I made a comment on this blog recently that caused quite the firestorm of criticism, including getting my words misinterpreted on another blog. So that you don't all think that I'm off my rocker, I'd like to talk a little more about that statement. Here's what I said:
Scripture is written word. It doesn't become truth until it is read and interpreted. That interpretation is a personal opinion. To think that there is some sort of "universal" interpretation that does not rely on individual interpretation is naive. We only get close to that when the interpretations of many individuals all agree; then we can be fairly certain that we've hit upon a real truth. So, when I ask for your position, I'm asking for your interpretation of the Bible in order to see if it matches up with my interpretation. If we can agree on our interpretations, we're closer to discovering the truth.
I think the misunderstanding is in how we view the concept of truth. So, let's talk about truth.
First off, what is truth? At first glance, this seems like an easy question; either a statement or idea is true or false, and if it is true, that constitutes truth. If it were that easy, there wouldn't be at least 6 different major theories on truth proposed by philosophers. Now, I'm not going to go into all that; if you want, you can read about it yourself by clicking the link. Instead, I'm going to give you my simpler view of truth, which is probably contained in one or more of those theories, but I'm not quite smart enough to figure out which.
I believe that truth can be thought of in terms of different aspects of truth.
Absolute Truth
Absolute Truth describes the absolute, real state of something. For any given statement, there is a right and there is a wrong. There is absolute truth contained in the pages of the Bible.
However, the challenge with Absolute Truth is that is extremely difficult to know whether we've discovered it or not. Something may seem like Absolute Truth, but may later turn out it's not. If that's the case, then whatever it was couldn't have been Absolute Truth to begin with and the idea that we had was something else. This is a complicated idea, so let me give you an example. In the Middle Ages, it was generally accepted that the Earth was flat. They held this to be "Absolute Truth". However, the moment someone sailed around the world, it was discovered that this "Absolute Truth" actually wasn't true. What they thought was truth turned out to not be.
Objective Truth
Fortunately, we've got some tools at our disposal to discover truth. The process of discovering truth goes something like this:
- Someone comes up with idea or concept that they think might be true. (In science, they call this a theory or hypothesis)
- They gather evidence to support their idea
- They test the evidence and either prove or disprove the idea.
If you can get through all three steps and prove the concept, you can be relatively sure that you've discovered an Absolute Truth. But wait, "relatively sure"? Yep, unfortunately, sometimes the evidence can lead you away from absolute truth. Here's an example: from our vantage point living on planet Earth, the evidence seems to suggest that the Sun orbits the Earth; it sure appears that way; the Sun appears to move in the sky in pretty much the same manner as the Moon does, yet we know now that one orbits the Earth and the other does not. So, for a long time, it was considered Absolute Truth that everything revolved around the Earth. And then somewhere along the way we discovered that, what we thought was absolute truth, really was not.
For sake of this discussion, I'm going to call the kind of truth that you have the ability to prove, "Objective Truth". There's a lot of stuff that falls into this category. One plus one equals two. The sky is blue. What goes up must come down. The nation of Israel settled near the Mediterranean Sea. Jesus Christ died on the cross. These are all things that can be proven true or false.
Subjective Truth
But what if you can't prove it? What if you can't test your idea? What then? How do you determine what is truth and what is not? For example, the Bible says in John 1:1-2, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the Beginning." Is there some Absolute Truth in there? Yeah, I think so. It is generally taught that the "Word" referred to in the verse is Jesus. This is the "truth" that is taught. But can I test it out? Can I verify this truth? No. I have no way to rewind time and observe the beginning of everything and see for myself if Jesus was really there. So then how can I really know if I've got real truth or something that just looks like it?
This is the heart of my earlier comment about "interpreting" the Bible. The reality is that, for many concepts taught in the Bible, we simply don't have any means of solidly verifying them beyond all question. Does this mean I am implying that there is no Absolute Truth in the Bible like certain people have suggested? Of course not! The Absolute Truth is there; we just have a limited ability to discover it.
So what do we do then? Do we discard everything in the Bible that we can't prove? No, of course not. But the process is different than for objective truth. First off, we read the words of the Bible and formulate an idea of what we think it means to us personally. Then we need to subject those ideas to scrutiny. How does your understanding of the Bible compare to how other people interpret the Bible? Are your ideas consistent with the rest of the Bible? Does it make sense?
In this way, we can start to get closer to that Absolute Truth that we seek, but it's not like objective truth in that we can never be completely certain that what we have in our hands really is Absolute Truth or just an impostor. I believe that it's important to always be challenging those ideas and trying to "sail off the edge of the world".
8 comments:
I'm pretty disappointed that you would post something like this about someone you have banned from your blog. Striking out at someone who is not allowed to defend themselves is cheesy at best. He in no way mentioned your name, and you completely missed his point.
His whole point is that the truth of scripture is already in scripture, it doesn't become truth once there is a panel discussion.
B4B asked you to clarify your statement, but you stood by it and would not admit to any sort of truth being IN scripture which is what he was stating before he was thrown out. You have a point here about the three different "kinds" of truth, but that wasn't even B4B's issue in the first place.
