths of Christianity are only relative or that some things may work for them and therefore be true for them (someone's truth has no power over you and you cannot judge another person's truth). They claim that one person's truth doesn't matter to another and their truth has validity for them. Like they say in the catchphrase: "That may be true for you, but not for me!" People often confuse what's true and truth: facts may be true and we speak the truth when we don't lie, but no one can "know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," like they demand in court, except God. Scripture is the fulfillment and revelation of truth and is the only source of divine truth and can be called "Truth." We can know the truth, Jesus is proof! Jesus said that he who is of the truth will listen to Him (cf. John 18:37), and He came to bear witness to the truth (ibid.). Pilate spoke like a typical Postmodernist and asked, "What is truth?" (v. 38), only not waiting for an answer--is it opinion or feeling?

To Rome, "might made right," (the Iron Rule); there was no universal truth. This refers to objective truth, meaning it's true regardless of doubt or affirmation, and no matter who says it or believes it, regardless of culture, context, or time. Postmodernists deny any possibility of knowing this kind of truth in their "hermeneutic of suspicion." They even go on to say that even if it did exist, we wouldn't communicate it adequately and understand it for sure. Don't confuse truth with "scientific fact" and "justified belief" or knowledge: e.g., that the earth was flat or the sun revolved around the earth, was justifiably believed in the past!

Augustine declared: "All truth is God's truth," Thomas Aquinas added, "All truth meets at the top!" Christians are, above all else, seekers of the truth (cf. 2 Thess. 2:10) and have experienced the truth to set them free (cf. John 8:32). We are responsible for the truth that God gives us and "speaking the truth in love" to another (cf. Eph 4:15, NIV), that means we are sensitive in its appropriateness, tactfulness, application, and timeliness. Wherever we encounter truth, it's because God ordained it as being the source of all truth, God Himself--whether in pure science (and this discipline could've only arisen due to the Christian worldview and the first scientists were Christians!) or in applied sciences, such as political science (just governance), sociology (society and groups), psychology (what makes us human? the study of behavior), biology (what is life?), law (what is just law?), ethics (how do we then live?), economics (who do we produce the most?), philosophy (how do we know something?), theology ("queen of sciences"--studying and knowing God), or history (recording the past using research and evidence). We all have a point of view that reflects on our interpretation of reality--not believing in God or that "God is dead" [or irrelevant and unbelievable], as Nietzsche proclaimed, is equated with there being no absolute truth as a consequence.

If we don't believe absolute truth exists, then we will not believe in a God of Truth with a capital T. There is absolute truth because Jesus came to bear witness of it and is the incarnation or personification of it. But there is no absolute belief! If they insist truth is relative, ask relative to what? We don't all agree as to our interpretations of the truth or the facts. And we have a right to our own opinions, but not to fabricate our own truths or make up so-called "alternative facts." Truth can be defined as what corresponds to reality and this is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth, but Postmodernists deny this and that we can even know an objective truth valid for everyone and all the time. They are, therefore, atheists by consequence, because, if there is no universal truth, there can be no God--at least there's no God's eye view of it or metanarrative (grand story of reality). Truth to them is what works for them or suits their fancy. In pragmatism, the test of an idea is not whether it's true, but whether it works--the results! Things that aren't true can work!

We must realize that all knowledge is contingent and it takes a leap of faith to know anything. And exists something besides matter/energy in the cosmos--intelligence! Scientists are people of faith as much as Christians; they have just accepted a different set of presuppositions to put their faith in. Scientists and science have been wrong before, and are not infallible nor inerrant--but limited. But with God there is nothing contingent; He knows all from the most trivial to the most profound and He chooses not to reveal everything to us, but to remain a God of mystery. Just like the first words of Scripture in Gen. 1:1 ("In the beginning God"), we must begin with God to know anything for sure and explain everything from there (just as Prov. 1:7 (NKJV) says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...").

He knows what lies in the future as well as the past, because everything is present with God, and He also knows all possibilities (past, present, and future), or anything that makes sense at all. Christianity is the only faith based on truth. Our faith is revealed because we could know nothing apart from revelation. This is the God we represent and we are to be dedicated to searching for and knowing the truth.

Christians have nothing to fear from the truth because we serve the God of Truth and in Him is no lie, for He cannot lie. Our faith is based on facts, not fable, fiction, myth, legend, or tall tale--but sound historically accurate narrative of eye-witnesses telling the truth with corroboration, and without collusion, and the veracity of their accounts is evidenced by their willingness to die for them, when they were in a position to know if it was the truth or a lie. Many will die for a lie, but they won't die for a known lie. NB: "THE ONLY SYSTEM OF THOUGHT THAT CHRIST WILL FIT INTO IS THE ONE WHERE HE IS THE STARTING POINT." --ATHANASIUS 

In Defense Of Truth

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." (James Russell Lowell, 1844, The Present Crisis)

By definition, truth is that which corresponds with reality (The correspondence theory of truth articulated by John Locke), or more directly AND BIBLICALLY that which God decrees or is concordant with Him.

