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I’ve addressed the issue of truth in many of my recent posts. The reason for this is obvious—our society attempts to reject truth. Ours is a day of personal truths, all relative and subjective. Ours is a truthless age in that it denies universal truth, and it does so because it has rejected the God of Scripture. Of course, such reasoning doesn’t work as eventually everyone must absolutize something. This is our reality, but how should Christians respond?
It is here we must be careful as there are two responses Christians must avoid. First, some try to accommodate the relativism of our day. This happens as we soften objective truth claims and instead turn to emotions and experiences. There is a myriad of ways Christian imbibe the spirit of our day like worrying how unpopular doctrines will alienate people from God. Inevitably, what gets changed is the message in an attempt to draw people in. In the long run, all this does is change the message of the gospel. If the gospel must submit to the desires of the unregenerate, then it won’t be long until we lose the entire gospel. We cannot serve two masters. Sadly, this option is very popular in evangelical circles. Many have tried cultural accommodation, but it always leads to culture over Christ. Therefore, this trajectory must be rejected.
The second false trajectory is to make every issue a matter of life or death. Every truth claim, no matter how small, becomes the measure of orthodoxy. This trajectory is not as popular today, but it appears to be growing as an (over)reaction to our rejection of truth. The reality is, we will never find someone we totally agree with. Arguing that every issue is life or death flattens out theology and in the end, waters down the vital important issues. If everything is life or death, then nothing is.
Moreover, this trajectory often leads to smug self-righteousness which places us at the center of truth just like subjectivism does, albeit in a different way. Truth becomes about me being proved right over and against everyone else. Truth serves to advance me. In the end, those who go down this path are right to reject relativism, but wrong in how they do it.
Understanding all of this, how should Christians seek truth today? Below are ten theses on pursuing truth in our truthless age.
1. Truth is objective and knowable
God created everything, including mankind. Humans, being made in God’s image, can know truth as God reveals it to us. God does this through both natural and special revelation. Two plus two equals four; this is natural revelation. Jesus Christ is God the Son; this is special revelation as found in Scripture. But note both of these truths are revealed to us by God. He is the source of truth and that is why it is objective and universal. Man can know truth, because God made us to be like him and he reveals his truth to us.
2. The truth is important
This should go without saying, but knowing the truth impacts your life for good or ill. How you view the world shapes the choices you make. If someone grows up thinking two plus two equals three, this will severely hamper their lives, especially financially. Moreover, if God really exist (he does), then if we deny he exists it will have a devastating impact on our lives. If this God’s world (it is), then knowing him matters. Similarly, it matters if we build an idolatrous view of Him as it will warp our understanding of everything else. On a more practical level, it really does matter if an accused person actually committed a crime. To achieve justice, the verdict must align with the truth. This thinking is contrary to how justice is warped today to be about power struggles and political narratives. Truth is necessary for justice. Christians must acknowledge that truth, and knowing it, is vital to life to all of life.
3. The Bible is the final earthly authority of truth
Every system has some final authority; for Christians that authority is Scripture. The church confesses this truth precisely because the Bible claims to be the very words of God. As such, the Bible gives us God’s perspective, and his perspective is the one true and ultimate perspective. The final appeals court of truth in this life is God’s word, and Christians must actively seek to submit to it.
4. Our knowledge of truth is finite and fallible
Despite being like God, humans are not infinite. God is all-knowing; we are not. Moreover, because of the influence of sin, we are often deceived, mistaken, and wrong. Sometimes we think we know the truth when in fact, we don’t. Sin infects every part of us, including our ability to know things. While we can know things rightly, this is limited both by our finite nature as creatures and our sinfulness.
5. Truth can overcome the limitations of our sin, perspectives, and prejudices
Despite our limitations and the reality that we approach issues with prejudices and cultural perspectives, the universal nature of truth can overcome our preconceptions, and can turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. This is especially true as the Holy Spirit applies God’s word to our lives. While our fallenness often messes things up, the good news is that God’s power is greater than our weaknesses, and by grace, he changes us. The universal nature of truth is greater than our brokenness.
6. There are various levels of importance when it comes to truth
Some issues are more important than others. For example, the truth of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead (1 Cor. 15) is far more important than if he cleansed the temple more than once. All Christians must affirm Christ’s resurrection, but there is plenty of room for disagreement on how many times he cleansed the temple. Good Christians can and do disagree on this issue. Of course, many issues fall somewhere between these two examples on the spectrum of importance. For example, some issues like the proper mode of baptism, the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human freedom, etc. are important to our understanding of God and life, but there is still room for some disagreement. It is often very difficult to determine how important certain issues should be, but here is a helpful article that offers guidance.
7. Christians should always want to know the truth and align themselves with it
Even though some issues are more important than others, Christians should be obsessed with finding the truth and then submitting to it. We must never deny the importance of truth. Therefore we must humbly seek it in everything we do. One of our roles as image-bearers is to know God and his creation rightly. When the Bible speaks, even on less important issues, we should wrestle with what it says seeking to know it truly. Then we are settled on what the Bible teaches, must submit to it. Why? Because truth exists and is important.
8. As we pursue truth, we must have vigorous debates
One way we pursue truth is through the exchange of ideas. We learn and grow as we interact with other limited humans who are also wrestling with God’s revelation. We must never presume that we know it all, but we should have some settled, core convictions.
9. Disagreeing with someone does not equal hating them
One of the ironic side-effects of our age of tolerance is that we don’t know how to debate without becoming intolerant of those with whom we disagree. This isn’t surprising, because if truth is determined within the self, then disagreeing with someone equals hating that person. To be sure, we need to avoid personally attacking those we disagree with, but if we want to be a people who pursue truth, then we need to be able to have vigorous and passionate debates. All this should be done without hating our opponents or accusing them of hating us just because we happen to disagree.
10. Truth should shape our feelings, not vice versa
As relativism is lived out, we turn inward to determine truth. The natural consequence is that our feelings become the arbiter of truth. How else can we explain the absurdity of males claiming they are females simply because of how they feel? In reality, Feelings and experience cannot be the grounds for truth. Conversely, the biblical worldview points us in the exact opposite direction—our feelings must conform to the truth. Our feelings are unreliable and ever-shifting; this is one of the reasons God reveals truth to us. He desires to liberate us from falsehoods. He does this by revealing who he is and who we are in light of him. This type of truth frees us from the modern tyranny of feelings-based truth. Christians must know the truth so that their feelings, thoughts, and actions are sanctified by it. In this way, our feelings and emotions become a tremendous blessing. To be clear, it is not wrong to have emotions, but it is wrong to absolutize them.
The Christian life must be dedicated to pursuing the truth, precisely because Jesus Christ is the embodiment of truth (John 14:6, 18:37). As we live out our faith, we grow in the knowledge of the truth and degree by degree become more like our savior (2 Cor. 3:18). Truth is not relative, but it is personal. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of truth. As such, truth is a pursuit worthy of our whole lives.
Levi J. Secord