In our modern world that mostly denies absolute truth and instead promotes 'your truth' and 'my truth', it is interesting that the world still has 'fact checkers', accusations of 'fake news' and it accuses politicians of lying.
If there is no absolute 'truth' in our 'post-truth' world, why should it matter if politicians lie or facts be 'checked'?
The problem of truth
Whether humans like it or not and deny it or not, deep down we inherently have an awareness that there must be a fundamental unequivocal absolute truth that all things can be checked against.
I would say there is a pursuit of such a standard without people even realising what they are doing.
Thus humanity is creating for itself a love-hate 'problem' with truth.
I remember (sorry don't have the link), watching a breakfast show commentary on the Oprah interview of 'Meghan and Harry' (the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) in which the TV show host reminded the audience that some things that had been said by Meghan about a supposed secret real wedding prior to the public wedding, had been shown to be untrue, and the co-host said something like 'but it was her truth'. The pondered reply by the host was then 'but surely though some things are just true'.
TRUTH SEEKING
In politics now days, it almost seems like people are obsessed with 'truth' in the sense that there is an obsession with finding places where leaders and politicians might be not speaking truth…ie 'lying', and then 'exposing' that….there is then a desire to shame any liars.
Yet at the same time the 'searching out what is true' seems to only go so far, and so much is just taken at face value and never checked, or questioned, and if you do question it, you are labelled as someone who 'offends' others and there is risk of getting 'cancelled'.
It seems the 'fact-checking' 'truth' warriors are maybe from a particular political 'side' who is far more desirous to 'cancel' people - so the their 'desire' for truth doesn't seem to be to find 'what is truth', but to try to declare a belief of 'who is not truth'.
That leads to another linked issue….
The 'Who' vs the 'What' of Truth
This is an important distinction to make as we look at the issue of 'truth'.
There is a 'what' and a 'who' that impacts how a person determines or identifies 'truth'.
Here are three examples in which I have recently noticed this issue in the Australian context:
- In a recent pre-election interview with Martyn Isles, the Director of ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) Senator Eric Abetz commented that it was important that 30 year old female Senator Claire Chandler, and not himself as a 60 year old male, is putting forward a bill to say that only biological women and not 'trans-women' should compete in women's sports. He said it was important because people (particularly the media) 'no longer examine that which is actually said, that which is actually promoted, that which is actually advocated, it is who said it and the colour of their skin or their sex or their age' (emphasis mine). He said there is a need to get away from identity politics and that it was Martin Luther King who said that his kids needed to be judged not by the colour of their skin but the content of their character.
- We also see this issue of 'what' and 'who' in comments related to the recent Australian elections that election campaigning appeared more about the 'people' (leaders) and their personal strengths or weaknesses, rather than their policies. This is, I believe, once again reflecting a move from a 'what is truth' society to a 'who is truth' society….in a context where society has generally ignored or rejected the real Who of Truth - God himself, and without realising it are looking for a substitute.
- During the pandemic, leaders would often expect to be believed as always speaking the truth about the disease, as Dr Campbell raised in a recent video . It was interesting to hear comments in the media about people looking to leaders such as politicians and Chief Health Officers so as to 'know the truth' about the pandemic. There seemed less desire to personally seek out what is truth, and instead a desire to just have someone who would 'tell us' the 'truth'. People were looking to a person to follow. Some might suggest this is laziness of people to do their own research and not just blindly follow like sheep. But maybe there is something more to the situation, something that emerges in all kinds of contexts.
The Australian context is not so different from the African context:
I have published articles noting the emphasis on 'who' rather than 'what' in African culture. (see here . But below are a couple of situations related to 'truth' I have encountered:
- In a church on the verge of a 'split', when someone raised the matter of a need for truth, most people said nothing, but the response of one person was 'what is truth?'… and another was 'I will wait to hear what the elders say'. There was by many, a sense of whatever was said by the leaders was thus 'truth'….truth was defined by whatever would be said by those in positions of leadership.