"I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth" (1 John 2:21, NIV).

"All truth is God's truth." (Augustine) and "All truth meets at the top."(cf. Aquinas). 

"THEY REFUSE TO  STAND UP FOR THE TRUTH." (CF. JER. 9:3). 

There comes a time in our testimony that we must stand up for the truth and be counted as a test of our faithfulness. Jesus is the epitome of truth and all truth is God's truth, Jesus revealed Himself as its ultimate source. The trouble with truth is that no one person has a monopoly on it and we all need each other to arrive at truth per se (not abstract, but personified in Christ)--no one's cornered the market. What's wrong with cults is that they have just enough truth to be dangerous; they have an element of truth and inoculate people from the real thing, because of having error mixed with the truth so as to deceive. There's no such thing as pure evil--it's just a perversion or distortion of truth and good.

People go by what rings true for them personally for basically four reasons: it's true because it's believable or they believe it; it's true because their fellowship or group believes it; it's true because they want to believe it, and it's true because they have a vested interest in it. This is due to our bias and everyone has a bias; there's no such thing as perfect objectivity outside God. We all need to examine our motives and check facts because our faith is fact-based and our God is fact-based.

We must not dodge the "no-truth-premise" by insisting truth is only relative either. This is a "self-refuting statement" and cannot possibly be true or it contradicts itself--is that statement relative too? To the Postmodern, truth is but a "short-term contract." But Christians are hungry for the truth and love the truth; it's the rejection and hatred of truth that marks the unbeliever (cf. Rom. 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:10). One sure sign of a believer is his devotion to truth. Remember, Jesus promised the truth will set us free from this confusion (cf. John 8:32). There is Truth with a capital T! Truth, according to the Bible, is absolute, universal, and objective, meaning it applies to all, all the time, everywhere, and is true regardless of whether believed or not!

It is said that we cannot know the truth, and this would be true had not Jesus revealed it, the trouble is not in knowing truth, but that we have rebelled from it and are seeking rationalization to justify ourselves. Differing worldviews all posit certain "truths" and make truth claims that only their truths are true--they are all unified that Christianity is a lie. "No lie is of the truth," according to 1 John 2:21. However, there is a reliable truth that we all can put faith in.

The catchphrase that something "may be true for you but not me" is also fallacious. Some people refuse to accept truth in essence because they think it gives others power over them, and they claim no one's in a position to know what's true for them. People claim that our Christian claims are irrelevant, but God's truth marches on and is vindicated. Why do they all despise our truth? We all act like there's truth because there is truth! All Christians ought to devote themselves to the pursuit of truth with a passion. We all ought to be known as lie detectors and purveyors of truth!

As Christians, we are ambassadors for truth because we belong to the truth" (cf. 1 John 3:19) for Christ came to bear witness of the truth, and grace and truth came through Him, being full of grace and truth (cf. John 1:7), and all who hear Him are of the truth. And the church is known as the "pillar and ground of truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). When they insist that it's merely our interpretation, we insist that truth is absolute and universal and can be communicated. Zechariah 8:19 exhorts us: "... Therefore love truth and peace.'" Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is Earth Made Of?...

I'm not a scientist, and I certainly don't espouse "scientism," or the belief that science is the only valid source of knowledge, but I do believe that science can find facts, just like the Bible has scientific facts in it without having any scientific absurdities or known mistakes--where the Bible does make scientific statements, it's accurate; though it's not a science manual (though there are several instances where the Bible's knowledge is more advanced than that of current science).  We must make use of all sources of knowledge:  rationality, empiricism, experience, logic, history, philosophy, and revelation from God.  Ultimately, all information is contingent upon its presupposition, and all knowledge depends ultimately upon God, the source.  As Augustine said, "All truth is God's truth."  All truth meets at the top, he would say!  That's why the Bible has the roots of every major academic discipline and has something to say to initiate the study of each one from philosophy, science, logic, ethics, history, economics, theology, psychology, sociology, and even politics.  All these academic endeavors have their fulfillment in the person of Christ.

Science can demonstrate that energy and matter exist, but when they allege that this is all there is, they are presumptuous (you cannot prove a universal negative), such as Carl Sagan saying, "The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be."  That is a philosophical or theological statement not in the prerogative or domain of science to make.  For instance, when science says that miracles are a violation of natural law, they are saying natural law is God or has His power and that there is no Almighty who is the Lawgiver and is not bound by natural law but can overrule it at will.  And so the question of miracles is really a philosophical and theological one, not a scientific one.

