Paradoxes of Truth

Today, we'll begin something of an interlude. Having exited the cave, we find ourselves near what appears to be the base of an extraordinary and immense mountain. Standing there, the grandeur of the mountain and our place on it fills us with wonder, desire and conviction. And so we'll take a moment to consider what we might learn from contemplating matters of truth, goodness and beauty as they confront us at the outset.

The Paradoxes of Truth & Its Pursuit

I want to know the truth. Whatever it is, wherever it leads, I have a deep desire to know. Yet immediately I am met with some major difficulties. One problem is that whether or not this desire to know and the concomitant pursuit of knowledge makes any sense depends almost entirely on where it leads; on what the ultimate truth is.

For example, if the philosopher Bertrand Russel was right and “Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms…” then I cannot see any reasons for pursuing truth that are not fundamentally pragmatic. But if pragmatism reigns, truth cannot, for surely there are convenient lies and inconvenient— even dangerous— truths. In this case it makes sense to pursue what works, not what is true.

A second problem, similar to the first, is that there are many different approaches to pursuing truth and which approach is the correct one depends almost entirely on where the truth leads; on what the ultimate truth is. The only way to knowingly select the correct approach upfront is to know where it leads— but of course if we already knew where it led we wouldn’t need the approach. The intellectual journey of Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger provides an excellent example of this problem.

What "data" should be considered? What priority should be assigned to different types and sources of data? (Testimony, personal experience, deliverances of science, philosophy, etc.).

Should we start out disbelieving everything and only admit what can be proven? Or should we believe everything that seems plausible, then reject whatever we can falsify, holding onto the rest and updating it as necessary?

A third problem is that some of the ‘data’ is only available from the inside, to “insiders.” By this I mean that there are some things which can only be known and evaluated through an intimate acquaintance that is not available until you say ‘yes.’

An illustration may help. There was only one way for my wife to know what it is like to be married to me for 15 years, and that was to say “yes” (which thankfully for me, she did) and then to spend those 15 years with me in marriage. Or imagine you were born blind and have never seen anything. People could describe it to you, you could touch and feel things, but none of this would give you genuine knowledge of what sight is. Only seeing can do that.

Christianity provides a good and relevant example. Christianity is intrinsically and fundamentally relational. You can know much about God through study, but only by saying "yes," could you come to know God relationally.

A fourth problem comes in many varieties, some more potent than others. It is the problem of skepticism. I don’t mean a problem of being skeptical, rather I am referring to those things which arguably make our whole truth-seeking project hopeless from the outset. Arguments that appear to demonstrate we cannot have (or can never be sure that we have) knowledge.

What I've laid out above are somewhat technical problems. The reason I list them is that they may well be, depending on what is true, inescapable and unavoidable, and therefore disastrous for anyone interested in truth.

But these are not the only problems we encounter.

There is an entire family of other problems which could be properly referred to as the “us problems”. They stem from what we are like.

Allow me to provide some examples. First, human history has validated countless times that there is no limit to the human capacity for self rationalization. If there is a conclusion we want to avoid badly enough, we can find an ostensibly rational means of doing so. If you don’t already have an intense appreciation for this, read Crime and Punishment, The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies (fiction) and/or Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), The Righteous Mind, and The True Believer (non-fiction).

Second, we are not computational machines. This is a feature and not a bug, obviously (I know a lot of people who love computers, but none who want to become one). But it presents us with a challenge: in addition to being rational, we have intense and complex desires and emotions and no way of neatly separating them all out, not to mention the open question of whether or not it is helpful or harmful to whatever extent we can do so.

It is little wonder why, as Winston Churchill said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

Maybe if we were all brilliant PhD’s, paid to think and interact with other brilliant people then that would solve many of these problems (e.g., a research professor in a prestigious philosophy department).

Perhaps. Perhaps not, considering several of the problems enumerated above have been uncovered (yet remain largely if not entirely unsolved) by the very people I just described. And practically speaking, the chances of you being one of those people is around 0.00005%. With those odds, you might as well play the lottery.

Is there anyone who can save us from these problems? Anyone who can deliver us from drowning helplessly in a sea of agnosticism, hopelessly crushed by the waves as our hands reach up for something solid to grab ahold of?

Or are we condemned to a life-long freefall until our bodies make contact with the ground in death?

Not if Jesus is who he claimed to be.

Jesus claimed to be “the way, the truth and the life;” as well as the “logos” (a Greek word that was used in the 1st Century to mean the entire rational order; fundamental truth/reality; the self-disclosure of God in creation, revelation and salvation).

If Jesus was who he claimed to be, here’s what would follow regarding what I’ve written above:

• Our desire to know truth is good and deeply meaningful. Uncorrupted, the end to which it ultimately leads is God himself— the greatest conceivable being; the greatest treasure we could ever find. We have a reason to proceed.

• The method or approach we should utilize in pursuit of truth is greatly illuminated (though not completely determined, providing both form and freedom). We have a way to proceed.

• We have a defeater of arguments for skepticism (recall, this means the belief that we cannot have, or be sure that we have, knowledge). If God ultimately created us to know him and sent his son Jesus as the logos— disclosing himself to us in creation, revelation and salvation— then of course we can have knowledge. God ensures it. That does not mean it will be easy or that we will always get it right, but it does mean it is possible. It is possible to know substantially the answers to many of our biggest questions.

• Where we would get in the way of ourselves and obstruct hopelessly our own paths to the truth through self-deception and ignorance, he who is personal can come to our aid. We are not left to our own devices climbing up to the peak of Mount Truth alone. Truth, who is personal, can descend down to us, meet us where we are and help us up. We have hope. As Jesus said, “Seek and you shall find."

  
  

None of this means Christianity is true. Here’s what it does mean: (1) it would be wonderful and tremendously helpful if it were and (2) it’s a great place to start looking, if for no other reason than the fact it gives us at once a reason to do so, guidance on how to do so and hope that in doing so, we will find what we are looking for and finally that what we are looking for is worth the seeking.

If all goes as planned, after our interlude, we will spend some time testing the truth of Christianity to find out if it holds up to scrutiny. We will discover if there are good reasons for believing it is true or if it requires a blind leap of faith, hoping someone is standing there in the dark to catch us. (Spoiler alert: it is not the latter).

To continue reading the interlude, click here.