Week One: Truth

The main purpose of this session is to demonstrate that truth is absolute and knowable and that it relates to reality. Reality is here defined as that which is actually real, that which exists independent of our belief, observation, perception, or awareness; it doesn’t matter what we think, feel, believe or know; it exists independent of us.

The two main propositions that we will function on for the entirety of this course are: 1) Christianity is True and 2) Truth is absolute and knowable. If this is not the case, then the rest of our time together will be irrelevant, as nothing would be true and therefore it would make no difference whether we’re right or wrong, since categories such as right or wrong wouldn’t exist… So with this in mind, let’s look the correct view of truth then move on to discuss the various inadequate theories of truth:

1) Correspondence
a. “Truth is that which corresponds to reality.”
b. Truth is based on reality and corresponds or agrees with it.
c. Truth is discovered, not invented
d. Truth is trans-cultural; it doesn’t matter which culture you belong to, if something is true, then you must acknowledge it’s truth whether you like it or not.
e. Truth, like reality, does not change. Our opinions about truth may change, but that has no affect on truth itself.
f. Truth is not affected by belief. It does not matter what you believe, truth or reality will not alter to suit your belief.

2) Performance view of Truth (Pragmatism)
a. “Logical thinking based on observable facts” or “If it works, it must be true.”
b. Pragmatism is concerned with results and bases “truth” on effects. How does it perform; does it work?
c. For example, if you break your mom’s favorite lamp then blame it on your dog, this would “work” in that you have someone to blame, your mom has a “culprit” and you are able to “get away” with it.
d. With this view of truth, some one inevitably ends up getting the short end of the stick. The dog is blamed for what he did not do and conveniently cannot defend himself.
e. No one is ever asked in a court of law to swear to tell the “Effective, the whole effective and nothing but the effective, so help me future experience.” We simply don’t really believe this nonsense, even if we pretend that we do. It doesn’t “work”.
f. With this view of truth, no one could ever develop any “theoretical” truths. Nothing would be “true” until it was first tried and proven. We could never know if we have not experienced something for ourselves. All history is also held in abeyance, since we were not there to experience the events to know first hand that they are/were true.
g. In addition, to state this view, those who hold to it must borrow another view of truth called “the correspondence view of truth.”
h. For example, no one says, “The pragmatic view of truth is pragmatic.” They refer to their view as “true” and by true, they mean that it is in accord with (or corresponds to) the real world.

3) Cohesion (the “Spider Web theory)
a. “Truth is that which coheres” or that which is internally consistent with all the “facts”.
b. First, you would need to know all the information (and know that it is all actually “true”) before you could see if the information “coheres” with itself. This is self-defeating; you can’t know all the information prior to knowing all the information.
c. Secondly, Coherence doesn’t demonstrate the truthfulness of a system. For example:
i. All Nurple is Schnock.
ii. All Schnock is Mange
iii. Therefore, all Nurple is Mange.
d. The above is meaningless, yet internally consistent. “Logically necessary” and “real” are not the same thing. There is no such thing as Nurple or Schnock. But if there were, then it would be logically necessary that all Nurple were Mange, based on the above statements.
e. No one says, “The Cohesive view of truth coheres.” Rather one would state that the view is “true”.
f. If someone is presenting a “Coherence” theory of truth, they are intending us to believe that their view of truth not only is internally consistent, but that it also matches with the reality that we all live in. Unfortunately for them, this is the correspondence theory of truth, not the cohesion view.
g. Coherence is at best a negative test for the falsity of a system, not a positive test for the truth of a system. If a system is true, it will be internally consistent; it will “Cohere.” If it is false, it *might* contain inconsistencies, but not necessarily.
h. If a system contains inconsistencies, then it cannot be true; if it is consistent, it is a candidate for truth.
i. I referred to this view as the “Spider Web” view of truth. If we think of truth as an inter-connected web of statements, these statements must all be in some way to be “true”, but they must also relate to something beyond themselves.
j. A spider web is never suspended in mid-air, it’s always attached to something else that’s “solid”.
k. The “Solid” thing that the “threads of truth” must hang on is “Reality.”
l. If there’s nothing “solid” for the system to hold on to, then it’s like a spider web with all the right threads, but no point of attachment to the real world.

