Is Truth True?

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ, “What is truth,” did he understand the cosmic importance of his question? In a situation thick with irony, Pilate went outside before receiving his answer, though he had just inquired of the Son of God, who had earlier identified Himself as “the way, the truth, and the life.” For many people in our time, the answer to Pilate’s question remains clouded and controversial. But the nature of truth is an important precondition that must be considered before we can argue for the truth of the Christian worldview. 

Subjective / Relative Truth versus Objective / Absolute Truth

The current struggle over the nature of truth involves two central competing ideas: subjective / relative truth versus objective / absolute truth. In our post-modern world, many people consider it a waste of time to even consider the differences between these terms. Some are perfectly content to dismiss any controversy with catch phrases such as, “What’s true for you may not be true for me. But that’s okay. Truth is in the eye of the beholder.” While there are certainly subjective / relative truths (i.e. “I think chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla”), they primarily apply to areas of preference and personal opinion. On the other hand, objective / absolute truth (i.e. “Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream contains sugar”) is a statement about reality that is true for every person whether they believe it or not. Objective / absolute truth lies in the nature of the object, not in the opinion of individual persons.

So what is objective / absolute truth? Aristotle said that truth is “saying of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.” In other words, truth means “telling it like it is.” The distinction between relative and absolute truth is important when asking if God exists, because what God is like is not a matter of our personal opinions. The truth about God is firmly grounded in God himself.

The confusion of the subjective / relative truth position often comes from linguistic misconceptions. When I state that right now I am looking out the window at a man walking a dog, a relativist would answer that while that statement is true for me, it is not true for him. But I am not claiming that the relativist is also looking out the window. Rather, the truth that I am looking out the window at this moment remains absolutely true for all people in all times. The absolute objective truth will never change that at 11:15am on Monday, February 25, 2013, I was looking out the window at a man walking his dog. 

Not only is relativism linguistically confused, but it also self-destructs logically. When the relativist states that, “All truth is relative,” he is making an absolute statement about the nature of truth. But if all truth is relative, his absolute statement cannot be true. The argument for relativism has collapsed under its own weight. Except in cases of personal preference and opinion, relativism is unworkable, unlivable, and wholly contrary to both common sense and the world we observe around us. As a person thinks this through, the realization naturally arises that if something is objectively true, it is absolutely true, and absolute truth is not subject to change.

Four Theories of Truth

In further defining the nature of truth, it will help to briefly consider four basic theories of truth. These theories are the Coherence theory, the Pragmatic theory, the Intentionalist theory, and the Correspondence theory.

The Coherence theory suggests that something is true if it as coherent and self-consistent. But a group of statements are not necessarily true because they are consistent. Consider several witnesses colluding to give false testimony in a trial. The fact that their versions of an event consistently agree in no way makes their testimony true.

“I’m glad the Bible works for you, but as far as I’m concerned it’s just a jumble of myths and legends that don’t make any difference in my life.” Sound familiar? This statement is an example of the Pragmatic theory of truth. The speaker is saying that whether the Bible (or anything else) is true or not depends on if “it works” in a person’s life. This theory quickly breaks down in the real world. While a child’s lie to her parents may succeed in getting her the money she seeks (her lie “works” as Dad hands her a dollar), the positive result (in her eyes) does not somehow turn her lie into the truth.

The Intentionalist theory finds truth in the intentions of the communicator. If a writer’s statement accomplishes what she intended it to accomplish, then it is a true statement. When Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, one of her intentions was that her readers would be confronted with the issues of rape and racism. Without a doubt the author’s intention was accomplished, yet Atticus Finch remains a fictional character.

This leaves the Correspondence theory, which states that truth about reality corresponds to the way things really are. For truth to be true, what we say and what we know must correspond to what is.

Why does this matter?

C.S. Lewis once described the real life danger to anyone who embraces subjective / relative truth while denying the reality of objective / absolute truth: “If Truth is objective, if we live in a world we did not create and cannot change merely by thinking, if the world is not really a dream of our own, then the most destructive belief we could possibly believe would be the denial of this primary fact. It would be like closing your eyes while driving, or blissfully ignoring the doctor’s warnings.”[1]

“And that’s the way it is”

When Walter Cronkite closed his evening news program with the words, “And that’s the way it is”, he was (perhaps unwittingly) confirming the Correspondence theory of truth. Objective / absolute truth is a critical foundation as we consider the world around us, because if God exists or not, and what that God is like, must match reality.

And that's the way it is . . .

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[1]C.S. Lewis, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967)