Essay on Absolute Truth and Christianity
Most people today claim philosophy does not impact their lives, nor do they believe in having a philosophy at all. Agnostics and atheists alike fight for their belief in nonbelief, and their desire to be contemptuous in believing nothing. No matter what we have a philosophy, because this is the core of any person. If a person is a Stoic, they would act differently than a Platonic. Whether or not they claim the philosophy, they will still act the same way. This is similar to me believing I dont have an ethnicity, I may not claim my ethnicity doesn't change where I am from. These are easy examples but there are large implications for different secular philosophies. Most people who do not claim a philosophy struggle to accept this simple fact, but having a philosophy is not a bad thing. If a person desires to spend all of his time at work instead of his kids, this would be a bad thing to do. The only way to know this would be inherently wrong is to have a philosophy, which directs our morals and beliefs. Postmodernism, which is the absence of absolute truth, declares we cant know everything out there so we are all right in our beliefs, which is what most secular people believe. In a sense, we have fallen back into Nihilism methodology and this belief was also fought by Plato in his Dialogues. The battle for absolute truth is the biggest philosophical problem since the beginning of time. If absolute truth isnt true, where do we draw the line between good and bad, murder and manslaughter, theft and taking back what you are owed? On the flip side, if absolute truth is true, what is it, and can it be obtained?
From my own perspective on the issue of Truth, I believe the belief in Absolute Truth comes from if a person believes in God. If someone believes in the Orthodox Christian God, the belief in Truth becomes easy to conceptualize because John 14:6 specifies Jesus is truth. If Jesus is truth the entire Godhead is truth because the Godhead is of the same nature. From these foundational beliefs it can be inferred that if God is Truth, anything of God is of truth. If God being Truth is tied to his nature, then Absolute Truth is real but cannot be reached. Our limited human knowledge forces us to attempt to obtain this Absolute Truth but ultimately we cannot obtain it, only we can focus our eyes on Him and allow ourselves to receive the Truth that God wants us to receive. If God is Truth, he is the truth bearer. Some big verses to prove my previous claim are:
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
-Proverbs 2:6
For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to
give you a future and a hope.
-Jeremiah 29:11
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His
judgments and unfathomable His ways!
-Romans 11:33
These verses unpack the true volume of knowledge and wisdom, and how he is the deliverer of knowledge and wisdom. If God isnt Truth, it means he isnt omnipotent, which declares God not being God. From the Christian perspective Absolute Truth as Plato proclaimed 400 years before Christ has walked amongst us, not only as a Proclaimer of the Truth but as an Incarnation of the Truth.
The most common perspective I have heard from Atheists, who disagree with Absolute Truth, is cultural moral relativism. This is best defined as morality being defined by the culture as a whole, unto which no culture is greater than another and morality cannot be relative on the individual level only the cultural level. Absolute Truth cannot exist on the Secular level because Absolute Truth needs to be given by someone who knows all, for truth is only given by someone who is smarter than the truth. In a sense a teacher gives a law to their student, he must be greater than the student if the law is true, because you cannot teach something you dont comprehend. The critique I have of cultural moral relativism can be compressed into one simple word, paradox. Absolute Truth given by an all-knowing teacher is the only belief that doesnt inherently produce a paradox. Some paradoxes that need to be considered are: How can culturally relative truth be influenced by Globalism and how do we determine who morals to follow, are you allowed to keep your culturally relative morals if you immigrate to another area or do you need to change to the common cultural morals, do we go to war if genocide is being committed but is being accepted as culturally moral. These are simple questions that could be answered but I dont believe they all can be answered without attempting to establish an Absolute Truth without knowing it. Some quotes that attempt to back up cultural moral relativism to prove Im not deceiving the reader are the following[a]:
Morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits.
-Ruth Benedict (Patterns of Culture, 1934)
"The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right."
