By Cindy Fetty
December 11, 2010
It was a dark and stormy night. Eve Miller was driving down Palm St on her way home from the grocery store. She was really tired after the long day Christmas shopping for her two boys. Her cell phone chirped from her purse on the seat next to her and she looked over to see who was calling. Suddenly, she heard a loud screech and her world went dark. She woke up in the hospital with tubes coming out of her nose and wires attached to her arms. Her husband and two boys were sitting across from her waiting patiently to see if she would awake. As she looked around, her husband jumped up and ran to her side. “Honey, oh, I’m so glad you are awake. I was so scared! You were in an accident and have been unconscious for three days.” After several days in the hospital, Eve was released to finish healing at home. Now, she had the unfortunate task of waiting to find out what the repercussions of this accident were going to be for her. In looking at this scenario, there were probably a few key witnesses that could have told the police what they saw at the scene of the accident. The other driver would have had a perspective too. Even Eve would have had her version of what she remembered. In a court of law, the job of the jury would be to piece all of these stories together to figure out who was at fault. Best case, they would have had to take the subjective responses of eye-witnesses and mixed them with the data from the scene of the crime in order to come up with what they believed the truth to be. Finding the truth would have been even easier if there happened to be any forensic evidence. The jury would then have to weigh the likelihood of truth out by if they thought anyone was making up information to keep from getting in trouble, if the witnesses were doing something else and only saw a portion of what happened, or if there were any memory or perception issues going on. Each witness would certainly say that their story was the truth. There would, however, only be one truth. This is true of many different circumstances in life. People may try to manipulate the truth, but at its core it is generally verifiable and not subjective.
Throughout history, people from all different walks of life have tried to manipulate the truth. Truth claims have been manipulated to support all sorts of agenda’s. Murderers have made up alibis, companies have forged documentation, and religious leaders have invented whole faith doctrines on false evidence. Jeremiah 9:5 puts it this way, “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning (NIV 1984).” You may ask, what it truth anyway? According to Michael D. Palmer, “A fact is a state-of-affairs, that is, an object, a condition, a circumstance, or an event. (…) State-of-affairs, and hence facts, exist even if no one ever reports or describes them, and they exist independently of our language and thought. (…) A statement is true when it describes a fact (a state-of-affairs that exists); or in the case of a statement about the past, when it describes a state-of-affairs that did occur; or in the case of the future, one that will occur (Palmer 1998).” While this is not always the most common understanding of truth in our society today, it is the only way that stands up to reason. There are many different belief systems that try to describe truth as something else. A prime example of this would be individualism. Individualism “is the belief that the individual is the primary reality and that our understanding of the universe and lifestyle should be centered in oneself (Wilkens and Sanford 2009).” While it is healthy to have a good self-esteem and value for oneself, it is not very realistic that the only truths in life are what we think they are. William Earnest Henley’s “Invictus” does a good job of showing what Individualism looks like in our society today. He wraps up his poem by stating:
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul (Sire 1990).”
There are, however, two sides to individualism that should be explored. One side, “utilitarian individualism”, could be better coined as a company president’s viewpoint; where who you are is based on how much you have acquired and how much clout or status you have. The other side, “expressive individualism”, could be described as someone who wants to be free to be themselves without having to think of others (Sire 1990). People on both sides of individualism believe that they are the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong for them. So, the question would be, are there rights and wrongs that are state-of-affairs? Does right and wrong exist independently of our language and thought? C.S. Lewis spent a majority of his life searching for truth. In Mere Christianity, he said, “Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the ‘laws of nature’ we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong ‘the Law of Nature’, they really meant the Law of Human Nature (Lewis 1952).” He then goes on to point out that this law is the only law that is open to our choice to disobey. We cannot disobey the laws of gravity, heredity, or chemistry. We can, however, choose to treat people poorly, but when we do, we know at our core that we are wrong (Lewis 1952). As humans, we know that it is wrong to torture and kill others. We know that it is wrong to hurt children. We know that it is wrong to steal, lie, cheat, murder, lust after, etc. If we didn’t know that these things were wrong we wouldn’t have it engrained in us to hide them, to lie about them, to justify them or manipulate out of them. Manipulation is our human response to a truth we don’t want to look at. 2 Peter 2:2 points out that, “Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute (NIV 1984).” Psalm’s 15 is a great response to this:
“LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken (NIV 1984).”