In addition to energy/matter/quanta in the time-space continuum (time being the corollary of space and matter), we see information, design, order, and plans in our cosmos from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the largest galaxy.  Christians adhere to spirit.  New Agers believe in energy in everything, in fact, everything having a spirit and the existence of a Great Spark of life.  How can one not see the Anthropic Principle on earth, with its many contingent laws and nature's conveniences and not see God's handiwork?  "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork!" (Psa. 19:1, ESV).  Napoleon was asked why he believed:  all you have to do is look to the heavens--"Who made that?"   "The theory of an eternal universe is untenable!" Scientists assume the big bang and "a brief history of time" itself--which the Bible verifies (2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2).  Steven Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time postulating this hypothesis.

Logic will tell you that if there's creation, there must be a Creator.  If there was a beginning or Big Bang, then there had to be a Beginner or One who got the big bang going.  The Big Bang was so fine-tuned that even slight maladjustments would've made the anthropic principle impossible.  One can also reason that there is a plan because of a Planner, a design because of a Designer, order because of an Orderer, and a purpose because of a "Purposer." Just like you assume an artist looking at art and an architect looking at a building ("For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything," cf. Heb. 3:4, NIV).  Now, think of all the information out there!  Carl Sagan said that he'd believe in intelligence if we would get a message of information from outer space.  Well, there's plenty of intelligence on earth to look at to assume a Great Intelligence: every living thing as DNA or the fingerprint of God and is encoded with information, showing "intelligent design" or ID (the human genome has as much info as an entire set of encyclopedias).

Now, the ultimate dilemma or issue:  we have information, which necessitates thought, which necessitates a thinker!  A mind assumes a Higher Mind (the Logos of Scripture) and scientists don't dare go there because they want to deny His existence.  The logical order of events is this:   Thinker, thought, and then, finally, object or thing comprising forethought, design, or plan.   One of Einstein's earlier statements was that God was a "pure mathematical mind." To some astronomers, the universe appears as one gigantic mathematical equation!   Whether one believes in a personal God or not, there had to be a First Cause, Prime Mover, or Causa Prima, of Aristotle, and logic tells us that eternal regression and crossing infinity are impossible: everything cannot be contingent, but there must be something that needs no one or nothing and is not contingent for the chain of events to begin!  We say this because, according to logic, nothing can create or cause itself, and nothing just happens or appears without a cause.  One rule says that everything that begins to exist has a cause--God had no beginning and no cause and the universe began to exist and had a cause!

In sum, we must start with God and explain the universe, not the other way around!  "In the beginning God..." and "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  We must start somewhere with the missing ingredient of information and its Creator, or Thinker--the Ultimate Mind!  Point to ponder:  "The only system of thought that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point."  (Athanasius).   Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is Truth?

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth"  (2 Tim. 2:15, ESV).  
"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17, ESV).   
"Truth does not change according to my ability to stomach it."  --Flannery O'Connor"

Pilate asked Jesus what truth was (as the title says) since this was not the reality of Rome--might makes right in their judgment!  Jesus had told him that he who is the truth listens to Him!  Obviously, Pilate wasn't of the truth!  But the essence of truth isn't just a philosophical question to pose, it's a matter of salvation.  Jesus came "to bear witness of the truth (cf. John 5:33)."  He is the very personification of it and claimed to be "the Truth" embodied, in the flesh.  Knowing truth is so vital to salvation that it's equated with being set free from the bondage of lies and the father of lies, Satan.  We shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free!  (Cf. John 8:32.)  John 2:21 says no lie is of the truth!  We must divorce truth from falsehood and error.  Searching for truth is linked to searching for God, for Augustine said (reiterated by Aquinas) that all truth is God's truth (and all truth meets at the top at that!).  Salvation is "through belief of the truth" to be saved (cf.  2 Thess. 2:13).

 If we know the truth we are equipped to detect the lie, just like knowing the real thing (money) protects us from being fooled by counterfeits.  Plato said that to live in reality, one must know what God is really like (for Jesus was "full of grace and truth," (cf. John 1:14)   "God is truth" and is also called "the Spirit of truth" in John 16:13 ).  The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying that "truth is the ultimate phenomenon." The classic definition (the correspondence theory of truth) is that truth is what reflects or corresponds to reality.  That is to say, that if we have a disconnect with reality, we don't know the truth, and if we don't know the truth we have a skewed orientation to reality.  The paradox is that if you're not aware of the truth and of reality, you don't know it!  Biblically speaking though, truth agrees with God and whatever He decrees!