-William Graham Sumner
The second most common perspective derives from Buddhism. This is that truth is on an individual level and that Truth exists outside of us. They believe that truth is a way to oppress people and do not hold factual beliefs unless through meditation. They believe that Absolute Truth is revealed through meditation but the incarnation of truth differs from person to person. So in a way, Truth exists outside of us, but the way it is perceived changes depending on the person. This is similar to cultural moral relativism but with the major distinction of Absolute Truth existing but it is impersonal. As Christians, we have a personal Truth, through the Incarnation of Christ, but they believe only through works can Truth be revealed to us. One major quote that points to this common belief says, The Buddha's Teaching is the Ultimate Truth of the world. Buddhism, however, is not a revealed or an organized religion. It is the first example of the purely scientific approach applied to questions concerning the ultimate nature of existence. This timeless Teaching was discovered by the Buddha Himself without the help of any divine agency..
In conclusion, belief in God declares Absolute Truth, but if a person does not believe in God Truth cannot exist. From its core Truth has to be personal because it needs a person to give the Truth, and Truth needs its teacher to be above the student. Thus, Truth needs to be revealed to us by a God that knows everything. Jesus is not only Truth, not only personal Truth, but he is the physical incarnation of Truth that has been revealed to us through the cross. Through the cross and His resurrection, we not only can affirm his teachings as the Truth, but He is the Incarnation of the personal Truth delivered to us so that God can save us from ourselves.
Bibliography:
All scripture from NASB 2020:
"Holy Bible, New American Standard (2020)" & "NASB2020" & "New American Standard Bible (2020)
[a] Rachels, J. (1999). The Challenge of Cultural Relativism. https://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Rachels--Cultural%20Relativism.htm
Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, K. (n.d.). The Ultimate Truth. What Buddhists Believe. https://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/56.htm
From my own perspective on the issue of Truth, I believe the belief in Absolute Truth comes from if a person believes in God. If someone believes in the Orthodox Christian God, the belief in Truth becomes easy to conceptualize because John 14:6 specifies Jesus is truth. If Jesus is truth the entire Godhead is truth because the Godhead is of the same nature. From these foundational beliefs it can be inferred that if God is Truth, anything of God is of truth. If God being Truth is tied to his nature, then Absolute Truth is real but cannot be reached. Our limited human knowledge forces us to attempt to obtain this Absolute Truth but ultimately we cannot obtain it, only we can focus our eyes on Him and allow ourselves to receive the Truth that God wants us to receive. If God is Truth, he is the truth bearer. Some big verses to prove my previous claim are:
For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
-Proverbs 2:6
For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to
give you a future and a hope.
-Jeremiah 29:11
Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His
judgments and unfathomable His ways!
-Romans 11:33
These verses unpack the true volume of knowledge and wisdom, and how he is the deliverer of knowledge and wisdom. If God isnt Truth, it means he isnt omnipotent, which declares God not being God. From the Christian perspective Absolute Truth as Plato proclaimed 400 years before Christ has walked amongst us, not only as a Proclaimer of the Truth but as an Incarnation of the Truth.
The most common perspective I have heard from Atheists, who disagree with Absolute Truth, is cultural moral relativism. This is best defined as morality being defined by the culture as a whole, unto which no culture is greater than another and morality cannot be relative on the individual level only the cultural level. Absolute Truth cannot exist on the Secular level because Absolute Truth needs to be given by someone who knows all, for truth is only given by someone who is smarter than the truth. In a sense a teacher gives a law to their student, he must be greater than the student if the law is true, because you cannot teach something you dont comprehend. The critique I have of cultural moral relativism can be compressed into one simple word, paradox. Absolute Truth given by an all-knowing teacher is the only belief that doesnt inherently produce a paradox. Some paradoxes that need to be considered are: How can culturally relative truth be influenced by Globalism and how do we determine who morals to follow, are you allowed to keep your culturally relative morals if you immigrate to another area or do you need to change to the common cultural morals, do we go to war if genocide is being committed but is being accepted as culturally moral. These are simple questions that could be answered but I dont believe they all can be answered without attempting to establish an Absolute Truth without knowing it. Some quotes that attempt to back up cultural moral relativism to prove Im not deceiving the reader are the following[a]:
Morality differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved habits.
-Ruth Benedict (Patterns of Culture, 1934)
"The notion of right is in the folkways. It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to test them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right."
