What Is Truth? A Battle Of Worldviews Series

I prayed a short prayer one day, as I began my first semester at Liberty University. I knew I loved Jesus, but I didn’t really understand how it fit into everything in my life. I felt like I didn’t really know the full implications of my faith in areas like society, law, personal conduct, history, and reason. So I prayed, “Lord, please help me understand my faith.” This led to a journey of discovery and learning that transformed my walk as a Christian. I went through a transformation, a metamorphosis, from a Christian in a cocoon to a Christian butterfly. I grew in a lot of areas in my life, and I continue to grow today. I hope to share through the rest of the messages I share, regarding twelve areas of knowledge concerning our Christian faith. Today we talk about truth.

Perhaps the single most important question any person can ask is: What is the truth? Truth relates to everything we experience in life and will affect every decision we make. In my next twelve messages we’ll be addressing a series of issues that relate to truth, including: worldview, science, history, and theology.

The goal of this series is to help expand our knowledge and comprehension of the world around us, ourselves, and most of all, God’s truth.

The topics are as follows. Today we’ll address the first topic on our list, which is “The Truth: Can we Know It?”

We live in a world of competing worldviews. A worldview is a way in which we look at the world. Ultimately this battle of worldviews breaks down to the battle between God’s truths and the illusions of the world.

Jesus Christ said “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32. And again in John 14:6 Jesus actually said “I am the truth.”

It’s interesting that when Pontius Pilate came to question Jesus, Pilate asked Jesus the question: What is truth? -John 18:38. And ironically, Pilate walked away without waiting to hear the answer. So I hope today we won’t walk away, but we’ll stay and wait to understand from our Lord, what truth really is.

The first question we have to ask is: Can we know truth? Oddly enough many in our culture today would say that there is no way to know truth (agnostic). And many would say that all truth is relative (post-modernism).

Could all truth really be relative? In short, no it can’t. Why? Because to suggest that “all truth is relative” is actually making an absolute truth claim. It’s a nonsensical statement. And no one lives that way. All sorts of facts are knowable, such as: mathematics, history, science, rules of logic, finances, and systems of law. The whole world functions on objective truths; philosophy and religion don't become "relative" just because it's intellectually convenient.

Second question, what exactly is the truth? R.C. Sproul a prominent theologian gave this definition which seems quite fitting: “Truth is defined as that which corresponds to reality as perceived by God.”

Third question, is truth really that important? Well the answer to that question in short is yes. As noted Christian speaker Del Tackett said, “Our actions reflect what we believe to be the truth.” So in essence how we live exactly corresponds to what we believe is true.

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus gave a very unique answer. John 18:37 “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

You’d be amazed when reading the gospels how many times Jesus refers to the topic of truth. In fact time and again Jesus said, “I tell you the truth.” And “Truly, truly I tell you.” Jesus Christ and his mission was in part, to declare boldly the truth of God in a world full of distortions and lies.

The distortions and lies of the world continue to this very day. And so does the gospel and the church of Christ on Earth. They are in conflict with one another. The battle rages everyday in our country, and in countries across the face of the earth. Today many in America refer to it as the culture war. In reality, It is a great, cosmic battle between truth and lies.

This battle has it’s origins at the very beginning of time, when God first created the human race. It goes all the way back to the conversation between Eve and serpent. Satan tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God. Eve indicated that God had forbidden them to eat from just one tree in the great garden, and that if they ate from that tree they would surely die. And serpent said to Eve,”You will not surely die, for you will be like god, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5). And essentially what the serpent was saying to Eve, is that humanity would try to play god, and redefine good and evil to mean whatever they desired.