As Christians knowing the truth, we are focused on truth and have our antennae sensitized.  We should be able to smell a lie or false doctrine a mile away, so to speak.  Doctrine is the sure foundation upon which our truth is based, and we must be anchored in the basics so as not to be led astray by every wind of doctrine and the lies of Satan. I'm not just admonishing people about telling the truth to one's fellow believer, but to stand up for the truth:  "... They are not valiant [stand up] for the truth on the earth." (Cf. Jer. 9:3, NKJV.)   Today, we have the same phenomenon:  Christians think it's unloving and old-fashioned to stand up for sound doctrine and the truth, and only want preachers that steer clear of all controversy and preach to the lowest common denominator.  Congregants go the path of least resistance and refuse to detect an error, mostly because they have become immune to it by the digestion of so much spiritual junk food as vaccination to the real thing and eat little solid food to sustain spiritual maturity and discernment.

Concerning morality, truth is knowable, absolute, and it's universal!  The teaching that it's relative (relativism) is bogus and a false premise, because that statement is self-defeating and contradicts itself, having no truth value.  The old catchphrase that something may be true for you but not for me is a copout and cannot be held philosophically without contradiction.  Something may work for you but not for me but that is not the measure of truth.  Pragmatists are not concerned with truth but only results--the ends justify the means!  The extreme worldview on truth is New Age or New Spirituality:  if it feels like the truth to you it is and you are in no position to judge someone else's truth!

There is no Truth with a capital T according to the prevalent, common worldview--it's true that there is no universal belief or Belief with a capital B, but there is absolute, universal truth for everyone for all time and everywhere for every situation.  The American mind is becoming a narrow, ignorant and closed mind immune concerning truth.  The only person who has the right and prerogative to proclaim absolute truth is God, who has incarnated Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. All knowledge except God's is contingent-- we must accept His truth to know anything (cf. Prov. 1:7 says knowledge begins in the fear of the LORD).  The suspicious hermeneutic of Postmodernism denies that you can know anything at all for certain--and they're sure!  Postmodern thought dodges the no-truth premise and says it's merely a "short-term contract!"  What they claim is that it's unknowable, personal, and cultural!  And if someone did know it, he couldn't communicate it adequately.

But the fact is that truth is knowable according to Jesus very words and we have rebelled against it, needing to be reoriented to reality and the truth. Finally, we must give our regards to the very assessment of truth itself in his priestly, intercessory prayer of John 17:  "Sanctify them by the truth; your Word is truth." (Cf. John 17:17, NIV.)  That is to say, truth doesn't just inform but transforms!   We have a right to our own beliefs and opinions, but not our own facts and truth!  Believing anything without evidence or a valid reason is blind faith, whether secular or spiritual.; it's sad that most people just believe what they agree with or fits their prejudices and opinions; note that you hold opinions, but convictions hold you!  Billy Graham tells us to beware lest we mistake our prejudices for our convictions.

Siddhartha Gautama pondered his Four Noble Truths under the bo-tree, but there is no alternative truth that compares with the truth of Christ.  You cannot save yourself no matter how many noble truths you conjure up.  Buddha was called the "Enlightened One" and saw salvation was merely a rescue or deliverance from ignorance and one must become enlightened.  He didn't believe God could help one achieve this state of bliss but must find it on one's own.  Christ opens our eyes and shows us the light of day by grace and we see Him with the eyes of our hearts to behold truth in Him.

Harvard University has the slogan The Truth Shall Set You Free, not differentiating spiritual and academic knowledge and spiritual and mental freedom. Today we see skeptics again (actually this philosophy of sophism originated in Greek antiquity) such as the Postmodernists who say you know nothing for certain.  They say, "I don't know anything!'  How do they know that?  Who told them?  Notice what nonsensical worldviews result from atheism and skepticism!  Scripture says that which is hidden belongs to God and what is revealed (by Him) belongs to us (cf. Deut. 29:29)!  We know something only because of the presupposition of an Ultimate Mind or God behind the cosmos known as the Logos or consciousness, logic, or expressed thought of God.

Those who rebel against the truth are condemned.  The lost hold the truth in unrighteousness, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and do not obey the truth (cf. Rom. 1:18,25; Gal. 3:1).  As for heretics and those who believe the lie, "perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth" (cf. 2 Tim. 2:25, NIV).  God will send strong delusion to the lost to make them believe the lie because they had pleasure in unrighteousness and refused to love the truth.