-William Graham Sumner
The second most common perspective derives from Buddhism. This is that truth is on an individual level and that Truth exists outside of us. They believe that truth is a way to oppress people and do not hold factual beliefs unless through meditation. They believe that Absolute Truth is revealed through meditation but the incarnation of truth differs from person to person. So in a way, Truth exists outside of us, but the way it is perceived changes depending on the person. This is similar to cultural moral relativism but with the major distinction of Absolute Truth existing but it is impersonal. As Christians, we have a personal Truth, through the Incarnation of Christ, but they believe only through works can Truth be revealed to us. One major quote that points to this common belief says, The Buddha's Teaching is the Ultimate Truth of the world. Buddhism, however, is not a revealed or an organized religion. It is the first example of the purely scientific approach applied to questions concerning the ultimate nature of existence. This timeless Teaching was discovered by the Buddha Himself without the help of any divine agency..
In conclusion, belief in God declares Absolute Truth, but if a person does not believe in God Truth cannot exist. From its core Truth has to be personal because it needs a person to give the Truth, and Truth needs its teacher to be above the student. Thus, Truth needs to be revealed to us by a God that knows everything. Jesus is not only Truth, not only personal Truth, but he is the physical incarnation of Truth that has been revealed to us through the cross. Through the cross and His resurrection, we not only can affirm his teachings as the Truth, but He is the Incarnation of the personal Truth delivered to us so that God can save us from ourselves.
Bibliography:
All scripture from NASB 2020:
"Holy Bible, New American Standard (2020)" & "NASB2020" & "New American Standard Bible (2020)
[a] Rachels, J. (1999). The Challenge of Cultural Relativism. https://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Rachels--Cultural%20Relativism.htm
Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera, K. (n.d.). The Ultimate Truth. What Buddhists Believe. https://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/56.htm
Comments (82)
Why do you believe that?
None of that answers my question. I get the impression you don't actually know any atheists or agnostics well enough to have much understanding of the way they think.
How do you know what most people claim? Most of the people I've met didn't make any claims at all regarding philosophy.
For their right to believe or not believe according to their own lights, and for their right to feel respect or contempt or whatever another's belief merits in their estimation. Religionists, Christian and Muslim both, force their belief, rules and practices onto everyone they can dominate, and so we have no option but to fight.
OK that's as valid as any opinion.
It's true: everyone acts some way, according to their inclination, circumstances and ability.
There you go again, reading most people's minds without even asking their permission.
No kidding!
I don't think it declares anything at all.
Back? Methodology?
Battle between what opposing forces? Where is this absolute truth located?
We muddle through with legal guidelines, reason, considering the circumstances, deliberating among ourselves.
It doesn't exist and cannot be obtained.
Quoting Isaiasb
Oh, OK. So is this the god depicted in the bible? The one who drowned all the animals and children because he was pissed off by some men's disobedience, after he already threw their ancestors out of Eden for the same offense, then cursed a son who accidentally caught a glimpse of his drunk old man's wrinkled appendage, and impregnated a young virgin so she could have a baby in a barn and raise him to be brutally murdered in order to pay the debt he himself had placed on the people?
I doubt that god would know the difference between murder and manslaughter, he committed and instigated so many of both. I don't think OT law would suit "most people today".
Even if I dedicated my life to your enlightenment, don't think I would have sufficient time.
This is my point, the We is ambiguous because it would be the government that decided what is okay or not. Which in turn would create more North Koreas or another USSR. And yes those things happened, because if God does exist he is allowed to do anything he wants, we all disobeyed God and deserve hell, but he chose to save us thats the beauty of the Old Testament. And the Old Testament wasnt written for today its like saying Ancient Greece laws wouldnt work today. God didnt impose any debt, just as though a bank loans money doesnt create the debt if the people cant pay them back the loan.
Nah, you'll have to step outside your cultural bubble and learn what atheists and agnostics think for yourself, if you want to see through the propaganda that you have been fed.
I think you need to make an actual argument and provide some sort of supporting evidence (as opposed to a claim) for why Christianity and not Islam or Zoroastrianism or Hinduism, etc holds the truth.
You can't use a holy book to prove the contents of that holy book, as this is circular logic (using the Bible/Koran to prove the Bible/Koran is a rookie mistake) and the world is full of holy books with claims. Which to pick? Faith? Appeals to faith are common and unfortunately there's nothing you can't justify using such a flexible and emotionally driven approach. Faith has justified slavery, Apartheid, Nazism, the persecution of minorities as well as good things, so it is defiantly not a reliable tool.
