What is truth?

WHAT IS TRUTH:
The blind men and the elephant

"All the good Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for this Book we could not know right from wrong."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The Bible has noble poetry in it ... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies."

- Mark Twain

1.1 What is truth?

Truth is that which reflects reality. Truth corresponds to fact, and is consistent with that which has actually occurred. This is called absolute truth, or the absolute sense of truth.

Another sense of truth in the relative sense. This is where an event or statement is judged to be consistent with someone's perception.

Take, for example, the statement "the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001." That is true in the absolute sense. However, those who brought them down might argue that the towers were effectively destroyed years beforehand by America's actions elsewhere in the world. That could be true in a relative sense; relative to one's perceptions and politics.

Finding relative truth in a given event is always possible, but it does not mean the absolute sense of truth no longer applies. On the contrary, some 2,800 people hit the ground on that fateful Tuesday morning regardless of when the perpetrators swore themselves to the towers' destruction.

As this pertains to the Bible, irrespective of how accurate you believe it to be, the Bible either absolutely does or does not reflect history which has actually occurred. It either corresponds to reality and fact or it doesn't.

1.2 Equally right or equally wrong?

Everyone who has heard of the Bible has some kind of opinion on it. There are opinions on whether or not it's true, or if it's true in either a relative or absolute sense, etc. Some people believe it to be literal and specific revelation from God. Others believe the Bible's origin to be less divine and more open to interpretation. In this world of so many different beliefs about the Bible, one thing is certain: everyone can't be right. At least some opinions must be wrong.

A classic attempt to refute the idea of right and wrong, namely absolute truth in regard to religion, goes as follows: Several blind men are each touching a different part of an elephant. Trying to determine what they have gathered around, one man feeling the elephant's leg describes it to be a tree. Another, feeling its trunk, describes it to be a snake, and so on.

One point to this vignette is to illustrate that there is no absolute sense of truth regarding religion. Truth and God are only what you perceive them to be. This is highly misleading. It's equivalent to saying that both "2+2=3" and "2+2=6" are equally correct. In reality, neither one is correct. It is more precise to say that each blind man was equally wrong, not equally right.

Each blind man missed the objective truth that they were all gathered around an elephant. Within the analogy itis quite intentional that there is no accommodation for anyone who might come along and call the elephant an elephant. This is because the analogy regards truth as either personally unknowable, or considers the discernment of right from wrong to be more intolerable than contradictions or errors.

1.3 Small part of a greater whole

Another point to the story is that each man possesses only a small part of a greater overall truth. The blind man who felt the elephant's leg, for instance, made basically correct observations about the leg's shape and texture. But while those particular observations may have been accurate, lacking other points of view the blind man came to the wrong conclusion. The greater truth was visible only when all the points of view were combined.

When this philosophy is applied to the Bible, Christianity is reduced to being just one of many equally valid (or equally mistaken) ways of life.

Is it then the combining of Christianity with other religions and philosophies which reveals the supposed greater truth?

Let's follow this thought.

1.4 Addition doesn't apply

Combining every one of the world's religions and philosophies has a problem: contradictions. What one group believes to be true, another group believes to be false. Hinduism says there are many gods, (strong) atheism says there are no gods, pantheism says everything is God, new age belief says you and I are God, Mormonism says you and I can become gods, Scientology says you and I were (essentially) gods, and Christianity says there is only one triune God.

These differences, as well many, many others absolutely cannot be reconciled. Therefore the problem of contradictions precludes the concept of combining religions to arrive at a non-contradictory description of reality.

1.5 Diversity doesn't apply

Must we really reject contradictory conclusions on the Bible? Shouldn't we embrace all different beliefs for the sake of cultural or religious diversity?

We hear this often today. For instance, if Believer Joe says history happened according to the Bible, but Unbeliever Mary says it happened a different way, might Moderate Bob offer the best solution by saying, "To each his own - it happened either way or both ways"?

No. Shut up, Bob. Asking whether or not the Bible is an accurate recording of world history is not like asking which color is the prettiest. Either Joe is wrong, or Mary is wrong, or they are both wrong. They may each honestly perceive the truth differently, but wrong perceptions, no matter how honest, do not change history. In regard to absolute truth, history never allows the impossible compromise of accepting contradictory outcomes.

1.6 Subtraction doesn't apply

The elephant scenario suggests one more path by which the illusive greater truth might be found. Instead of addition, we could try subtraction. Is truth perhaps found, not by embracing all manners of belief, but by getting rid of everything on which people disagree?

This would mean reducing the world's ideologies down to the few elements they all share. Once we eliminate every aspect of existence on which there is disagreement, what are we left with? Nothing. Actually less than nothing because nihilism is the philosophy that nothing exists, and that concept would have to be thrown out, too. So when it comes to explaining human history and existence, it is easy to see that neither combining ideologies nor reducing them to common denominators provides us with a rational, practical, provable answer.

It is a logical impossibility to believe all ideologies, and it is irrational to agree on only the non-nothing they have in common. Thus our initial assertion still stands that there exists both correct and incorrect answers.

Even people who say belief in absolute truth is wrong still have to agree with that. So the problem then before us is how to discriminate between the possible answers. Specifically, what analysis of the Bible best reflects reality?

1.7 The Bible vs. probability

Is the Bible an accurate portrayal of places, persons and events? It claims to be not only an accurate reflection of history past, but also of history yet to come. In response to this, natural skepticism asks, "But can we believe everything we read in the Bible?"

It is easy to believe the Bible contains some truth, but it's a very lengthy and very old collection of writings. It's difficult to accept any book as completely reliable. Yet it is this improbability that such a book could or would exist that suggests something very unique.

Emphasizing that the Bible may indeed have been orchestrated by a truthful and transcendent God is both

1. the fantastic degree to which the biblical writings can be proven true, and...

2. the astonishing inability the Bible's critics have had in over two millennia of seeking to prove it false.

1.8 The Bible vs. its rivals

The very fact that the Bible offers itself to readers as a verifiably perfect record of history is unique in the field of religion; even compared to its most popular rivals.

For instance, Humanism or Secular Humanism (similar to strong atheism) offers no objective criteria by which to judge its validity. Julian Huxley founded Humanism specifically on the belief that all truth is relative. Hinduism and other Eastern religions resemble this in believing that there are many ways to God. Major factions of modern Judaism, like some neo-orthodox Christian churches and sects, spiritualize the scriptures to the point they believe them to be true only in the most generalized and figurative ways. (Are those Christian churches really Christian?)

Islam, too, has no real empirical test of its own validity. Some Muslims hold that a secret mathematical encoding of the number nineteen within its Qur'an (in the original language only) is one of only two confirmations of its truthfulness; mystically refuting any evidence or discoveries that testify otherwise. The other proof is that Mohammed said he would one day return to Mecca and did. As for the many who live under Shariah law, the threat of torture or dismemberment is their chief proof that no other way of thinking needs to be considered.

1.9 Where that leaves us

In stark contrast to competing religions and philosophies, the Bible lays itself open for verification that it contains both literal and figurative truth. The Bible accurately relates the beginnings of the universe, the planet, and life itself. The Bible accurately prophesied hundreds prophesied of events that occurred centuries after the human authors were dead: events impossible to fraudulently manufacture.

The Veracity divsion of this site in particular explores all these proofs and more in order to show that the Christian faith is not a blind exercise in futility, but a well-reasoned intellectual and spiritual assent to the truth of history, logic, and reality.

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NEXT: Is there a God?

WHAT IS TRUTH: The blind men and the elephant

WHAT IS TRUTH:
The blind men and the elephant