In the final analysis, no one will ever find the truth unless they admit they could be wrong and are ignorant; they must also be willing to go wherever the facts lead,--exploring all possibilities, even of the supernatural and miraculous!  (After eliminating the impossible, what's left is quite possible, no matter how implausible or unlikely.)   In sum, this means we need to love the truth without preconceived notions to ever find it and to be saved.         Soli Deo Gloria!

Humanism, An Idea From Antiquity

You may believe that Secular Humanism is something "new under the sun," but it was an idea in the Aegean Sea area of classical Greece. Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things" (homo mensura).  It goes earlier than that to the plain of Shinar in Gen. 11:4 where men sought to "make a name for themselves."

"For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude.  Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened claiming to be wise, they became fools..." (Romans 12:221-22, HCSB).  


The essence of humanism:  glory to man in the highest:  the deification or exaltation of man, and dethroning of God.  Humanism 101:  "Up with man; down with God, because we can do good without Him!"  What they mean is to start with man as the measure or standard and judge everything accordingly:  Instead of starting the rationale with God--"In the beginning God..," they commence with man and his finite cerebral capacity, whereby God is infinite and the Greeks said that the finite cannot grasp the infinite--how ironic!

"In all his scheming, the wicked arrogantly thinks: 'There is no accountability since God does not exist" (Psalm 10:4, HCSB).  "...[All] is thoughts are, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 10:4, ESV).  (God is in none of his thoughts!)  When you take God out of the reckoning man becomes depraved without limit and God gives them up to go their own way--yes, even man's brain or intellect is depraved and is incapable of spiritual apprehension:  "No one understands" (cf. Rom. 3:10f).   "...My people do not understand" (Isaiah 1:3, NASB).   "...So the people without understanding are ruined"  (Hos. 4:14, NASB).  "...The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint"  (Isaiah 1:5, ESV).

Secular Humanism is defined as a religion without God in the equation.  It is completely incompatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview. Humanists do not believe that there is a supernatural and deny any deity or divinity of any notion in their reckoning.  When you take God out of the equation man loses focus and orientation, and has no moral compass to guide him and sees a distorted reality: such as Eastern religion seeing all reality as Maya or an illusion.  Humanism is a religion with high priests, meetings, and even has the Humanist Manifesto of doctrines to adhere to. And John Dewey was one of the early proponents who introduced the ideas into our educational system and is the so-called father of American public education.  They even have "Secular Humanist of the year" awards!  Their chief tenet is that there is no absolute moral code to live by and we are capable of concocting our own morality.

America is entering the New World Order (or era):  Trump vows to keep God out of it [politics]. Humanists want a world without God and any religious influence--even banning signage of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and schools, taking the motto "In God We Trust" off our coins, and "One nation under God" off our pledge of allegiance (they have already banned Bible reading and classroom prayer in public schools in 1963, when infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair protested and litigated).  Will we have a National Day of Prayer and a prayer breakfast at the White House? They are opposed to Christianity because they cannot stomach the fact that some people are "lost" and need salvation, and they believe in their Humanist Manifesto II of 1973:  "No deity will save us, we must save ourselves."

Their faith is in science, or should I say "scientism," which is using science for non-scientific purposes such as finding ethical, philosophical, and religious truth (an example is saying that the cosmos is all there is and all there was and all there ever will be--Carl Sagan). They are people of faith too--in the scientific method to solve our problems and lead to all truth.  There are not people of faith and people of reason or rationale, because everyone has faith and starts with some presupposition they cannot prove.

The building block of the "religion" is evolution and they regard any encroachment upon this dogma as heretical and intolerable. For example, Carl Sagan said that evolution is a "fact", not a "theory." Note:  It's unproven and unprovable since history is nonrepeatable, there are no witnesses, they cannot account for the origin of life nor the arrival of the fittest,  and a new species has never been observed to evolve in either the fossil record or in real time.

Humanism is indeed a religion, though they say it is not because they don't believe in "God." But even John Dewey said in A Common Faith that you can be "religious" without having "religion." Atheism has been declared a religion by the Seventh Court of Appeals!   Humanism is more than disbelief in God; it's anti-God and, as a worldview, interprets everything without God in the picture, which is contrary to the rise of Western civilization.  We might call Secular Humanism a post-theological worldview and they are in the process or rewriting history--a red flag!

A fundamental repercussion of their worldview is that God never intervened in history (Jesus is seen as a legend, myth, lie, etc.), and worse yet, man is not created in the image of God with a soul and spirit, but is a materialistic, naturalistic hodgepodge of atoms colliding with no divine purpose--life has no meaning or purpose (words anathema to them), and, since we are animals in heat avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, we can feel free to live without moral restraint, hell to shun, nor judgment to fear, just like animals and feel no "guilt," which comes only from religion. Note:  We are not a freak biological accident or some fluke of nature!  In scientific parlance, they are monists, not believers in dualism like Christians, in that they don't believe we have a mind, separate from our brain, but it's only a projection of brain activity and there is no soul or spirit within us.

