Does truth exist?

This fall a class at our church is going to go through a terrific book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. The book follows a four-step progression: truth exists, God exists, miracles are possible, the New Testament is reliable. Each of these steps leads to the next. I'd like to cover some of the material in the next few blogs, starting with the idea that truth about reality is knowable.

The authors begin by defining truth. They say it is simply telling it like it is, or that which corresponds to its object, or that which describes an actual state of affairs. Contrary to what is being taught in many public schools, the authors claim truth is not relative but absolute, meaning it is true for all people at all times and all places. By definition all truth claims are absolute, narrow, and exclusive. There are those who say Christians, for example, are narrow-minded people because they believe they have the truth. But atheists believe their point is true, which makes them just as narrow-minded. Any truth claim is exclusive, so it does no good to complain that one group thinks it is correct; all people think they have truth when it comes to a worldview.

Several other things can be said about truth as well. Truth is discovered, not invented. It is true for all people, no matter what culture. Even though our beliefs about truth may change, truth itself is unchanging. Beliefs cannot change the fact even if they are sincerely held.

But today we have the assertion that there is no truth. However, when we look at that statement, we see that it is self-defeating because it claims to be true in all cases and therefore defeats itself. It's much like hearing someone say, "I can't speak a word of English"--that's self-defeating too.Those who believe in relativism make many self-defeating statements like that -- "all truth is relative," "there are no absolutes," "it's true for you but not for me." So complete agnosticism or skepticism is self-defeating because it claims truth cannot be known but then claims that its view is true.

The authors have tried to establish that truth can be known. But what about other religious beliefs? Can they all be true? No, since they are mutually exclusive -- they teach opposites. So much for the new definition of tolerance, which now means we have to accept every belief as true. Some people will bring up the parable of the blind men and the elephant in which six blind men feel a different part of the elephant and reach a different conclusion about the object in front of them. We are told that no single religion has the truth since we are all like the blind men. This sounds okay until we think about the story a little further. Somebody in the story seems to have an objective perspective since they can see that the blind people are mistaken. So apparently people can see the truth, and this parable does not support religious pluralism.

Well, that's the first section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. There's more that examines the possibility of truth, but I'll save that for a future blog.