I know he would welcome discussion about this at either blog...we all have our "days" dontcha think? This is kind of underhanded of you W....seriously.
Hi Wes -
Towards the end of this post you stated:
"The reality is that, for many concepts taught in the Bible, we simply don't have any means of solidly verifying them beyond all question."
You are right, and this is where faith comes in. It is, after all, through faith that we are saved. (Eph.2).
Hebrews 11 talks a lot about faith. Verses 1-3 state, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." And then the author goes on to give an account of many people in the Bible that were lead by faith to carry out God's work.
Towards the end of your post you gave a good description of how and why we need to study God's Word so carefully. There is also a big element of faith in our Bible study. Again, going back to Hebrews 11, verse 6 states, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Now, there's probably a lot of interpretation of the word "reward" here in this verse, but I believe that it means that if we are truly earnestly seeking Him, we will find Him.
There's also the work of the Holy Spirit that we can rely on. This is something that no secular scientist can claim, they are on their own to discover absolute truth. But we have been given God's Spirit to dwell in us and help us as we "earnestly seek him."
I thought your post was very good, I just wanted to add these couple of thoughts to it. If you'd like to talk more about the Holy Spirit (and I have a sneaky suspicion you might), let's do so. I think that for many Christians it's hard to fully understand just how the Spirit works in us, myself included. But it's stated in Acts 2:38, "Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." But what does it mean to receive the Spirit? What does it mean that He lives inside us? The Bible talks about the Holy Spirit a lot, but I don't feel that it's a topic very well studied and understood in today's church.
I'm pretty disappointed that you would post something like this about someone you have banned from your blog. Striking out at someone who is not allowed to defend themselves is cheesy at best. He in no way mentioned your name, and you completely missed his point.
I didn't ban anyone. He said several times that he was leaving and so I encouraged him to do so if he was going to continue being rude. He's still perfectly able to continue posting comments here as long as he treats people with respect. I locked that particular comment thread because it had reached 58 comments and everything that was being said was buried so deep that no one was reading it anymore.
His whole point is that the truth of scripture is already in scripture, it doesn't become truth once there is a panel discussion.
You are correct, this was his point. However, you must not have read this blog article if you think it has any relevance to what I'm saying.
B4B asked you to clarify your statement, but you stood by it and would not admit to any sort of truth being IN scripture which is what he was stating before he was thrown out. You have a point here about the three different "kinds" of truth, but that wasn't even B4B's issue in the first place.
And now, I am clarifying my statement just like he asked for. But rather than burying it 50+ comments deep on blog post on a totally unrelated topic, this discussion now has its place as a topic that other people can read and comment on.
I know he would welcome discussion about this at either blog...we all have our "days" dontcha think? This is kind of underhanded of you W....seriously.
Underhanded? I felt like my statements were misrepresented on his blog. I felt like I needed to defend my position against his claims. If attempting to open discussion on a topic while clarifying my words and defending myself is underhanded, well, guess I'm guilty as charged.
...this is where faith comes in.
You are exactly right. In fact, you could probably replace the phrase "relative truth" with "educated faith".
You're also right that I specifically left the Holy Spirit out of the equation. This is for two reasons: 1) to make the process easier to relate to for the public who is indoctrinated with the scientific method. Hopefully they can realize that the religious process of seeking truth is the same as science employs. 2) I do not fully understand how the Holy Spirit operates.
Yeah, I was planning on writing about that at some point. Which would you rather see first? An article about the Holy Spirit or the Rapture?
My thought is that discussing the Holy Spirit would help us grow more than discussing the rapture. While the rapture is very interesting and I love to talk about end times, I think a discussion on the Holy Spirit would be more relevant on your blog at this juncture considering what the recent topics have been.
New observer here. Huge question - what is truth? that's too big for me....so I'll ask a smaller one, based on this comment'
""The reality is that, for many concepts taught in the Bible, we simply don't have any means of solidly verifying them beyond all question."
Are there ANY concepts taught in the Bible that verify themselves?
That's purely an objective question. I don't have a dog in the fight.
Are there ANY concepts taught in the Bible that verify themselves?
Yeah, I think so. I assume you're making a differentiation between historical fact (like so-and-so did something at a certain time and place) and concepts. There may be less hard evidence for a concept, but it can still be tested and verified.
The Bible teaches a lot of moral truths, that even the most non-religious person will agree to. For example, the Bible teaches that killing someone is "bad". Stealing is wrong. Infidelity ruins relationships. etc. We've got thousands of years of societal evidence that point to these as being truths.
D.L... a good book I might suggest for you to read if you are seeking, "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel.
When my father-in-law was seeking he sat down and read the entire New Testament of the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give the account of Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection. You will also find back in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah, MANY prophecies of Christ. This was a book written way before Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, yet every single prophecy given in Isaiah was fulfilled by Jesus. I forget what the odds are that one man would fulfill all the prophecies given, but it's something astronomical like 1/1billion. I'll look it up and get back with you on that little tidbit.
Would you mind sharing with us what, if any, religious beliefs you have? Anyone on this blog would be happy to discuss Christianity with you.
Nice to see you on here and I hope we hear back from you!
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