The whole point of Secular Humanism is to be good without God and to be religious without so-called religion! They deify and exalt man and dethrone and ignore God, making a name for man and blaspheming God's name! Idolatry is not giving God His rightful domain!

So what?  Secular Humanists want Christians in their camp, but they must be willing to privatize their faith, not flaunting it or making it public--keep it in church!  What we are beholding is the secularization of our society where "man has forgotten God" (Will Durant, humanist historian).  The Constitution guarantees the free expression of faith or religion with no State interference or regulation.  Playwright George Bernard Shaw said that "no nation has ever survived the loss of its gods."  Dostoevsky said that "without God, all things are permissible:"--this is our future?  Caveat: Secular Humanists pin the blame for our problem on man's preoccupation with the spiritual element and mostly fault Christianity!  Soli Deo Gloria!

Those Who Know The Truth

"The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever:   ...  I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth...."  (2 John 1-3, ESV).

"For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth.  I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."  (3 John 2-3, ESV).

"Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth"  (John 17:17, ESV). 

"...as the truth is in Jesus" (Eph. 4:21, ESV).  

By definition:  Truth is what God says is truth (He's the final arbiter), and anything consistent with His nature, "will, mind, character, glory and being," and laws.  "Truth is the self-expression of God," in other words (per John MacArthur).  

It is not only possible to ascertain the truth in this relativistic age, where people think they can decide their private truths, but commanded in the exhortation of Jesus in John 8:32:  "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."  Note that Christ didn't say we would find some truth, or our truth, or relative truth, but THE truth!  No man ever spoke like this:  not by authority, but with authority!  This is not referring to getting a good education as the answer to life's problems, though the Bible isn't anti-intellectual and nowhere demeans learning.

The truth that sets free is knowing Jesus as personal Lord and Savior, who is the embodiment and personification of truth itself:  For he told Pilate that He came to bear witness of the truth, when Pilate didn't know what truth was (saying, "What is truth" in John 18:38)!   If Jesus is the truth, that means you can know it, and we would know nothing for sure without this divine revelation, for truth depends upon the existence of a God, and must be revealed to us as the starting place of all knowledge:  "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge..." (Proverbs 1:7, ESV).

Today, in liberal academia, students are taught that they can know nothing for certain and that they can be certain about that one truth (which has no truth value per se, since saying all truth is relative, this means that this statement must also be relative!). When people say truth is relative they usually mean to the situation or to the person's circumstances, situation, or viewpoint, but you must always inquire, "Relative to what?" This is subjective truth.   If there is no God, then the quest for truth is meaningless and vain. Postmodernists say that the only truths that are certain are the truths relating to them, and the ones relating to Christianity are only relative.  Objective truth is true regardless of whether one believes it or not and no matter who says it.  Jesus said that he that is of the truth will hear His voice (cf. John 18:37), and so this is where we throw down the gauntlet.

The word of the year, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "post-fact," which is when people think that emotional connotation is more valid than the literal meaning or denotation.  Naive students like to say or write what they "feel" rather than think:  they have lost all meaning and understanding of cognition.  Thought precedes feeling and feelings depend on thoughts.  Our mind controls our body, not vice versa. Today, people are not as concerned about the truth as to what's true for them!  They also don't care what something means (and even the Bible), but what it means to them:  "O, that's your interpretation!"  We seem to have lost all basis in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding and resorted to subjectivity.

What makes Christianity so unique is that it's not based on subjective thought, empiricism, or interpretation, but on objective, historical fact of the resurrection of Christ and Christianity is a historical religion, not a myth, nor a catalog of rules or wise sayings of philosophy.   The whole purpose is to not to increase our knowledge but to introduce us to a person (the living God!).  We don't get saved by cognition or Gnosticism (getting in on the scoop), but by a transformed life through a living knowledge of a person.

All knowledge must have a purpose, and not become an end in itself--the end result is getting to know our Lord and live a life of service to Him.

Nonbelievers are those "who reject the truth," according to Romans 2:8 and they "refuse to receive the love of the truth," according to 2 Thess. 2:10.  We are concerned about orthodoxy in our doctrine, of course, but it is much more vital to be concerned with knowing Him, who is Truth incarnate.