- One day our African co-worker announced that he had realised that 'truth for an African is an accident'!….he went on quickly to add 'its not that we never speak truth, its just not our highest priority, harmony is'. Once again its not the content of what is said that is seen to be discerned as to whether it is true or not, but making sure relationships with 'who' is important in society are maintained so as to maintain harmony. This is not much removed from a recent article by Ajith Fernando of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka about the issue of truth and lies in honour-shame type cultures.
- A letter was sent by a church denomination national office/leader and to be read at all the churches. When it was read in the church, the people said we won't believe it as true until the leader comes and speaks it to us directly in our presence. Until then we don't know for sure if it is authoratively true.
When a society rejects the existence and primacy of God (like generally in the West), or doesn't understand God to be present with us by His Spirit and communicate his truth with human beings directly through His Word (like in Africa who traditionally believe God to be far away and detached from humanity and thus ancestors/elders are his mediators), then those in that society move
- from honour of God as Absolute Truth under which we are obligated to seek out what is in line with His truth or not,
to honouring people as the 'god' dispensers of truth based on whether we consider those people as authoritative in our lives or not.
This then means we are no longer all human beings on equal footing with no-one having full knowledge of truth, and all of us as fallible and limited and humbly seeking to align ourselves with the only One who is Truth. We then fail to acknowledging that others may either not have all the facts and could be wrong, or that others can help us see and know things we didn't see or know before, and that disagreement will help challenge our views and examine matters more objectively—particularly against the standard of God and his Word.
Without a right perspective, instead of courageously working to discern truth, we will fearfully see disagreement as an offensive personal attack or lack of respect.
But it is only when the 'Who' of truth in our lives is God,
that we are then free on this earth to search out the 'what' of truth.
And yes….Identity politics have got the issue of truth off-kilter….but not as far as some of us might think.
We might see that it is a problem to attach truth to any one person on this earth, or any one group of people or even one international organisation or overseeing body…and that is correct.
BUT the problem is not that truth is attached to a Person/entity…it's just that that Person is meant to be God. In fact, Truth is actually unknowable without firstly being firmly attached to the Person of God.
This much Identity Politics has got totally correct….
...Truth is rooted in 'Who' before 'What'.
The problem is that when we unhinge ourselves from God (or try to), we don't stop seeking truth, but we develop a warped idea of how to find truth. We don't recognise that we all actually have a 'what' of truth, but that it stems from the 'who' of truth we have chosen to designate as authoritative and honourable in our lives.
When that 'who' is God, we become free to examine everything in our world against Him…the One who Is Truth.
And yes, we are not allowed to disagree with Him, and it is offensive to Him to dare to disagree or challenge what he says. When we do, as Adam and Eve did, our ultimate punishment is death, to be banished from him and from relationship/community forever.
But….When that 'who' is not God but some other person, we are only free to examine things according to their standard of 'truth', and are thus not 'allowed' to disagree or else we will be banished from them and their community forever.
The problem is that the 'what' we believe gets un-hinged from seeking to align ourselves with the 'Who' of God and his Absolute Truth, and becomes hinged to popular or prominent public belief/approval, and to ourselves, as the 'Who'.
We set ourselves up as 'gods' in our world.
What we can learn
1. Truth is rooted in whoever we have as the 'Who' of truth in our lives.
2. Both the Who and the What of truth is important but how we understand or view the 'what' is subject to who we have in the place of 'Who' we believe brings us truth.
3. When God is the 'Who' we have freedom to humbly question and analyse and seek truth, and humbly allow interaction with others who question and analyse us in order to find and know 'what' is truth, in order to live by it with accountability to God. We also readily acknowledge that Satan is the father of lies and seeks to deceive and trick us into believing lies which will keep us away from the truth for life that will set us free. We have been given the light of God's word so as to expose lies and live in truth.