In order to show this a little more clearly, we must look at truth to see how it is generally verifiable. Throughout history, many different religions, worldviews, and thought processes have come and gone. In most of these, there is a common thread of right and wrong. In looking at ancient writings from Babylon, Egypt, India, or Jerusalem there are several universal truths; do not murder, do not slander, do not treat people poorly, do not oppress. On the good side; we are to uphold human life, love each other, and treat others how we would like to be treated (C. S. Lewis 1944). In our own history, the founders of the United States of America put in The Declaration of Independence the following:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
If we do not see these things as self evident, our world breaks down. If everyone is free to do his or her own will at random, we run into one person’s will interfering with another’s. For example, if I don’t like you and want to kill you, you lose your choice when I act on my desire. So, there must be a law to keep me from making my choice your reality. When this system breaks down, we see corruption and loss of freedom. This brings us to another worldview that aims to break this system of right and wrong down. Scientific naturalism is a world view that came into the picture to redefine the “Laws of Nature.” As stated earlier, C.S. Lewis’ definition of the laws of nature referred to human nature. In scientific naturalism, the laws of nature refer directly to how everything is governed in the universe. The problem here is that this worldview proposed that there are no real laws, only random happenings that bring things about. So the term “law” is only used as a way to describe something that is not really a law in the first place. Either way, these laws of nature are not thought to be there for a reason, they are just there and must be used to define how everything works (Wilkens and Sanford 2009). Lewis responds to this idea by stating, “When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real- anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts, you have something else-a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey (C. Lewis 1952).” This truth is verifiable in our world and throughout history. Society breaks down when we do not follow the Laws of Human Nature. God calls us as Christians to, “Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding (NIV 1984).”
Truth doesn’t depend on our own personal experiences. There is, however, a worldview that believes it does. “Postmodern Tribalism” strives to say that our truth is entirely dependent on our culture and experiences as individuals (Wilkens and Sanford 2009). While this is a good example of our personal perspective, it hardly encompasses actual truth. For example, a child growing up with serious physical or emotional abuse may come to believe that all children are abused, people are not to be trusted, or that they are not lovable. All of these things are understandable perspectives based on that child’s experiences, but they are not truth. That child may even then begin to treat other people bad or act out because he doesn’t trust, or he wants to get attention in ways he is used to. His perspective will then create a reality for him of people not liking him, treating him poorly, and pushing him away. This will then reinforce his original beliefs and catapult him into adulthood thinking that there are no laws of human nature that apply to him. As a Christian, it is important to understand postmodern tribalism because it helps us to know where our fellow man is coming from. We cannot turn our backs on the social injustices of the world, just because someone’s perspective of the world is not true. It is our job to show them the truth. As Christians, we are blessed because we know the truth. In John 8:31-36 Jesus said,
"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (NIV 1984).”
So, knowing truth is a way to be set free from the restraints that lies hold over us. Our personal experiences may make us understand truth more fully, but they don’t change truth. One of the great minds in history, Aristotle, pointed out that our world is full of order. That everything is moving towards a final purpose (Palmer 1998). We have a final goal and an ultimate truth that we are heading for. It doesn’t matter what we believe or what we hope for, the truth is still there. Because of this, it is important to understand and do what is right. In Matthew 7:12 it says, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (NIV 1984).” If this truth were to be utilized by the world as a whole, we would live in a completely different reality. If we all treated each other as we would like to be treated, we would solve every social injustice. We would no longer have issues like world hunger, poverty, murder, slander, or oppression. Aristotle believed that our virtue was “developed by habits which help a person to achieve happiness. Virtue aims at the intermediate: it is a mean between the vices of defect and excess. For example, the virtue courage lies in a mean between rashness (excess) and timidity (deficiency) (Palmer 1998).” Virtue is there waiting for us to act whether we do actually act or not. Many of us will choose to go the path of least resistance; the road that looks the most fun or exciting which most often leads to dissatisfaction. As a Christian, this is not the road that we are called to take. Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (NIV 1984).” God has told us the truth about this world. He has laid it out in his word for us to find. It is true whether we choose to grab hold of it or not.
Now, let us go back to our initial story about Eve Miller and her family. What was the truth in her situation? Do you remember how she heard her phone and looked over to see who was calling right before the accident? It would be easy to assume that the accident was her fault because she looked down for a second. The truth is entirely different though. While she did look away, the car that hit her ran a red light. The driver had a malfunction in his breaks that was caused by the automobile manufacturer. The only thing that Eve was unable to do because of the phone call was react. She didn’t see the other car coming. We could have just said what we believed to be true as those who believe in individualism do, but we would have been wrong. We also could have taken the approach of scientific naturalism and assumed there was no outside cause for her accident. Again, we would have been mistaken. Or we could have even gone with our experience and assumed that Eve was in the wrong because of her social status of being able to afford nice gifts for her children. We could have taken offense to the fact that she was driving a nice vehicle and married to someone who obviously cared about her. All of these things could have led us to convict Eve right there on the spot. We would have been completely off the mark on all counts though. While it was possible to manipulate, the truth was verifiable and not subjective.
