There's No Such Thing As Truth #25objections
This seems like a good place to start a book that answers the tough questions posed of Christianity. After all, if there is no such thing as truth then Christianity cannot possibly be true in the way that Christians hope it is, and so there’s no point writing a book that tries to support and outline the truth of Christianity, is there?
So, is there no such thing as truth? Or, to put it another way, is the statement, ‘There’s no such thing as truth’ actually…true?
We live in a very post-modern world. A world where radical scepticism is king. The most pure definition of post-modernism is simply: not modernism. However, when we talk about things being ‘post-modern’, we often mean that they reject the idea of absolutes – absolute truth, for example.
And it would be lovely to think that truth is whatever we decide it to be. Indeed, you will hear people say, ‘This is my truth; what’s yours?’ But what if my truth is that your truth can’t possibly be true? What happens then? If my truth is true, then my statement that your truth can’t possibly be true is also true, and so your truth can’t possibly be true. Alternatively, if my truth isn’t true, then it’s not truth at all.
Somebody once said, ‘If someone tells you there’s no such thing as truth, they’re asking you not to believe them, so don’t.’ And here’s the problem with the statement, ‘There’s no such thing as truth’: it’s a self-refuting statement. If the statement is true, then it proves itself false. And if the statement itself is false, then it’s still false.
It would seem that using the idea that there is no absolute truth is just a way of making ourselves feel like the kings of our own lives. But nobody really lives as though truth is so easy to manipulate – it’s all around us. If I told you, in my native English tongue, that ‘I only speak Russian and Turkish’, then there isn’t really any way of that being true. It’s obviously untrue from the moment I start telling you in English.
Every adult who has ever died was born. A giraffe has never played Premiership football. There are no married bachelors.
Lots of things are objectively, absolutely true. And we all know it. Nobody is post-modernist when they are reading the warning label on a bottle of poison.
We live in the world of scepticism. We don’t like to commit to truth claims, because it makes us feel controlled. We want to be free, to be critical thinkers. But to be truly sceptical, you have to be sceptical about your own scepticism. How do we know that scepticism is the best way to view the world? If we’re prepared to accept that we need to be sceptical about our own scepticism, and that the idea of truth is a true on – that there are things out there that can be said to be true – then we can ask the next logical question: what, exactly, is true?
This is the first of a series of excerpts from the forthcoming book from the Demolition Squad, tackling #25objections to the Christian faith.
When Jesus said, “It is written” He was defending himself from satan but also teaching us where to go to find and emulate Him who is the true word of God. Search your bible gathering dust in you book case.
Hi Paul, Andy here who wrote it. Thanks for your comment. I think you may have misread the article. It isn’t making the case that there isn’t any such thing as truth. It’s trying to show that people who don’t believe in truth back themselves into a corner. I’m delighted to inform you that my Bible is well-dusted, and that – of course – I agree with what you said about Jesus. All the best.
A most gracious response Andy.
A brilliant first excerpt. A great article to share and start provoking some thoughts!
To throw my two pennies in, this sort of treatment of postmodernism is unfortunate in my view. No postmodern philosopher says categorically that there is no truth, but rather wants to analyse truth in non-traditional terms. So, for example, the traditional way of thinking about truth is correspondence, that truth corresponds to what is ‘out there’ (this might be thought of as ‘objective truth’). But this may be called into question by the fact that we perceive the world from a certain vantage point and use certain linguistic constructions to describe it. (For me, I find this to be a very helpful idea from a Christian viewpoint: that I do not possess objective truth because that is what it means to be a creature of God. Only God possesses objective truth and for me to claim that I do is idolatrous.) So, one might be persuaded of this and decide that the correspondence theory of truth is problematic and so begin to question the possibility of objective truth.
Further to this, it’s my very strongly held conviction that postmodernism is much closer to Christianity in its view of truth than modernity, which is actually idolatrous blasphemy insofar as it makes human reason into an all-powerful instrument with which can totally understand reality and manipulate it to our own ends, ushering in our own technological and scientific eschatological utopia with a few death camps and genocides along the way.
Sorry for the long comment. I’m sort of ‘into’ this a bit.
