Truth
For the last few blogs here at One Hundred Fold Ministries’ Backyard Conversations we have been talking about truth. Just last week we talked about the dangers of an A.I. Jesus that you can have an internet conversation with. Ok, that is a cute enough idea, but my question is, “Is there any True Truth in that artificial Jesus?” True Truth in today’s culture is hard to find.
I was a philosophy and psychology double major in college (and as you can imagine that qualified me for almost no job in the world!). One of my philosophy classes spent a fair amount of time on Epistemology – the study of knowledge and truth. The Oxford Dictionary described this study:
Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
We are being told by our culture that there is no True Truth anymore. Absolute truth is passé they say. To hold that moral or spiritual truths are absolute or universal is now considered to be offensive and even hate talk. We are told essentially that we get to do “what’s right in our own eyes.” The only sin, so to speak, is to thrust your moral reality on another person. That is absolutely unacceptable in our world of non-absolutes. Ironic huh!
We spoke recently here at Backyard Conversation of the so called transcendentals of humanity (another philosophical concept!) – Truth, Beauty, Wisdom, and Goodness. These are values or constructs that only humans – those made in the image of God – wrestle with. Animals do not know beauty or evaluate wisdom. That sentence tends to stir up our animal lovers sensitivities but I stand by it! The point is that to know or to pursue ultimate truth is to be human. It’s a big deal. To more fully know the truth is to be more fully human. Let me say that again:
To more fully know the Truth is to be more fully human.
Today on the radio I learned that companies are using A.I. to improve the “the sense” of their customer’s service approval. It is the hope that using A.I., customers will feel more satisfied. That strikes me as funny. Using a computer program to make living humans ‘seemingly’ more satisfied makes me scrunch up my face. I mean, why couldn’t a company just do better customer service?
The bigger question is, “Where do I go for True Truth?” Not just a feeling of truth. A ‘sense’ of truth doesn’t satisfy me when I am looking for true north when lost in a forest.
Here is where not to go:
The news room – there is no ‘no spin’ any more,
The internet – Over 50% of the postings on the internet now are A.I. generated
Your mail box – you will get solicitations that make incredible promises – careful!
Your Mother – Wait? What? I can’t trust my mom to tell me the truth???
So, to be fair I can’t necessarily trust anybody’s mom. Or dad or uncle or teacher or coach. We live in a world of very compelling lies. People we love believe in lies. Just because someone loves us doesn’t mean that they hold the truth in their hands. People we love and who love us would not deliberately mislead us or lie to us, but they will pass on deceptions that they hold as truth. It happens all the time.
For a period of time my mom embraced a popular idea of the 60s called humanism (it’s still very much still around but not as prevalent as it used to be). This is the idea that humanity will grow (read evolve) in truth and goodness and we will eventually fix disease and war and poverty. She would tell me as much. “Dave, your world will be so much better than the world I grew up in.”
According to Christian doctrine and frankly based on the trajectory of the world, this is simply not true. Humanity and society are getting worse not better. WWII shot a lot of holes in the Humanism movement! Jesus himself tells us that, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:14). That doesn’t sound like things are expected to get better.
In these days of profound, ubiquitous and deadly lies, our last best hope is our Living Truth. Jesus said, **“I am the truth” curiously not “I know the truth.” And of course he knew True Truths too, but he said it this way because He was ramping up the reality of his deity. He embodies True Truth. He is the very incarnation of True Truth. The “prince of this world” – as Jesus calls Satan – is a liar and has been a liar from the beginning. And he is the “prince of the power of the air” of this world. And into this world of Lies came the Living Truth. And Jesus says, “If you know the truth, the Truth will set you free.” He could have just as easily have said, “If you know me, really know me**, I will set you free!”
Now, let me say this carefully so that you do not get confused or text mean things to me . . . You cannot trust that you will hear the truth in church anymore. Too often from the pulpit you will hear the scriptures interpreted through the lens of our culture or popular current social paradigms rather than truths from the pulpit that interpret popular culture through the truth lens of the scriptures. It is so important that we get that right. God gave us the Living Word of Truth – the scriptures that testify of the Incarnate God and Incarnate Truth Jesus Christ – in order that we can make sense of this fallen world according to its unchanging True Truth.
The pursuit of these authentic transcendentals does not guarantee finding them. You will only have goodness and wisdom and beauty when you experience them in truth. Let’s gather some more thoughts on this over the next few conversations. Maybe connect with me at dave@100foldministries.org with how you found True Truth! Peace!
