Comments on: Committed to Absolute Truth

By: BK

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:48:04 +0000

My example is that of a tree. Certainly the tree exists as an absolute truth. It is a tree.

The modern mind might look at the tree and say the tree is firewood, and it could only ever be firewood. That is the only correct, absolute purpose for the tree, thinks the modern mind. The absolute truth is then found in the mechanical function of the tree. The search for truth becomes a quest for certitude. Truth becomes mathematical.

The postmodern mind considers multiple perspectives. One person might say the tree is the source of paper. Another might say the tree is to be a home for squirrels and birds. And another might ask What kind of tree is it? Another might examine the leaves on the tree and note the processes going on there. And another might dig up the tree to examine its roots. The postmodern mind is open to consider the value of multiple perspectives, all of which may yield a bigger picture of the absolute truth of the tree. The absolute truth is then found in the biological existence of the tree. The search for truth becomes perspectival.

I’m still processing all this. But two movies that helped me are the Croods and the Lego Movie.

The Lego Movie is a shining display of the transitions and connections between modern (rigid rules), postmodern (no rules) and metamodern(?) (rules that should be broken) thought and expression.

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By: BK

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:38:33 +0000

Hey guys, again I point to Danaher’s Eyes/Ears book. He brilliantly explains what I’ve come to know. Although someone might point to exceptions, the postmodern mind does not typically reject aboslute truth.

“Postmodern Christians do not maintain that they have no access to the truth, but merely that they do not have the kind of access to the truth that modernity had set forth as its model. Since postmodernism has yet to take its final form, at this point, the only characteristic that unites a vast variety of people who consider themselves postmodern is that they reject many of the principles upon which modernity was founded. Even today’s science, which has rejected many Enlightenment (modernist) beliefs and attitudes, is being referred to by some as postmodern to distinguish it from modern, Enlightenment science.” – Highlight Loc. 345-47

And Danaher ties postmodernism to predmodernism and Augustine:

“One of the primary reasons for the premodern, flexible interpretation of truth is that for many centuries Christians argued that Scripture—the root of all truth—did not have a single, univocal meaning. They interpreted the quest for truth as a process of unfolding the infinite, sometimes hidden, meaning of sacred Scripture. Saint Augustine (354–430 CE), for example, would have thought that mathematics and the science of modernity, with their certain and precise meanings, were poor models for understanding the truth of Scripture. Speaking of the creation account in the Book of Genesis, Augustine says: Although I hear people say “Moses meant this” or “Moses meant that,” I think it more truly religious to say “Why should he not have had both meanings in mind, if both are true? And if others see in the same words a third, or a fourth, or any number of true meanings, why should we not believe that Moses saw them all? There is only one God, who caused Moses to write the Holy Scripture in the way best suited to theminds of great numbers of men who would all see truths in them, though not the same truths in each case.” – Highlight Loc. 451-54

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By: Joe Schafer

Sun, 09 Feb 2014 00:50:50 +0000

Forests, thank you for a gracious reply. If you are interested in reading a fully orthodox, Trinitarian, Christian critique of modern epistemology — with no mention of postmodernism — I recommend Proper Confidence by Lesslie Newbigin.

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By: forestsfailyou

Sun, 09 Feb 2014 00:10:34 +0000

Why is there no edit button?
** The council argued against many attacks on the divinity of Christ at that time.

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By: forestsfailyou

Sun, 09 Feb 2014 00:08:27 +0000

I think that the methods of thought used in the the premodern church are much preferable to postmodern thought. The mistake of that time was to kill people who did not agree with them. Look at the Council of Nicaea, it sought to solve the Arianism- it did so. Not by saying “It depends on how you look at it.” But by saying in no uncertain terms that God is triune.
I do not think for a moment that the correct way to evangelize so to attack a person’s beliefs. I think that is of the highest value that we show the love of Christ. The most important idea is to accept the divinity of Christ, followed by the idea that he saves (this was what the council argues against, but I digress). Once someone has accepted this we can look at and help him to understand that the teachings of Christ imply doctrine. This is how the Catholic Church has come to put into practice the Bible. They use the Bible as a book of truth that creates form doctrines. Once we have accepted that Jesus saves the next course of action is to do what he says, and doctrine tells how to do so. I think the catholic approach is correct, but I view many of their doctrines as blatant heresy. Their position of grace and salvation comes to mind.