4) Intention
a. “Truth is that which was intended by its author” or “If you intended it to be true and believed it to be, then it’s true; it’s false if you intended or believed it to be false.”
b. Unfortunately, this view is widely held but most people who don’t realize that they believe this. People maintain that you can believe anything you want; as long as you are sincere, you’re right.
c. The easiest way to empty this claim of all power is to turn it on itself. Just rephrase it this way, “The intentionalist view of truth is intended”. That makes no sense.
d. People who hold this view are forced to express it this way: “The intentionalist view of truth is true.” And by “TRUE” they really mean that this view actually describes the way the reality we all live in really behaves. But again, this describes the correspondence view of truth, not the inteitionalist view of truth.
e. If this view of truth is actually correct, then all statements that have ever been uttered by sincere people are “true”. My three-year-old son says some insanely absurd things. For example, he said to me that “water is made out of exercise” because it’s good for your body. Based on the intentional view of truth, he’s right since he honestly believed what he was telling me. I also evidently have real live monsters in my house.
f. If you state this view of truth, but you do not believe it to be true; you do not intend this view to represent reality, does that make this view therefore false?
g. Your intentions have no real bearing on the truth of a statement, but rather they convey your personal convictions regarding the statement.
h. This view of truth is just a sneaky way to say, “It’s impossible for anyone to ever be wrong if they are sincere.” But what if I sincerely believe that your views of reality are wrong? We can’t both be right…

5) Comperhensiveness
a. “Truth is that which explains the most data.”
b. Unfortunately, this view also fails it’s own standard. Such a short statement explains very little data. Based on this theory, the more long-winded view of truth would be more correct.
c. Also, when one claims this view of truth, what they really believe is that their view of truth not only explains the most data (which it incidentally doesn’t), but that it actually is true (or corresponds to reality). No one says, “The comprehensive view of truth is exhaustive.”
d. This view at best is a test for truth, in that if a position is true, it will account for all of the relevant data, but you can have an equally comprehensive explanation of error. For example, there have been fairly detailed accounts for numerous false views (the earth being flat, the solar system revolving around the earth, lightning being the force of an angry god, etc.).
e. During their times, the above false views were the most comprehensive views available and they handled all the data known at the time. They were, nonetheless, false.

6) Satisfaction
a. “Truth is that which feels good” or “How can it be wrong if it feels right?”
b. This statement doesn’t pass it’s own test. Truth is not that which makes one feel good. In fact, many truths are actually very uncomfortable.
c. For example, my mom died when I was 10 years old. This does not make me feel good. Despite my feelings however, this is still a factual truth about the world.
d. It’s true that truth often hurts.
e. The nature of truth (correspondence to reality) is not the same as the result of truth (how these propositions make one feel).
f. Your emotional attachment to some idea has no bearing on whether or not it’s true.
g. Incidentally, this is one of the main flaws of the Emergent Church.
h. The relationship between “truth” and “feeling” is different; Truth may generate feelings, but feelings do not dictate truth.

7) Existential Relevance (Can I “Live” it?)
a. “Truth is not found in propositional statements” or “Truth is relevant to life or our existence.”
b. First, the statement, “Truth is not found in propositional statements” is itself a propositional truth statement that claims (implicitly) to be actually true (in that it corresponds to reality).
c. Second, the statement, “Truth is relevant to life or our existence” fails in that this truth itself is not actually relevant to our life or existence.
d. There are many truths that are not relevant to our existence. For example, what is the current temperature on the surface of Mars? This fact, if known, would be true, but how is this relevant to life or existence?
e. Certain truths of advanced mathematics are true, no matter how irrelevant they are to my life.
f. It’s also true that there are many facts that I know nothing about.
g. This view confuses the application of truth with the nature of truth.
h. Truth in its nature has nothing to do with relevance.
i. Truth in its application is often relevant (though not always).
j. Many things that are relevant to one’s life are not “true”. For example, one may base one’s life upon a farce or a scam. Simply because this position is extremely relevant to one’s life will not automatically make the position “true”. It will still be false.