I personally don't beleive in 'absolute truth'. The word 'absolute' is superfluous. It's enough to be getting on with just identifying truth. Truth is an abstract that consists of different things in different situations. E.g., the truth about how you feel about a parent, for instance, is different to the type of truth that tells us what year Kennedy was assassinated. Truth is slippery.
Perhaps you could try to demonstrate the truth of your belief without making appeals to an old book to prove the claims in that old book. Circularity is unhelpful. :wink:
Quoting Isaiasb
Not sure that is ironic. Many people go back and forth and there are some very poor atheists out there.
Were you a person who believed nothing when you were an atheist?
What is your definition of absolute truth?
It's better than being stoned to death for using a nonsense word to express displeasure when a can of tomato soup galls on your foot.
Quoting Isaiasb
I do not agree that a legal system causes dictatorship. But if that were true, it would certainly be more true of a theocracy than a democracy.
Quoting Isaiasb
Well, that's relief! So, when do you unveil the new tablets?
Quoting Isaiasb
When all the power is one side, that's an imposition, because the people can't pay up, because the bank determined their circumstances as well as the terms of the contract.
So why is it that you weren't able to look at your own experience of being an atheist and recognize the following statement as nonsense?
Quoting Isaiasb
You didn't deny that your god is the one depicted in the bible. Is it or isn't it? Which version of deity are you talking about?
What is this meant to mean? Seems like you have a poor knowledge of atheism. Most contemporary atheists hold that atheism applies to one thing only - whether you have good reason to believe in gods. It does not necessarily say there are no gods, just that there isnt good reason to accept the proposition. I know atheists who believe in astrology, ghosts, reincarnation all kinds of things. Believing in nothing is unusual.
Quoting Isaiasb
Meaning what? You are a Christian idealist?
Isaiasb;840262"[/quote]
What makes him a god?
Quoting Isaiasb
Through religious wars, conquest and royal edict. And most of the dictators in history have not removed religion so much as replaced the local religion with their own.
But we don't recognize you as a higher power, so we will fight, if necessary, to keep your basis off our heads.
And telling lies about atheists and agnostics is justified because of that?
I'm more interested in your idea of absolute truth. Why would you not just defend Platonic idealism or similar and leave out Christianity, which will only get you into proselytizing territory?
Quoting Isaiasb
This is weak. Many Christians recognize that the Bible is allegory and don't consider it literally true. As I said earlier, this appears to be appealing to claims in a book to prove the claims in a book. "The Bible is true because the Bible says it is true."
How can one verify that the "truth" given by God is in fact true? Before answering that question; how does one verify that the entity providing this "truth" is in fact God?
That seems to be some pretty mediocre apologetics. Simplistic, not 'simple'.
If God is truth - which God and how do we establish this god is true AND that you know what this god wants? No one has yet pulled this one off. Islamic apologists seem to think they have done the best job.
How do you use the Holy Spirit and Scripture to figure out anything?
You need to demonstrate that there is a holy spirit. Good luck with that. And how do you know scripture is true? We're back at circular reasoning, right? The Bible/Koran is true because it says it is true.
I am not convinced this is a testimony of faith.
Whatever one may think of Scripture or how it got written, this idea of separating its use from "unbelievers" as a matter of dialogue reduces everything to whether one is convinced of one set of propositions or by another. And if it is the "one" set that has your vote, you suddenly possess the decoder ring needed to hear the Gospel.
He's already said the god in his story is Jesus. He has not said how Jesus can be god without Jehovah or how Jehovah can shed all his OT baggage.
I realize this, but the question beyond his particularism remains; which god is true and how do we establish this? It's the salient question for any theist.
The traditional rockstar god who can do it all. All seeing, all knowing, all powerful.
God cannot be known so cannot be established, well for me anyway I dont need to know all his attributes if I have faith in his existence.
Quoting Tom Storm
If this could be known thered be no need for faith and even atheists would be believers.
Like saying "god is truth".
It can't be made sense of in any of the usual ways we use such words.
It arguably has a place as a clarion call to other theists, or as "here be dragons" for non-theists.
The implication that the main, or perhaps even the only, alternative to a theistic morality is relativism ignores the history of Ethics back to Aristotle. It's just ignorant.
