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07/26/07 The Nature of Truth
Joe Boot
The demise of truth began at the fall of our first parents. Adam was given a task that would require the development of knowledge--zoology and horticulture, no less! He was required to classify all of the creatures and vegetation God had created. In going about this task, Adam did not question his sense perceptions, nor did he question that he was a creature of God himself. He began with God at the foundation of his knowledge and worked accordingly. But then the epistemological temptation came along in the form of the serpent. He essentially asked, "Why have you accepted the validity of God's word to you as real knowledge? Surely you will not die like God said. Why accept that God governs all reality and history? Why accept that God is the interpreter of everything? Why not define your own truth and morality independent of God and know the facts for yourself? You can govern reality as a competing interpreter to God, and you may even be right and surpass Him, becoming 'as god' yourself." By rejecting a God-centered epistemology (reality is what God says it is) our first parents could not accept God's words about reality. They instead had to take the position of all humanistic philosophy: "Doubt everything, especially that which is claimed by God. Though there may appear to be a law to be governing reality, this must be my projection onto it. If I can't prove it by my methods of reasoning and science, then it isn't so." In the assertion of their autonomy, Adam and Eve initiated the philosophy that all human opinions are equally valid. The question that must follow is an epistemological one. If every interpretation is valid, how can we know anything? Some modern philosophers have said we can do no more than define meaningless words. But why, then, are their own definitions valid? Why should their language hold any meaning for the listener? Others say that truth is what corresponds to reality, but this begs the question. To state that something corresponds to reality pre-supposes that we know what reality is. Still others say coherence defines truth. While coherence is necessary for intelligible communication, forming propositions that logically cohere with each other is no guarantee of truth. One could form a logically valid argument for the insanity of the entire world except yourself, but the argument is only sound if your premises are true. In other words, logic does not supply premises, it just works on them. And finally, there are those who say that truth is found by what works in practice. Certainly we expect truth to work, but who, then, is to determine what "works" and what doesn't "work," and what should our desired end be? In fact, we must first know something in order to gain knowledge. If we try to begin the knowing process without God, with just the self and only what the autonomous mind can prove, we can have no knowledge at all. Knowledge comes from knowledge, which is the nature of knowing truth. If you tell a girl who has never tasted a banana that your boiled sweet is banana flavor, she has no frame of reference to know what you mean until she has tasted the banana. Or using the language of empirical science, to establish the reliability of the eye, one needs to use the eye and trust its reliability! Saint Paul tells us that we all inherently know something within us and within the created order. We have some sense of certain attributes of God, certain moral requirements--and so much so that we are without excuse for not coming to God in faith. We suppress the truth we know in unrighteousness, but we cannot escape its pull because we are God's creatures and even death cannot destroy this. God is the starting point for knowledge. With Him, we reason from the top down, not the bottom up, concerning truth. The way of truth involves combining two elements of God's revelation to us. First, the illuminating Word of the incarnate Son revealed in the scriptures, and second, the internal light of the Word quickening and enlightening our understanding. Christ is the source of truth in our search for meaning. And as such, the effort of humanistic thought to remove revelation from the field of truth does not seem from the Christian perspective to constitute true philosophy (love of wisdom) at all. As Christ taught, we cannot know God, who is truth, unless we love him. Thus, ethics and truth cannot be separated, nor can belief, reasoning, and conclusions. They are all involved in each other, and they begin with God Himself. Christ is at the very foundation of truth. To pretend that we can put him aside and reason in a neutral fashion is to abandon the very basis of our claim: that without him there is no light for men and no truth to know. This is the nature of truth! Joe Boot is executive director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Canada.
Joe Boot
The demise of truth began at the fall of our first parents. Adam was given a task that would require the development of knowledge--zoology and horticulture, no less! He was required to classify all of the creatures and vegetation God had created. In going about this task, Adam did not question his sense perceptions, nor did he question that he was a creature of God himself. He began with God at the foundation of his knowledge and worked accordingly. But then the epistemological temptation came along in the form of the serpent. He essentially asked, "Why have you accepted the validity of God's word to you as real knowledge? Surely you will not die like God said. Why accept that God governs all reality and history? Why accept that God is the interpreter of everything? Why not define your own truth and morality independent of God and know the facts for yourself? You can govern reality as a competing interpreter to God, and you may even be right and surpass Him, becoming 'as god' yourself." By rejecting a God-centered epistemology (reality is what God says it is) our first parents could not accept God's words about reality. They instead had to take the position of all humanistic philosophy: "Doubt everything, especially that which is claimed by God. Though there may appear to be a law to be governing reality, this must be my projection onto it. If I can't prove it by my methods of reasoning and science, then it isn't so." In the assertion of their autonomy, Adam and Eve initiated the philosophy that all human opinions are equally valid. The question that must follow is an epistemological one. If every interpretation is valid, how can we know anything? Some modern philosophers have said we can do no more than define meaningless words. But why, then, are their own definitions valid? Why should their language hold any meaning for the listener? Others say that truth is what corresponds to reality, but this begs the question. To state that something corresponds to reality pre-supposes that we know what reality is. Still others say coherence defines truth. While coherence is necessary for intelligible communication, forming propositions that logically cohere with each other is no guarantee of truth. One could form a logically valid argument for the insanity of the entire world except yourself, but the argument is only sound if your premises are true. In other words, logic does not supply premises, it just works on them. And finally, there are those who say that truth is found by what works in practice. Certainly we expect truth to work, but who, then, is to determine what "works" and what doesn't "work," and what should our desired end be? In fact, we must first know something in order to gain knowledge. If we try to begin the knowing process without God, with just the self and only what the autonomous mind can prove, we can have no knowledge at all. Knowledge comes from knowledge, which is the nature of knowing truth. If you tell a girl who has never tasted a banana that your boiled sweet is banana flavor, she has no frame of reference to know what you mean until she has tasted the banana. Or using the language of empirical science, to establish the reliability of the eye, one needs to use the eye and trust its reliability! Saint Paul tells us that we all inherently know something within us and within the created order. We have some sense of certain attributes of God, certain moral requirements--and so much so that we are without excuse for not coming to God in faith. We suppress the truth we know in unrighteousness, but we cannot escape its pull because we are God's creatures and even death cannot destroy this. God is the starting point for knowledge. With Him, we reason from the top down, not the bottom up, concerning truth. The way of truth involves combining two elements of God's revelation to us. First, the illuminating Word of the incarnate Son revealed in the scriptures, and second, the internal light of the Word quickening and enlightening our understanding. Christ is the source of truth in our search for meaning. And as such, the effort of humanistic thought to remove revelation from the field of truth does not seem from the Christian perspective to constitute true philosophy (love of wisdom) at all. As Christ taught, we cannot know God, who is truth, unless we love him. Thus, ethics and truth cannot be separated, nor can belief, reasoning, and conclusions. They are all involved in each other, and they begin with God Himself. Christ is at the very foundation of truth. To pretend that we can put him aside and reason in a neutral fashion is to abandon the very basis of our claim: that without him there is no light for men and no truth to know. This is the nature of truth! Joe Boot is executive director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Canada.
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