Among Bible stories it is iconic – one of those moments that captures the attention of the reader because it resonates with us; one of those things that we have all wrestled with. In fact, it is a moment so pregnant with relevance that for a moment we are tempted to actually empathize with the antagonist in the story.
Jesus is standing before Pilate, bound and a little bruised by the beating he received at the hands of the Sanhedrin. Pilate wants nothing to do with the affairs of these squabbling Jews, but they insist – intimating that the peasant carpenter is a rival to Caesar. Pilate takes Jesus and asks him if this is true.
Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”
Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?”
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
What is truth?
You know, that is one of the things that I appreciate most about the Scriptures – though they are ancient, written thousands of years ago, they are so incredibly contemporary. In an age where people constantly call for relevance and application, the Word of God – the inscribed revelation of the God written by authors who were inspired and moved by the Spirit of God – is just as relevant as it was the day it was written. For those who would say that the Bible is just an old Jewish book, outdated and flawed, I would ask this one question: who said “What is truth?” Because they might be stunned to realize that it was high level bureaucrat of the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. If there is any question that characterizes the spirit of our age – the way we think as a society it is “What is truth?”
The numbers bear this out, as we heard in the sermon that began this series. In case you don’t remember, let me read just one of the quotes for you again,
In 2002, “…pollster George Barna documented that only 22 percent of adults and 6 percent of teens affirmed the notion of moral absolutes. Among Christian youth, the numbers were only slightly higher with one out of ten born-again teenagers holding to an unchanging moral truth. This means that the majority of today's generation has taken to heart the predominant moral philosophy of our day: moral relativism.”
Think about that just for a second – of the general population, only 22 percent of adults affirm the notion of moral absolutes. In other words, only about 1 in 5 adults say there is some kind of fixed moral standard that applies to everyone. Consider the implications – in the prevailing culture, our children are being bombarded with the message that morality is what they say it is – it is a personal choice. There is no outside authority, no cosmic or natural law that establishes a baseline behavior for all to follow. Our kids are being taught that they are their own moral authority – they get to choose what is right and what is wrong for them. And… and this is the real kicker… and they must be tolerant of every other person’s behaviors and moral decisions because only that person can decide what is right or wrong for them. This message has become so pervasive that within the general culture only 6% of teens say there is some notion of moral absolutes. Tease that statistic out to measure only Christian youth – those who make some firm claim of being born again and who are regularly involved in the life of their church – and the percentage only jumps to 10%; 1 in 10 Christian youth.
In this kind of moral relativism there is no place for truth. What ends up happening, then, is that we create a generation of Pilate’s all asking “What is truth?” We raise up a generation that is morally adrift; a generation without shame and little restraint that produces record numbers of single-parent households. And every statistic our social sciences have been able to gather reveal how devastating this trend is to our society as a whole. When we have no standard to appeal to everyone does what seems right in their own eyes – and I have to tell you, our eyes are not that good. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 1:18-20 says,
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
First, let’s understand what Paul is doing here. Paul is writing to the church in Rome to introduce himself and the Gospel that he preaches. You see, Paul had never visited the church there, but was hoping that he would soon be able to share fellowship with them. So to prepare the way for his arrival, he was sharing with them the commission Christ had given him as an apostle and what it was that he taught wherever he went.
He begins in Romans 1 by pointing out what the cosmic problem is – in our rebellion against God we suppress the truth. The fall has left our hearts desperately wicked, concerned about our own desires and glory – so much so that every evidence that God has woven into creation that would point us to him becomes obscured by our self-seeking and sinful hearts. We no longer read or understand what theologians have called the “Book of Creation” correctly because our myopic vision sees only ourselves. We can no longer see God revealed in the things he has made with his hands.
Now this is key to understanding the nature of truth and knowledge, which is the second pairing necessary for the formation of a worldview. If you remember from last week we talked about the first pairing – our view of God and man. And we said the beginning point for every worldview is theology – or what we think about God. Our theology informs every other part of our worldview – or the way we see the world. For instance, if we believe in a personal, Creator-God, it will impact the way we see man, the reason for his existence and his ultimate end. Man will have intrinsic value because he is made for a purpose. If we see man as the product of time + chance + fortuitous mutation, then man has no intrinsic value other than what his society says. In other words if he is not strong or beautiful or brilliant or well-funded – his value to society is limited; his life is not as valuable and therefore expendable. Quite frankly, the logical outcome of evolutionary theory is the master race doctrine of Nazi Germany. Anyone who cannot contribute to society in a significant way is to be considered a drag on progress and a waste of resources. The best course of action is their elimination.
