The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 5

Finally, I come to the conclusion of series on all things objectively true, relative, and intimately true. You can check out Part 1, 2, 3, & 4.

Simple stated, I do not believe that objective truth exists. Let me nuance that, I do not believe that we can know the Truth objectively without our frame of reference, particularities, culture, and values guiding what and how we think. I do believe there is Truth, so not I don't we're left with relativism, but to a faithful relativity. We need story, traditions, cultures, history, along with scientific reasoning to get to the truth.

Everything outside of reason though was erased from the methods of seeking truth with Kant who said that religion has to fit within the bounds of reason. Nicholas Wolterstorff, a Christian philospher, flips Kant's line on its head by saying that reason must fit within the bounds of reason.

Most people who are squeemish at the mention of nonobjectivity are those moderns who ahve bought into the idea that truth can be had apart from one's perspective. Reasoning is core and foundational to what it means to be human, and humans are seemingly by nature religious. Even if you can't admit that humans are religious by nature, I think you must admit that we cannot escape our place in life, who we are, our enculturation process.

The most important reason for myself to pull back the curtains on objectivity to realize that it truly is a bankrupt commission, is because too often religion adherents (especially Christians) claim to have THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH. Many consequences follow, but the worst that I find in my Western, white middle class context is Christians claim that the gospel is objectively true while pulling away from the church as the center of truth. So what is lost when we claim the gospel is objectively true? We lose embodied witness. Why live out the gospel when I can point to an objective truth that exists outside of reality?

God though did not find it fit to drop facts and knowledge to be known as truth, but rather God dropped a baby into the world that one day would proclaim himself as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth can only be known in faithful, covenant relationship. We must be in faithful relationship to ourselves in our context, to traditions, religions, cultures, histories, reasoning, philosophy, art, and most importantly God.

The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 4

In continuation of my series on truth, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, and one of my reasons, today I'll try to construct how truth is understood rather than objective. Usually, when I get this far into this conversation with truth the answer suggested is that we should just strive for a more objective, objectivity or humble objectivity. Seems like a noble enough goal. But I hardly think it's an answer.

The way we understand truth is based on the way we understand the world. Ontology precedes epistemology. For example, when you understand the world as an objective reality that works like a machine we study it and make it submit to our desires. Fundamentally, we describe the world as a "watch" built by the "watchmaker." Thus, when the world is understood in materialistic terms the techniques for materialistic knowledge will be elevated above all others, "This is just the way the world is or works."

The Bible though does not talk about the world in mere materialistic and mechanistic terms, but rather the world is dynamic, personal, and a living creation with a voice. The stars witness (Ps. 19), the creation groans (Rom. 8:22), the trees sing (Ps. 96:12), the land mourns (Jer. 12:4; Hos. 4:1-3), and the rocks on the side of the road praise God (Luke 19:40).

As seen above, the metaphors that we use to describe the world around us are often telling of how we view the world (ontology). Trees can be understood as crops, products, decorations, habitats, parks, or responsive agents in God's creation.

What is needed to counter the idolatry of reason created by objectivity, is an epistemology based on relationships.

The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 3

If you've kept up so far with this series on truth: Pt. 1, Pt. 2; then you may be asking the seemingly perennial question? Than isn't truth simply relative? How can I know anything when everything is subjective? We have this need to know the truth, in our our limitedness, finiteness; we desire perfect, infinite knowledge.

I will deal more with relativity/subjectivity in Part 4, but for now let's deal simply with this need for objective truth: where does that come from?

With the birth of the scientific age and the modern period, thinkers like Descartes, "I think therefore, I am" and later Kant who said religion must fit within the bounds of reason really influenced the way we think. Basically, they believed that if an object was placed under scientific scrutiny than it could be known objectively, because objectivity rids us of all our traditions, contexts, biases, and presuppositions. Thus, we can know the truth objectively because it exists "out there" beyond our sitz im leben.