And we might add the obvious retort from Euthyphro, which so much as I am aware still lacks a satisfactory response.
In short, Quoting Tom Storm
Same old religious pap.
That's great once you know it's God but again how do you verify it's God? Which scriptures are acceptable to use for verification, and how do you verify that those scriptures are indeed from God? Is the Quran considered acceptable scripture for this purpose, or the Vedas, etc..? What about the Holy Ghost? How does the Holy Ghost help in determining this "truth"? what is the method? How do you verify that it is indeed the Holy Ghost?
Yes, and I have asked it. The answer being 'Christ Jesus', Thor, Quetzalcoatl and Shiva are out of the running. Therefore, the next logical question is how the particularity Christ Jesus came by his divinity. A slight variation on How do we establish this? It seems to me that neither answer can avoid reference to that same problematic book.
So in your words, what do you mean by "Absolute truth" then? Isn't truth just true? Truth isn't relative or much cares about us really. It is absolute in that sense, but it doesn't much care about having an adjective about it either.
The problem is that Plato and Aristotle fought for Truth by using the Gods. So they believing in a theistic morality. If Absolute Truth exists outside of God who determines it?
Right, my point was that regular truth isn't relative either. That's knowledge or beliefs. Truth is what reality is, whether we believe it or not.
As a Jewish friend once said - Christianity was derived from Judaism by a mad rabbi.
Such claims are not philosophy.
Quoting Isaiasb
Word games. If all you have to hold this argument is a claim that someone said a thing about themselves in a book, then you're in big trouble. And here again the book is being used to establish the truth of the book.
Are you a fundamentalist, perhaps? Do you think every word in The Bible is inerrant, the way many Muslims think every word of the Koran contains the unaltered and direct words of god?
As I and several other folk have pointed out, the difference between truth and "absolute truth" remains obscure.
The Bible is fairly scarce in truth claims about itself at any rate and it's unclear what they are to apply to within the context of the text. The Bible itself does not lay out the Scriptural canon which is why Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Ethiopian Coptics, Mormons, etc. each have slightly different Bibles.
I think claims about the Bible being a record of absolute truth fall into pretty immediate problems. There are consistency issues in the text itself, such as the chronological ordering of Saint Stephen's recap of Genesis varying from what is in Genesis. We have Jesus driving a demon into a herd of swine that then run into a body of water twice, once with one demon possessed man, once with two. We also have letters written by humans in the first person, e.g. Nehemiah, or the end half of the New Testament.
IMO, these make an argument for understanding fundemental elements of subjectivity. Why four differing records of Jesus' life? Perhaps to show how parallax allows us to approach more consistent descriptions of reality, while reminding us that consistency is not always equivalent with truth.
Maybe the set of all truths? Because certain truths are grounded in experience, which makes them inaccessible to others. The full truth of someone else's lived experience, both the substance and quality of their mental life, seems like an example of such a truth.
Absolute truth could be the abstract whole of these accurate descriptions. I think that is what is generally meant. It "misses nothing."
Or, in a holistic definition of truth, we might have it that absolute truth is similarly the sum of all truths, the total description, and partial truths are simply more or less true based on how much of this summation they contain. "Less true" need not entail "more false" in such a conception. "More false" would mean "containing more atomic propositions that are not contained in the set of all truths."
I don't know if most people would phrase it like that, but I think that's what they're getting at. In essence, the idea of absolute truth often seems to deny the bivalence of truth, which people do all the time in normal speech and I'd argue is actually more intuitive to us. We often admit "undecided," as a truth value, or "paradoxical." Whether or not this intuitiveness says something about the world that shaped our intuitions is another matter.
IF. If he was Man, he was born of Woman, thus "coming by" his humanity. If he was also God, that Woman was inseminated by God, and that is how he would he would "come by" his divinity. So how do you know he's a god, if not from that same book, full of the dubious exploits of that same disreputable Jehovah - who, according to you
has already changed his Absolute Truth several times in the past 4000 or so years. And, as you allow him to do anything he wants, and as he seems to have done quite a few things (slaughtering Egyptian babies and stealing their parents dishes comes to mind) that modern law doesn't allow, the absolute is wearing off his truth pretty fast.
Quoting Isaiasb
So... which?