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By: Joe Schafer

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 13:12:38 +0000

Ben, thanks. There’s a lot of good stuff here on UBFriends from the good ole days. You’ll have fun reading some of the early stuff.

Forests, you have a strong negative reaction against this, and that’s okay. I would have had a similar reaction to this article 10 years ago. But I know from experience that when emotions run high, and when battle lines are quickly drawn, it becomes almost impossible for either side to accurately hear what the other side is even saying, let alone the intentions and thoughts that lie behind them. I fear that you have misunderstood me and are failing to see that we actually have large areas of agreement.

I will just respond to the first thing you said in your last comment. Please read my words carefully.

You wrote:

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“Everything is relative,” someone will say.- and I say that they are wrong. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2010/10/28/committed-to-absolute-truth/#comment-12502
***

In my experience, if someone says “everything is relative,” they are speaking hyperbolically. They don’t actually believe that, and their actions bear that out. In daily life, they order their physical behaviors in accordance with the laws of gravity which they treat as an absolute. They spend money knowing full well that their bank account balance is based on hard laws of addition and subtraction. And so on. You and I know that the statement is false. And at a very deep level, the person who said it knows it too.

Given that situation, how should we respond?

You said would respond by telling that person that he is wrong. Perhaps that will be an effective tool of communication and instruction if you are dealing with a very small child who looks up to you and is keenly aware of his or her ignorance.

But if I hear him say, “Everything is relative,” I would respond by asking, “What do you mean by that?” Because the fact is, I don’t really know what he means. Through dialogue, I would try to discern whether he means (a) there is no such thing as fact or reality, or (b) that our perceptions of reality are highly perspectival.

If he says (b), I would wholeheartedly agree with him, and we could share lots of interesting and humorous and heartbreaking examples of how that plays out in real life.

But if he says (a), I would ask him to clarify further, because I know that he cannot possibly believe that; he doesn’t order his life that way. So I would give him every opportunity to correct himself and construct a better and smarter way of talking about such things. In the conversation, I would not try to assume the position of smart guy. Rather, I would try to create the environment for him to show himself as a smart guy, so that he instinctively feels that I respect him as a person of great worth, one who is created in the image of God, one who is beloved by God even if his thinking is deeply flawed. And even if he persists in making statements that are easily shown to be full of holes, I would try not to take advantage of his ignorance or defeat him with my superior wit and knowledge, because I don’t think that’s what Jesus would do. I would hold back all my high powered intellectual weapons, just as Jesus refused to call on legions of angels at his disposal to assist him. I would stay with him and find whatever ways I could to affirm him, because even if he makes statements that are wrong, there will be elements of truth in his underlying sentiments and reasons for holding those positions. I would pray that through our interaction, he would sense the presence of Jesus who loves and affirms him as a person even when he is wrong. If I succeed in that, I have brought him far closer to the absolute Truth with a capital “T” than I would have if I had just focused on promoting the idea of absolute truth with a small “t”.

(In principle, that’s what I want to do. In real-life situations, I often fail to do that, and I often come off as a smart-ass. That’s one of my big character flaws.)

I am not an expert in postmodernism. But I know enough about it to see that it is a complex and rich set of ideas. Yes, it is negative in the sense that it deconstruct many of the basic assumptions of modernism. But it also has some constructive ideas as well. There are some very serious problems with modernism that it seeks to correct. If you completely reject postmodernism, what are you saying? That you want to go back to post-Enlightenment modernism? That you want to go back to some system of pre-modern thinking? That’s a serious question. What do you really want, and how are you going to get there?

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By: Ben Toh

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 03:33:50 +0000

Joe, great post. I never read this before, because I posted my first article a week later on Nov 4, 2010 (which also more or less began my “blogging career”), and I began reading and participating in UBFriends only after that.

This reminds me of a phrase I had heard and sometimes say to other Christians, “The only Bible some people will read is you.” It’s actually quite scary to consider that I, an obvious sinner, am to personify the Christ, the Spirit, and the God of the Bible.

