The Expository Files.


 Absolutely, Positively True

 

There is an interesting article in Reason & Revelation; Vol. XVI, # 6; 1996. R&R is a "monthly journal of Christian Evidences". The article is by Garry K. Brantley and is titled "What Has Happened to Truth?".

Jesus once said, "Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Pilate once asked Jesus "What is truth?". The Brantley article deals with concepts of what constitutes "truth" and how those concepts are changing. He points out that traditional western ideas of "What is truth?" have recently undergone tremendous changes.

One casualty of this process has been the concept of "universal" or "absolute" truth. The cutting edge of present day thought suggests that there is no such thing as absolute truth. But I have to wonder if these "thinkers" would argue if it is "absolutely" true that there is no "absolute" truth.

Brantley observes how that traditional thought regarding truth (i.e. that there are definite and universal standards for what is true; and that these can be determined by properly using God's revelation as well as man's reasoning ability) gave way to the "modernist" school of thought. "Modern" thinkers trashed the concept that God's revelation had anything to do with discovering truth, and singled out man's reasoning abilities as being the only proper criteria by which to arrive at truth.
It even became important to them to completely distance oneself from God in order that one's objectivity not be "tainted" by faith. Truth was still thought of as objective, and this perspective is still, at present, a powerful force in today's world.

But, there is a new kid on the block. No longer must the modernist only deal with what he would term as "ancient superstition" but also with "post modernist" thinking. Since the 1970's, this young upstart has been growing in strength and challenging his two predecessors; the "traditional" and the "modernist". The post modernists holds that truth is not absolute after all. In the interest of pluralism, post modernistic thinkers insist that what is true for you depends upon your gender,
ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation and so forth. Diversity is celebrated and inherently good; if you are different, then that is good; just because it is different. These people are much more religious than their modernistic counterparts; replacing the idea of "all religion is bad" with the idea "(almost) all religion is good".

The result of this has been moral, doctrinal and spiritual anarchy. You might be wondering about the "(almost)" in the statement in the above paragraph "(almost) all religion is good." This is because most post modernists have an exception to this rule. Out of all the religious thought in the world, which is it that these thinkers would say, "Is not good"? The ones who say truth is "objective" of course. Those that would say Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to
the Father but by (Him)" (John 14:6) or that "God's word is truth" (John 17:17) or that "everyone who hears (Jesus') voice is of the truth" (John 18:37).

Pilate and the post modernists both say, "What is truth?". Jesus has the answer; and it is the only one which will make us free (John 8:31,32).

  By Jon W. Quinn
The Final Page
From Expository Files 3.9; September 1996

 

 

https://www.bible.ca/