Hi Jamie. Thanks so much for your comment. Appreciate the interaction with the DS blogs!
I didn’t write this article but I wanted to respond to a couple of your points.
Firstly, on the rejection of the correspondence theory of truth and a denial of objective truth, I find that this runs into problems. It’s very hard to categorically deny objective truth (for any reason) as doing so requires an objective truth statement to be asserted as Andy pointed out.
I think that for Christians, we would say that truth is knowable to us – even in our finite forms and restricted viewpoints – primarily because it has been revealed to us by God through rational propositions. As I see it, it’s less a question of possessing truth as comprehending it.
I would want to agree with you that to promote reason above all else is problematic. If this is coupled with the idea that our reason is perfectible, that with time we can think our way to perfection, then it would run contrary to the Biblical viewpoint.
Where postmodernism may fall short though, is in an aggressive swing the other way. Reason should not be rejected. God’s revelation to us through Jesus and the Bible is reasonable, and of course we are told that we are to worship God with our minds, as well as with our hearts.
If modernism came about when man rejected God and replaced Him with science and human progress then we need to dial that down and acknowledge our need for God in this broken world and that we don’t possess – by our reason or any other faculty – the ability to fix the human condition on our own.
In my mind to reject our reason and take a postmodern route is to throw the baby out with the bathwater and end up with a thought structure that rejects absolute truth, and therefore undermines the truth claims that Christianity makes.
I appreciate the discussion of post-modernism and modernity, and I actually think that orthodox Christian faith is fundamentally a rejection of both. However, if one’s view of truth is closer to orthodox Christian faith, I still say it is post-modernism because it denies the omnipotent status of reason.
I have to say that I don’t agree that one needs to make a claim to objective truth in order to deny it. I just don’t think that follows because there are other, less maximal claims about truth – i.e. that truth is relative, that truth is half-graspable and allows open to doubt and retraction, and so on. But even so I don’t mind you saying it. I think I just didn’t appreciate the way that the article articulates a view of truth – simply ‘there is no truth’ – which no major philosopher (certainly not even Nietzsche himself) would hold. So it’s a bit of a pointless article in my view, because it’s arguing against a view which nobody holds (certainly nobody I’ve ever met anyway). Have you met anyone who sincerely think that there is no truth?
I must say as well that I would question your view of Christian truth as revealed to us by God in rational propositions. I find that deeply problematic. Christian faith’s claim to truth is that truth is revealed personally in Christ and as such is completely un-propositional. It is something contained within a person and a relationship to that person. And I would also question your view that Christian faith is reasonable. There is a very strong philosophical tradition – i.e. in Kierkegaard – which says that faith is completely unreasonable and is based on trust that, however much God’s purposes may be obscured by the world and the events of the world, God is still at work in it. Kierkegaard makes a huge deal of this in Fear and Trembling in which he takes Abraham’s slaying of Isaac as an example of the madness of faith which is ultimately vindicated, quoting Romans 4 to the effect that Abraham ‘hoped against hope.’
Shalom to you.
“I actually think that orthodox Christian faith is fundamentally a rejection of both [modernism and post-modenism].” I would agree!
I understand your point about this article. I would want to affirm relative truths (statements) and absolute truths (statements). To deny that there are no absolute truths would be the step that would be too far for me.
I’m not sure I have met anyone that denies truth altogether, but it probably is a question of terms. As I read it, Andy is using ‘truth’ in the article to refer to absolute truth.
I would agree with you that Christian truth is revealed (in part) through Jesus, and that yes, at it’s core is a relationship.
I would disagree with Kierkegaard, and the more existential approach to faith, because – as in Fear & Trembling- yes Abraham did make a ‘leap of faith’ but that faith wasn’t irrational. Abraham’s faith was rooted in what he knew about God through what God had already revealed to him. It wasn’t a completely blind leap, but an act of trust in someone Abraham was getting to know, but didn’t know fully. Abraham’s act of faith was to believe in what God had said and act upon it.
I think we agree on a lot (dangers of absolutising reason) and differ in some ways as to the solution.
Superb. You. Kierkegaard. And Job.
Worth well more than tuppence.
Aye Andy. What’s true about God as revealed in The Books?