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By: forestsfailyou

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 02:57:37 +0000

If there was ever an article I disagreed more with I have yet to find it. “Everything is relative,” someone will say.- and I say that they are wrong. It is quite easy to see why this cannot be. If everything is relative, then we have no basis to make any claim. We have no standard by which we ought to progress. We have no way to even think. If the postmodernist claims that ultimate reality does not exist, he takes away his ability to say it. If he does not , but “Rather, he is saying that ultimate reality is unknowable, because human beings are subjective and perceive truth differently. In essence, he is saying, ‘You see things your way, I see things my way. We are both flawed. Neither of us should claim to possess moral certainty.’ “- then he says something else. That something else, that we see differently, I can agree with. However I disagree with the conclusion. I must think I am right if I have any convictions at all! And if my friend is wrong it is only proper that I let him know so. There is no phrase stupider than when someone utters the statement that they might be wrong. Everyday one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one- or it’s not his view. This is the last attempt to evade intellectualism and an appeal to an authority and it ends in intellectualism and therefore death. All previous ages have toiled and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the correct path of life, what it really means to be a good man. A definite part of the postmodern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions, and that the most we can do is to set up a few warnings at places of obvious danger. We might warn against drinking ourselves into a coma, or neglecting our children.

The major problem with postmodern philosophy is it is primarily a negative philosophy. It leaves us with a definite image of what is bad, but no clue as to what is good. When Adam and Eve fell they gained knowledge of good and evil, but postmodernism causes us to fall again, but this time we lose knowledge of what is good as well. Our sin gives us definite images of what is evil, and postmodernism finds only death.

We should not stray from this idea; we have nothing if we do.

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By: Dr. Bill

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:06:43 +0000

This is a great question! (I’m catching up on some older posts. :) There is no question that Truth is a Person – this is beautifully and succinctly exemplified by the passage in Matthew 7:22-24 in which Jesus is passing ultimate judgment on unsaved sinners. Amazingly the criteria is very simple: “I never knew you.” What a testimony to the Truth – eternal salvation all boils down to this one simple thing: “Does God in Jesus know me?” :)

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By: David

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:45:26 +0000

By: Joe

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:50:03 +0000

David, thank you. That is exactly how I feel. In the modernist age, truth had to be presented as principles, and when the gospel was presented that way, people responded to it. Today, truth must be communicated through honest, loving personal relationships. Truthful people living in truthful community with Jesus, the Truth, at the center.

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By: David

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:43:41 +0000

Ok, so in my understanding your point here is that for being more effective evangelists we should be more deligent in our inner following Christ, so we ourselves could correspond to the trueth we are proclaimig.
But what about our gospel sharing practices? Could this shifting of notion of trueth mean that our practices should also be shifted to evangelism through relations from fishing, publical preaching and things like this?
Yup, how could people in this culture trust us if they just see us first time or even time to time in unusual conditions where our communication is really lopsided? So don’t we should build some relations first?
In the other hand how could we have or build this relations in our ministry with students if we with each year are going father from them? In my limited experience I’ve found that I almost have no chance to conquer students if I do live outside of their community, have other interests, many other buisnesses and go fishing just time to time.

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By: Henoch

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 03:22:55 +0000

Abraham, thank you very much for your comment. Having the privilege of enjoying the friendship with several Indians, i realized that Joe’s article has great relevance for me in dealing with them: how can i communicate the gospel to people who seem to be grown up in such a religiously pluralistic culture? especially regarding the fact that many of them seem to have allergic reactions when being confronted with absolute truth claims… I guess true friendship and authentic Christianity on my side is the prerequisite for any communication of the gospel.

@Joe: Your article is actually dealing with one of my favorite topics these days!!! =) i had never fathomed that the claim that all truth is relative (which is obviously a self-defeating statement) should rather be interpreted as a statement concerning persons than as a statement concerning ultimate reality. But is makes sense to me. Thanks for your article! i again learned something new and helpful!

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By: Abraham Nial

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:00:19 +0000

Joe, I think you have deep insight into the spiritual reality and into human response to the presentation of the gospel, especially for the time we are in now. Even me after living a Christian life for more than twelve years in UBF, when something is presented to me as the truth, I cannot accept it just because it confirms to the external realities unless it confirms to the life of the person who is presenting. God, who leads human history has guided us into the post-modern time, and looking at the trends I believe that it His plan for our generation to be not just good presenters of the truth but practitioners, even as Jesus lived out what he preached to the letter and the spirit.
For last few days, God put in me the desire, and I had been seriously thinking to undertake learning of the Hebrew language. Your article further encouraged me to pursue it. I think the Blue Letter Bible can be a great resource for those who might have similar interest. Thanks and God bless.

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