Quoting Isaiasb
Then I guess either God or John was lying. So... which?
Really?
If that didn't happen, how did Jesus get to be a god?
Quoting Isaiasb
God was not really God back then and his truth wasn't really True? Then it must have gotten truer over time, and now its Absolute? Or it sudden became Absolute when God begat Plato or Jesus or Muhammad or Billy Graham. So... which?
Just how many ways can you split and bend an incoherent claim?
Something to pass the time. Do tell about the lion! Does he eat Daniel this time?
That was another lion, I think. Do you know the story? I'm quite fond of it.
T[i]he donkey told the tiger, The grass is blue.
The tiger replied, No, the grass is green.
The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.
As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ??Your Highness, isnt it true that the grass is blue?
The lion replied: If you believe it is true, the grass is blue.
The donkey rushed forward and continued: ??The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him.
The king then declared: ??The tiger will be punished with 3 days of silence.
The donkey jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating ??The grass is blue, the grass is blue
The tiger asked the lion, Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?
The lion replied, ??Youve known and seen the grass is green.
The tiger asked, ??So why do you punish me?
The lion replied, That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is degrading for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with an ass, and on top of that, you came and bothered me with that question just to validate something you already knew was true![/i]
both, he is fully God and Fully Man.Quoting Vera Mont
John 3:16 doesn't say, God impregnated Mary and she gave birth to a son. Jesus was Begotten not Made.
God was Truth back in the Old Testament, but he gave the law for the jews, until the time of Jesus could come and fufill it. The Law is a curse which points out how sinful we are. God is Truth.
How did Adam beget all those kids without impregnating a woman? Probably Eve, there having been a scarcity of women at the time. Quoting Isaiasb
Right. So God is a Truth who lies to some people some of the time.
Yeah. I'm ready to serve my 3-day silence now.
Indeed. According to academic and theologian David Bentley Hart, literal interpretations of the Bible as records of absolute truth are a more recent approach. The Bible was generally seen as allegorical tales to teach people larger truths. While I am unclear what a larger truth might be, I know growing up in the Baptist tradition we were taught the Bible stories were just stories, many of which did not take place.
We can probably see the Bible as a kind of fan fiction to god. I always found that left us with a problem of what bits to take seriously and why? And why not Hindu texts instead of Christian texts?
It's not just atheists who hold Bible accounts to be a flawed and limited. Christian writer and Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong put the matter succinctly:-
:zip:
You know this makes no sense? At best, it is a hand-wave at the mysterious.
It's propositions that are true or false. Not gods.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Interesting.
That's not dissimilar to logical atomism, as found in Russell and the early Wittgenstein, and brings with it most of the problems thereof. It has the singular advantage of admitting the point that it is propositions that are true or false, rather than gods.
So Quoting Isaiasb
would be interpreted as "God is the conjunction of all true propositions"
But that is not what Christians worship on Sunday.
So it remains that "God is truth" and such aphorisms do not convey factual information. Theology, taken literally, is nonsense.
It's hard to see how this is not the case. Perhaps at best we can call it a form of poetry that hints at human hopes and wishes.
All this is not to say that there is nothing profound, or transcendent, or whatever misnomer one might use; but to point out that no sooner do you put god into words than he ceases to be divine.
Worse than nonsense, I think, if it results in not being able to make a distinction between God and truth.
I think there might be many spiritually inclined, even theistic individuals who would find this reasoning muddy and the conclusions unwarranted. It's not about materialism.
Quoting Isaiasb
This is basic presuppositionalist apologetics wherein a little game is played appointing whichever god you hold exists as the foundational guarantor of all things - the necessary condition of coherence and goodness. Interestingly these identical arguments are used by Muslim apologists too. Apparently their god is also the measure of truth. So many gods, so much truth...
I don't think it is odd to compare things which are similar. Isn't that what a comparison is? But you're missing my point by focusing on that. My point is that apologists from both make the same appeals, inferences and arguments towards exclusivity and truth. In other words they rely on the same foundations even if their 'truths' are divergent.
Note however, also we've been talking about Christ - a man who wasn't crucified, according to Islam, the resurrected god, according to many Christians. That's different enough, right?