I'm not arguing that the world does not exist "out there" beyond our human facilities, but I am saying that the only way to perceive the "out there" is with what is "in here:" our language, perceptions, and biases. I'll get to pastoral reasons for my arguments later, but right now I'll just say the problem with accepting objectivity is "intellectual pride" that claims to know truth beyond our finite capabilities thus ending conflicts over truth.

Yet, this age of reason yielded us not one but two World Wars, the Holocaust was based on principles of reason, as well were the nightmares of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Where modernity tried to erase the fallible with the near infallible scientific approach to reality, the Christian stance on truth according to Scripture must be one of epistemological humility. We can only know this world from out limited perspective.

But does this simply lead to relativity? What do you think? Does this make you feel uncomfortable?

The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 2

In continuing to reveal the intimate truth on objective truth, we continue our discussion on all things truth, objective, and relational today. Don't miss part 1, before continuing into this series.

Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argues that no scientific, objective truth exists apart from value assessments and a person's perspective. All truth is colored by a person's commitments, experiences, and enculturation. You don't have to listen carefully to hear the tides of relativity washing onto the shore of objectivity. Even classicist professor Allan Bloom's famous "objective" statement on relativity is a relative statement:

“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of, almost every student entering into the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.”

This statement is made relative by his biases, culture, and commitments. As a white male who had a bad experience teaching the classics in the '60's at Cornell, Bloom chose to ignore gender inclusive language by referring to speak generally of his students as "he" thus completely ignoring the feminist movement of the 60's. Also, with the rise of multiculturalism and new literature the classics fell on hard times, or at least lost the prestige Bloom felt they deserved.

Maybe this relative statement reveals that in our exploration for truth we just have to be "more" objective by submitting "more" to the primacy of reason. The answer to relativity is pure, objective reason right? We believe that all our commitments will be eclipsed in the light of reason. Reason trumps all other commitments. No!

In the Scripture when a person places their complete unadulterated trust or commitment in anything else than God for truth, life, worship, anything, its called idolatry. Yet, what we've failed to recognize is that reason has flown under the radar for too long as an idol. We don't recognize that the commitment to reason is just that, a commitment with no more a rational base than any other commitment whether to tradition, culture, or God.

Certainly humans can be committed to other things besides God such as environmentalism, but to place that thing over commitment to Christ is sin. In searching for truth, our first commitment must be to Christ, not rationality. Truth is not found in objectivity, but relational fidelity. Thus when we allow final, authoritative hegemony of one tradition- the tradition of rationality- all other traditions we are in relation to are diminished or blurred.

Truth is much more holistic than objectivity and reason alone allows. Truth is best known when we are faithful to our relative perspectives while seeking intimate relation to this world, to God, to others, to whatever we are seeking to know.

The Intimate Truth on Objective Truth, Pt. 1

Truth, how do we know it? In a recent discussion in class about history, I stated that all histories are subjective renderings of an author's perspective on a time, place, situation, personality(s), etc. Often, when I state such claims, that objective truth is not possible, I'm confronted with numerable remarks. The strongest argument I hear I think is that we must not lose out quest for objectivity in spite of subjectivity as if there is a middle way.

But I believe that a holistic view of truth must abandon objective truth claims. Before diving deep into more particularities of my argument, let me make some general statements about truth. The objective project seeks truth as distant, abstract, and universal (or absolute).

But is this the presentation of truth in the Scripture? In proverbs lady truth stands in the streets hollering for people's attention. Overall, the picture in the Bible of truth is one of a decidedly personal, relational, and social construct.

As a matter of fact, what most modern Bible translation render as "faithful," the hebrew word "emeth" in the KJV was translated as "truth."

To know truth is a matter of covenant fidelity. Psalm 85 claims that when God comes to Israel (vs. 9) then love and truth will meet, and truth will spring up from the ground . For the prophet Hosea, the lack of truth meant not error, but bloodshed.

Think about a marriage with no truth or very little. The end result is a broken relationship, divorce. So, the biblical ideals of truth as covenant faithfulness and relationality render the abstract and distant ideas of truth as meaningless. Truth then is fleshed out in sociocultural, political, and economic relations much the same way faith fleshes itself in practice.