8) Relativism
a. “All truth is relative to the one uttering it” or “Truth is relative to time, place, person, or any combination of the three.”
b. This is perhaps the most popular and insidious view of truth.
c. First, truth is not determined by election. You can’t simply decide with a popularity contest that something is true.
d. In order to promote this view, people often cite examples of “truths” that have “changed”.
i. The flat earth
ii. The geocentric universe
iii. The nature of the elemental world (fire, water, earth and air)
iv. Slavery
e. It doesn’t matter how many people believed in a flat earth, the globe did not flatten itself out to accommodate popular belief.
f. The sun did not shift to the center of the universe once we discovered it was actually there…
g. The nature of the physical universe did not alter when we learned about the periodic table.
h. Just because certain racists believed that it was acceptable to enslave other people, this was not acceptable. It didn’t matter how many people accepted this view.
i. It was not “truth” that changed, but rather our understanding and views of what we perceived to be truth.
j. Truth is not relative to persons. For example, if I were to say, “My feet are cold” it would be absolutely true for all people, in all places that on Tuesday, November 24, 2009, at 11:39 am, my (Bryan Hoshide) feet were indeed cold. This will be a truth forever.
k. As Norman Geisler writes,
“Furthermore, for the relativist it can only be true that it is relatively true for him, and so on infinitely. Either the claim that truth is relative is an absolute claim, which would falsify the relativist position, or it is an assertion that can never be made, because every time you make it you have to add another ‘relatively.’ It is just the beginning of an infinite regress that will never pay off in a real statement.”
l. People also often cite what they believe are absolutely relative truths. For example,
i. Preference on favorite flavors of ice cream (or some other mundane personal preference)
ii. The location of a door in relation to the persons in a room
iii. The temperature of a room
m. These examples are actually not relative (note that I referred to them as “absolutely relative”).
n. It will be true for all people that your personal favorite flavor of ice cream is “________” (fill in the blank). This is an absolutely true statement. It is not that he truth is relative; rather the statement refers to a personal opinion that by its very nature must vary from person to person. But each person’s opinion is objectively true for that person, and subsequently it will be objectively true for the rest of the world that such and such a person holds to such an opinion.
o. The location of a door in a room carries with it the implied context of my position in the room. Though this is not stated, it is nonetheless an integral part of the claim. It’s smuggled in with the personal noun. For example, “The door is on my left” includes within its context my location in the room, implied in the noun “my”. Therefore, this statement is not relative, but rather the context changes from person to person, not the truth claim.
p. When you’re stating the temperature of a room in terms like “hot”, “cold” or “warm”, you’re not actually speaking about the temperature of the room. Rather, you’re commenting on your comfort based on the actually objective temperature. For example, if the room were 45, you may perceive this as “cold”, but your perception of the temperature doesn’t change the fact that the room is 45. 45 is neither hot nor cold, rather we feel hot or cold depending on the temperature.
q. Comparisons like “Tall” or “Short”, “Fast” or “Slow” are by their nature relative, but this does not make truth relative. It is true that if a thing is fast, it must be faster than something. There has to be a “slow” against which “fast” is measured.
r. Therefore, “fast” and “slow” are not examples of relative truth, but rather they demonstrate that a thing is absolutely faster or slower than another thing (an example of absolute truth).
s. Truth is never relative, though it sometimes seems that way if we do not take into consideration the complete context of the statements that are being made.


Biblical data regarding the Correspondence theory of truth:

“I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life” John 14:6
Jesus is the perfect correspondence of reality. “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16-17

Mark 2:1-12. Jesus proves that what He says corresponds with reality. Since there is no reference point that can be observed for “your sins are forgiven”, Jesus provides a point of reference for “take up your pallet and go home” and then demonstrates that His statements are in correspondence with reality.

Genesis 42:16 Joseph “tests” the statements of his brothers to ensure that their words are factual.

Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

The entire thrust of Christianity is based on “truth”. Christianity is the accurate representation of “Reality”.

For a “World View” like Christianity to be true, it must pass three tests:
1) Can I defend it? (Is it logically consistent?)
2) Can I live it? (Is it practical or relevant?)
3) Can I prescribe it? (Is it universal and/or applicable?)
If the system fails at any of the above three points, it cannot be true.