In sum, there is "absolute truth" regardless of what academia proclaims, and that means there's Truth with a capital T!  Truth is timeless and that means what was true in antiquity is still true!  What was valid as a principle of morality still holds water.  We are not evolving new truths and standards of right and wrong as we progress in our civilization.  Truth is different from some statement just being true because only Scripture can be called "truth," and Jesus said that we are "sanctified" by the truth and that His Word is Truth--Truth alone transforms; while something may be true, doesn't necessitate it being "truth."  Education can be truth and Shakespeare can be inspiring, but only Scripture and Jesus can transform a life and give life to the dead--Shakespeare doesn't change lives!  Finally, there is no absolute belief, but there is absolute truth that is knowable as a foundation for all knowing.
Soli Deo Gloria!ab

Taking God Out Of The Equation

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil..." (Isaiah 5:20, NIV).
"O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end" (Deut. 32:29, KJV).  
"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death"  (Proverbs 16:18, KJV).  
"In those days there was no king [standards] in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes"  (Judges 21:25, ESV).

In other words:  Without God, all values are up for grabs!  Everyone believes they are sincere and that sincerity is what matters; it is part of the equation, but not the whole solution, because you can be sincerely wrong--we need more than sincerity, we need to be absolutely right because there is an absolute standard and Judge that we are accountable to.  Man claims his goals or ends are justified, but the means to them must also be just in God's eyes!  The logical conclusion of academia indoctrinating students that we are evolved animals is that we tend to act like animals!  As atheist Albert Camus said:  "The absurd is sin without God."  Consequently, there is no basis for a moral compass! 

It is commonly assumed in academia that there is no absolute truth, and this proposition is widely accepted by students--but they confuse truth with belief:  There is no absolute belief, but there is, nevertheless, absolute truth, that is objective and remains true whether believed or not, and doesn't matter who believes it or who doesn't.  You just can't rule God out of the equation, like in eliminating variables in science or voting for some unobjectionable choice.  

Since Socrates claimed that "the unexamined life is not worth living," we must search our own hearts and find ourselves, as it were, to know what we actually do believe in and in what we base our faith, because everyone believes in something and everyone worships something, even if they don't believe in God.  Is there anything you will die for or stand up for and defend to the death, because of conviction and commitment?

Note that an opinion is something you hold, while convictions hold you and something you are willing to die for.  If you don't stand up for right and wrong, do you think you'll stand up for Jesus?  Edmund Burke, a philosopher, said that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  There is something everyone can do to neutralize evil in the world, even if it's being a prayer warrior!

Rome fell due to a collapse in morality, as perversion became the norm, and it has been wisely put that when a nation loses its gods it cannot survive--no matter the religion, religion is necessary for morality, for there is no need for it otherwise, when each man does what is right in his own eyes.  All truth is God's truth and meets at the top (Augustine and Aquinas), and all religion does have an element of truth, and even false religion is but a distortion of the truth and not the opposite of it; however, "no lie is of the truth" (cf. 1 John 2:21)!

When we take God out of the reckoning man loses his moorings and anchor to weigh in on society and to set standards to live by--ethics and values only become what society approves of, and are a matter of consensus and public opinion; however, often the voice of the people is the voice of the devil (Vox Popoli, Vox Diaboli)!

Today we see an absence of faith in absolute moral principles, and this is called moral relativism. No truth equals no virtue, according to Socrates, and Postmodernism has made truth a short-term contract and posits that there is no Truth with a capital T.  There is a reason why nihilism is the biggest fad or direction of today's young people, they really don't believe in anything!  This is dangerous territory according to Dostoyevsky:  "If there is no God, all things are permissible."  They will tell you that something just doesn't work for them and this is the ultimate test, not whether it's true (classic pragmatism).

William James was the founder of pragmatism, which was further delineated by John Dewey, said that you cannot test the truth of an idea, but only its usefulness--what matters is whether it works.  We have no basis of truth and principle without God and everything is up for grabs, as one says, that may be true for you, but not for me.  Caveat:  "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3, ESV).

The ideas of skepticism, cynicism (the most prized modern virtue), and humanism, ( or homo mensura, i.e., man being the measure of all things, originated by the Greeks of antiquity) are not new--there is nothing new under the sun because the devil isn't creative, but only keeps recycling old lies, as the father of lies.  When you don't have some standard and put yourself as the standard, it is tantamount to making yourself God and becoming His judge by your personal standards, which are subjective and variable over time.

he very concept of justice and mercy must come from somewhere, and we all appeal to some standard to judge them by, just like Plato reasoned that God is the ultimate good. since there must exist something to judge goodness by. Beauty remains after the rose fades, and if we have these senses of right and wrong instinctively by nature, there must be a higher sense governing the universal moral order from which it originated:

In other words:  Where did good faith, fair play in sports, unselfishness, courage in battle, integrity in personal dealings, altruism, generosity with money, trustworthiness, honesty in relationships, genuine joy and happiness, etc. come from, if not some absolute standard?  How did we get these ideas?  We are essentially appealing to some divine standard or norm of moral right and wrong (like when someone buds in line and we are offended or upset at the injustice).  Appealing to a higher sense sounds a lot like appealing to God, a Higher Being, or Higher Power.