Given your post is about Absolute Truth - your choice here - I find it curious that you are unable to say what absolute truth is (and what 'absolute' adds to the idea of truth) apart from a reference to Platonism. And your truth relies on the same inferences that other truths rely upon, making it less 'absolute' and more interpretive.
I would need something more than just claims being made. What is your demonstration that your version of a particular god is truth incarnate? And you can't just 'it says in the Bible'. We've already dealt with that one.
Quoting Isaiasb
I think we need to recognize that Christianity itself is diverse and holds very different often incompatible accounts of Jesus. There is no single interpretation although it is clear that many groups believe every one else is wrong and only they have the truth. Is that how you see things?
This is like comparing a green and yellow bannana and asking why they taste different, they have differences but that isn't one of them. I refer to Platonism because Platonic view on Absolute Truth is similar to early Christians' views. I explained previously many times that I see Absolute Truth as Truth that is unchanging and "absolute". The inclusion of Absolute helps distinguish truth from Truth. Quoting Tom Storm
Anathasis wrote a great book called "On the Incarnation" if you wanna know why.
Quoting Isaiasb
That's like saying that a liberal democracy is a democracy that is 'liberal'. Doesn't really answer the question.
Quoting Isaiasb
As I said, this is a distraction from the actual point. Which was:
Quoting Tom Storm
What you seem to have is a justification for an exclusive truth which shares the same reasoning as many other claims for such exclusivity. In other words, there needs to be something better or the claim isn't justified. The arguments you employ can be used to support any number of religious beliefs, not solely the idea of an 'absolute' Christianity.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion, you have been very civil. :wink:
I'm saying that there is a clear enough use of "true" that applies to propositions; and that if you want to invent a different way of using the word, then admit that it is different and set out how it is to be used. I'm happy for you to use "truth" in an alternative way, just so long as you do not confuse or compound it with our usual use.
Further, if you are saying that your use is an analogy, then you are agreeing with me that your use differes from how we usually use "truth". Analogies are used to show how things are, but it remains unclear what it is you are attempting to show by "god is truth".
Quoting Isaiasb
Make up your mind. Is he truth or not? And how does truth admit of degrees? Is the pope almost truth, the bishop mostly truth and the priest a little bit truth? See how you misuse words here?
Quoting Isaiasb
Hmm. So back to the Euthyphro. Is something true because god says, or does god say it is true because it is?
Quoting Isaiasb
Wait on - are you now claiming that the notion that it is propositions that are true of false is part of materialism? Twaddle.
Quoting Isaiasb
Laughable. Absolute truth is "absolute". How profound. Yet you want to be taken seriously. Your religion appears, from what you say, parochial and bigoted. You are not offering anything that hasn't been said and rejected a thousand times on this forum alone.
Yawn.
This argument seems to be similar to the presuppositionalist position and some forms of classical theism. God is the ultimate source and standard of goodness. In this view, goodness is not something external to god that god adheres to, but is inherent to god's nature. God is not merely good; god is goodness itself. This view seems to align with classical theism's concept of divine simplicity, where all of god's attributes are unified in his essence.
To get out of the Euthyphro dilemma it might be argued that if goodness is grounded in god's unchanging nature, moral truths are objective and founded on divine essence - not based solely on 'divine commands'.
I think this is generally how Christian thinking constructs its response.
The substantive problem of course is that we have yet to demonstrate there is a god from which anything can emanate and even if there is a god or several gods, how can we tell that goodness emanates from this deity? All we have are claims - even if some of them are old and venerable.
For others, it's yet another example of god's incoherence.
What would you say about the events in Second Chronicals where Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, does evil in the sight of the LORD and walks in the ways of Jeroboam, causing God to send his prophets false dreams and visions to make him think he will win a battle against the Assyrians by allying himself with the wicked King Ahab of Israel?
Micaiah recalls a vision of the angels sitting around God while God asks how he can get Jehoshaphat to attack the Assyrians so that he might have him die in battle. One angel suggests going to Jehoshaphat's prophets as a "lying/deceiving spirit," to send them false visions. God tells them to go do that.
Then all the prophets recommend that Jehoshaphat go up to war, except for Micaiah.
Perhaps this is not a lie, because the message is that "the Assyrians will be given into your hand," not "you will not die in battle," but it is clearly meant to mislead.