On "Truth".

After years of being immersed in a postmodern leftist critical academic environment, I have just come to the realization that I have become scared of going anywhere near a truth claim, especially in an environment that disagrees with what I believe (which I find myself in a lot these days). I don’t know if I verbalized this until now, but I think on some level I am starting to buy into all the subjectivist, relativistic, ‘tolerance’ talk. It’s hard not to…the arguments people make do seem so ‘nice’ and tempting…I live in a society where everyone is entitled to their own private beliefs, as long as you don’t have the audacity to claim that your view is true for anyone else besides you. And it does seem rather arrogant and narrow-minded to claim that you in your limited experience and understanding have come into possession of the ultimate ‘truth’ that applies to everyone in the universe, and that you are somehow right and everyone who disagrees with you is WRONG. Or there’s the argument that even if there is truth, the closest you can come to it is your own subjective understanding of it – no two people understand or experience abstract concepts like ‘truth’ or ‘God’ in exactly the same way – the presence of so many denominations and interpretations of the Bible is proof enough of this. I want to value where people are coming from, to acknowledge that God speaks to people differently – and this makes me scared to take a definitive stand on many things – especially things like different interpretations of the Bible for example, or people’s different experiences of God, or taking a stand on controversial issues. And so after making any statement on my opinion on a controversial issue, or even in talking about my religious beliefs, I often hasten to add the caveat, “but that’s just what I believe, or how I see it – I could be wrong, you are entitled to your opinion…”

I think it is above all the humility of these arguments that makes them so appealing to me – the acknowledgement that I and my judgment are limited and fallible, that I believe something but there is a good chance that something in the vast universe of knowledge outside my realm of experience may prove me wrong; that other people may have as convincing reasons as I do for believing something different, and who am I to say their reasons are not valid? Or the acknowledgement that knowledge is not static and I don’t know everything there is to know about the universe, and I myself have changed what I believe over the years as I have grown, thus though I may sincerely believe something as true right now, I must account for the possibility that I may find something down the line that may change what I believe.

And so in talking to people who don’t believe what I believe, I start to say things like – ‘I believe in Christianity because I personally find a lot of truth and beauty in its ideas (which doesn’t imply that you would necessarily find the same thing), because it makes sense of the world for me, because there are things about it and the world that I cannot explain any other way’. All this still asserts a belief that it is true, but it comes rather close to implying that what’s ‘true for me’ is not necessarily true for someone else.

Truth is such a slippery concept in our society. What is truth? We are definitely not the first to pose that question. But my understanding of truth has a tremendous impact on how I live my life. I guess I have grown up with the idea that (capital-T) Truth is something that is real about the universe, outside of my head or outside of anyone’s subjectivity – laws that govern the universe and hold everything together – things like gravity, or the fact that the sun rises in the east. Unchanging facts on which I can build other things – like the confidence with which I can place this computer on the table knowing that it’s not suddenly going to start to float around and crash into the ceiling. If something doesn’t remain consistent both inside and outside my head, then there doesn’t seem to be much point in calling it ‘Truth’. And if something isn’t True, then it seems pretty risky to build my whole life around it…because someday everything might end up crashing against the ceiling.

Why would I believe something that I knew wasn’t True? Or, why would I believe something unless I thought it was True? Why exactly do people today find it so offensive when someone claims they think something is “True”? It doesn’t seem offensive when someone says ‘I believe gravity is true’ – because they have good reason to believe so. So why isn’t it reasonable to say – “I believe christianity is True, for X, Y and Z reasons”? Isn’t this just being authentic to what you believe? The very act of believing something means you have some reason to believe it is True, and is therefore something that warrants belief – otherwise, what’s the point in believing in it at all? Ultimately we all believe SOMETHING, whether it is that God doesn’t exist, or that there is no such thing as absolute Truth – all these are claims that I believe are real about the universe, that have implications for everyone in it.

And if I really believe something is True, that it’s something that is real and holds true outside of anyone’s subjectivity, that it is something that helps make sense of the universe – for example if I truly believe that the Bible is real and holds the key to the meaning of life and explains the way the universe works and the way people work and relate to each other, then don’t I want as many people as possible to find the Truth that I believe I have found? If I am going to be authentic to my belief, then keeping this incredible Truth and meaning that I happen to have stumbled across, that so many people seem to be searching for, all to myself – that seems like a pretty selfish thing to do. This doesn’t mean I go around trying to force everyone I know to convert – but that I at least want people to have a chance to hear these ideas, and have a chance to make up their own minds about the matter, after having heard as fair, undistorted a representation of them as possible.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” How seriously do I take this claim?

“And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free...And if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." - John 8:32,36

Jesus claims it IS possible to know the Truth. This goes against all I’ve been taught in most of my classes, against what most people around me believe, against what most of my society seems to tell me, against my own natural inclination…And yet this belief HAS set me free. My decision to believe this has been the most freeing decision in my life, it has given me the most meaning and joy and fulfillment. And so the most authentic and honest and humble thing I CAN do is to be willing to stand for this belief.

I haven’t figured it all out yet, I am still struggling to reconcile the last few paragraphs with the first few that I began with…but I know that ultimately I have to be willing to take a stand for what I believe, and not be afraid to claim that it is True (and not just “true for me”), in all humility, and even it ends up offending people. True, I don’t have all the knowledge in the universe…but if I wasn’t personally convinced that this is True, then there wouldn’t be much point in calling myself a Christian in the first place.