So we have an obligation to use our minds, study God's word, analyse and test what we hear and thus discern truth. We are not meant to blindly disengage our minds and just wait to be 'given' a truth by human authority that we unquestioningly follow….like sadly happened so often in the COVID pandemic as people, and even individual nations, had no standard of 'truth' outside of themselves, little practice in analysing and testing what they hear and discerning truth, and so just waited to hear the announcements of bigger governments, and certain health leaders…to the point where the WHO become the global 'who' (pun intended) to which, though actually very fallible, most of the world looked to as the authority to dispense all 'perfect' health knowledge.
4. When we delete God or misunderstand his place in our lives, and the place he wants other people to have in our lives as equal fellow human beings seeking truth, and not as truth-usurping authorities in our lives, we also lose the framework and freedom of having God as authority.
We then look to others to fill the 'gap' of someone to submit to, someone who will 'know' what to do, someone to guide us and keep us 'safe' with knowledge that is 'true' and that we inherently understand is bigger or outside of ourself.
Sadly we then expect perfection out of leaders, with no allowance for fallibility, and no room for forgiveness.
Then, either we will discover they will fail us—which will damage false expectations we have of them and ruin the relationships we should have with them, preferring to condemn, 'cancel', or demand they resign if they don't meet our expectations...
….or….
….. we will never question them and always excuse them—which then means we as societies will be constrained/prevented from a freedom to explore creatively and discuss openly in ways that take society forward.
Knowledge that grows through fair accountability, challenge and testing will be squashed and we will morally and socially decline.
5. There is such a 'thing' (what) as Absolute Truth because there is 'One' Who is Absolute Truth.
The danger is that we replace God with 'gods' - people - (ourselves or others, elders or peers), who we then believe are those who can bring 'truth' so as to 'know' how to live our lives.
6. The issue of 'what is truth' when detached from God who is Truth, becomes too big to navigate, over-burdening people with rules to manage society, and devoid of relationship.
So people begin to resent the rules, and seek to fill that relationship space with people and what those people say. Mixed in is the desire to now gain honour in the eyes of others rather than God, and so to admit wrong, allow disagreement, or lack knowledge 'lowers' a false high opinion we have of ourselves - akin to shame, which we want to avoid, so we disallow questioning, shame others back if they dare shame us, and 'cancel' them all-together out of our lives if we can.
7. As we share the gospel, maybe we need to move a little away from just pointing out where the world is straying from 'what is truth', to where they will discover that trusting in any human 'who' of truth will fail them, because:
there is no human...
- who knows everything, past, present and future
- who is everywhere when we want or need truth or
- who is all-powerful to implement truth and bring the safety we seek.
We need a 'Who' way bigger than just a human.
We need:
- someOne omnicient,
- someOne omnipresent and
- someOne omnipotent.
We need to know what is truth, yes…..but first we need God who is Truth.
8. When people unhinge the 'what is truth' from God as the 'who is truth', then they have trouble even discerning 'what is truth' as there is no longer a consistent objective absolute truth in their awareness to go to. So they thus no longer believe there is an absolute truth at all. In our desire to have people understand 'what' is truth, unfortunately we are not going to get very far without addressing the 'who' of truth.
The world's 'truth' problem is a 'gospel' problem….not that people need the gospel so as to just know 'what' is truth, but that they first need the gospel to know 'who' is truth!
So we get to the point that we either just choose a leader we choose to just 'believe', or we accept the 'your truth' and 'my truth' mantra.
But like Pontius Pilate who asked 'what is truth', people need to come to know that Jesus is Truth. There doesn't have to be ambiguity anymore about 'what is truth' because there is Truth that is the same Truth yesterday, today and forever. Unlike pandemic leaders who kept changing their mantras from day to day and week to week, Jesus is unchanging.
What God says is true today, was true 5000 years ago, and will be true 500 years from now and for all eternity.
Yes, some things are just 'true'!
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