I know that sounds harsh – and I would not be surprised by some push-back on that statement, but understand what I am saying; the logical outcome of an evolutionary view of man is genetic engineering to coax the best out of the human species while ferreting out the worst. And any who do not meet those standards must either serve the greater good or be destroyed so that the survivability of the species is enhanced. By the way, this is essentially the position of Dr. Peter Singer who in 1999 was selected to fill the chair for bioethics at Princeton University.
But this is where a worldview that neglects our created nature and the presence of a sovereign Creator takes us. Why is that? Well, a huge part of it has to do with how one answers Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”
In our world today, the popular view of truth is that it is relative to the person – each person must decide or determine what is true for them. In other words, perception is truth – what you see, hear, smell, touch or taste is real and true. Even that which you feel is true. For instance, say that you are in the workplace and you perceive a coworker likes you because she looks away every time you look over at her. For you her affection is real and you might even begin adjusting your behavior because you perceive that she likes you. But if your coworker is Hmong, the reality is they look away because in their culture it is rude to look someone in the eyes – they are simply being polite.
The real problem with this view is that by definition truth is that which corresponds to reality. In other words, for something to be true it must express, explain or lead to experience that is consistent with what really is; it must conform to reality.
So how do we know what is really real? That is an excellent question and I am so glad you asked. This is where we find the connection between truth and knowledge.
One of the things a worldview must do is explain how it is we know what we know. In the prevailing culture it is hard to say that we know anything for certain. If truth is in the eye of the beholder, then there is no unity to reality – there is nothing that really draws all our realities together to which our truth can correspond. In other words, there is no way to be sure that when I look at a chair and you look at a chair, we are seeing the same chair. The chair does not have the properties of a chair in itself – it only has the properties that my mind imposes on it; it only has the properties your mind imposes on it.
Think of it this way – like the old saying goes, “If a tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” Now, you may immediately respond “yes,” but how do you know? Well, you say – you can put instruments out in the woods to capture the sound of a tree falling. But what if the instruments weren’t there – does the tree make a sound? Well, yes – you say. We know that the laws of physics dictate a sound be made. But how do you know, I ask? By experimentation comes the reply. But what about when there is no experiments happening? You see where this is going. The truth of the matter is, observation and testing can only take you so far in the pursuit of truth. Anything not directly observed can only be posited as a possibility, not a reality. In the natural world, we can only say that we know that which we experience directly and then, only for the time we are experiencing it.
So if truth must correspond to reality or to the way things really are then we can say that a relative view of truth cannot be true. Because if something must be perceived before it can be true, and perceptions can vary, then there exists no correspondence to reality because reality keeps shifting with the individuals perceptions. And since we have no way of determining what is really real, we cannot know anything for certain.
Now, I know that is somewhat confusing – but bear with me because now we want to talk about a Christian, theistic view of truth and knowledge.
Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, a knowledge of God that leads to holy, reverent fear of God gives us a right estimation of ourselves, of the world around us and most importantly who God is. I say this because we find in Proverbs 2:6 “For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
In other words, since God is our Creator, he is the source of all things, including knowledge. All things depend upon him for their existence – are contingent upon God and his character. Bret McAtee writes concerning this, “Man is a dependent being and that dependence includes his knowing. His interpretation of reality must in the end be a submissive reinterpretation which reflects that he is attempting to think God’s thoughts after God.”
Our view of knowledge springs from our understanding that all Truth is grounded in the person and character of God. Because we hold this to be true, we maintain that there are two modes for knowing or gaining knowledge – of coming to know the truth. The first is special revelation – this is God’s self-revelation of himself to his people found primarily in the Incarnation (Hebrews 1) and then written for us in the Bible.
Since God is the source of all Truth and the Bible is the written record of his self-revelation to men (the revelation of the Truth), the Bible is then understood to be a True witness and the norm for all other norms on which we base our lives. It is the measure of all other Truth and Knowledge.
The second is general revelation
When our eyes have been corrected by the norm of Scripture we are then enabled to glean the Truth in the natural world since by design it reflects the goodness and power of its Creator.
What this means is that there is not a dichotomy between the faith and reason – as many in our society like to insist. They like to believe that faith is a matter of personal preference. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we know Truth is God’s Truth and all reality must conform to this Truth, all knowledge must also point toward or lead to what is True.
Although we may not always be able to see the correspondence clearly, it nevertheless exists and it is our part to be faithful in seeking it out.
Quoted from web article The Relativistic Fog: Why Moral Relativism Can’t be True: Barna's February 2002 report titled, Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on Feelings. http://www.summit.org/resources/truth-and-consequences/the-relativistic-fog/
Gran Torino. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood. 2009.