This is highly ontological in that we would have no idea of a God if there was none--where did mankind get the original thought, which is so universal?  We see virtue as well as evil in every civilization, and this is collaborated by the biblical record of the war between the two and the ultimate triumph of good over evil--our sense of right and wrong demand there be a hell for wrongdoers, and if you've ever gotten angry at someone you may have wished he go there, even if you doubted God's existence!

Some believe in moral relativism because they conceive of a situation of being forced to decide between raping their daughter and witnessing her torture, but God doesn't hold us culpable for coerced choices but only freewill ones.   God is the one that allowed it to happen for His purposes and we must not doubt His long term witness seen in light of eternity.

Denying absolute morality goes nowhere since everyone would agree, that is of sound mind, that rape and incest are always wrong under all circumstances without exception (which lays to rest the theory of situation ethics, whereby someone could justify himself).  Hitler justified himself, and we don't want to absolve him of his "evil" in the process, by saying that his sincere belief that Jews were the problem and the "final solution" was the answer was justified.

There is no limit to the evil man is capable of and the only restraint is God's Holy Spirit, who will only stand for so much before judgment is inevitable. (Note:  2 Thess. 2:7 says, "... Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.")  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV).  The Bible says in Proverbs 14:34 that "sin is a reproach unto any people" and it doesn't matter whether they approve of it or not, God is the final judge and arbiter of how much He lets the man get away with (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah).

Man needs a sense of "ought" and, without God, this is problematic; ethics become nebulous.  Man will always try to justify himself and his purposes and set standards he believes he can achieve:  He will say that he wants the greatest good for the greatest number (i.e., utilitarianism) and believes the ends justify the means in achieving it; or he can believe that it just doesn't matter whether something is true, for who can determine this?

But what matters isn't whether it works and is practical or not; and this is the crux of the problem: Christianity isn't true because it works, because many untrue things work (e.g., yoga and TM); but it works because it's true--"Taste and see that the LORD is good" (cf. Psalm 34:8); find out for yourself! And where I'm coming from, truth matters and is worth knowing and defending.  The New Morality of today is dangerous too, even though it sounds sincere, in saying that all that matters is the motive, such as being with the intention of love or helping someone when its none of their business. People think something is a responsible  decision if they can justify it!

What is the answer?  The world faced this issue at Nuremberg after WWII, when they were bringing the Nazi war criminals to justice because they claimed to be following orders and only doing what their society had approved of and they asserted sovereignty in determining this standard.  The only way they found they could convict them was to appeal to some "natural law" or what may be called "transcendent law" that we all know by nature and are responsible to beware of, regardless of what the government says or tells us to do--would you rape your sister if the government said it was sanctioned in their new morality?

The Bible confirms this principle in Romans 2:15 because it says clearly and dogmatically that God's law is written in the hearts of man, and he has a conscience to convict him by the gift of God--we are not unconscionable animals but in God's image!  We cannot act like animals observing the law of the jungle and believing in the survival of the fittest, but that the strong ought to help the weak as the humane thing to do--this is what we are meant to be (noble creatures that are in God's image).

The only solution to man's dilemma is to know the resurrection power of Christ, who is in the business of changing lives from the inside out or transforming them miraculously.  What He's done for others, He can do for anyone who seeks Him, repents, and taps into this supernatural power; the trouble is that Secular Humanists deny the supernatural as the foundation of their worldview and won't even go there or give Christ the opportunity in opening the door.  The doors of academia are basically closed with secular worldviews in control.

The Bible isn't just inspiring like Shakespeare is but can change lives and we don't need to defend it, no more than a caged lion, which can defend itself.  POW's during WWII on the Malay peninsula had resorted to savage-like living, until they found a New Testament and decided to read it, with the result that it civilized them.

An anthropologist on Papua New Guinea asked what a native was reading while stirring his pot:  He said he was reading a Bible and the scientist said that modern man has rejected that book and he's wasting his time--the answer was that he'd be in the pot, were it not for that book! When someone asks you to prove that the Bible can change lives, just tell them that they can prove it themselves by only sincerely, with an open mind, willing spirit, and needy heart, to read it for themselves, and the results will speak for themselves.

In summation:  Only in Christianity do we see the synthesis of right motives and means unto right end results.  Soli Deo Gloria!