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You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8:32, NASB1995).
Ask someone whether truth exists, and if truth exists, do we have the right “according to truth” to insist others live up to this truth?
It won’t take long in this discussion for most people (even Christians) to say some version of this statement …
Is there just one version of reality, or does each person have their own?
Jesus said clearly, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” while Pontius Pilate said in consideration of Jesus, “What is truth?”
The discussion about truth existing, about whether we get to define our own reality, has been going on for a long time.
G.K. Chesterton wrote an essay many years ago when he asserted, “An egg is an egg!” And common sense dictates that only irrational (or diabolical) people would insist that an egg is an apple or an orange.
It isn’t too great a tragedy for someone to eat an egg and declare, “Best filet mignon that I’ve ever eaten.” And hearing this, we would smile slightly and text a psychologist. But when scholars insist that truth is up for grabs, according to individual reality, they are hired by universities (with large salaries) to teach our children.
Let’s take a few sentences in this Interruption to dispense with the idea that reality is personal.
It doesn’t take long to prove the absurdity of this philosophy.
If you have an idea of truth and I have a different idea of truth, and our ideas contradict one another, can we both be right? We drive, believing that the truth of a red light at a traffic intersection is the same for all.
Truth is common sense.
With relative truth – when a person says, “An egg is an egg,” and another says, “An egg is a cantaloupe,” then who wins with truth? The politician, media influencer, or false Bible teacher – as truth becomes what power or greater influence makes it?
George Orwell, in his book 1984, warned of the dangers of totalitarianism. He wrote …
In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.
Orwell said that common sense in discerning truth would be lost. He was right in his prediction, but a few years early, as his book should have been titled 2023!
“It’s all relative” has won the battle for most minds living today.
Culture now twists and turns according to varying tones and turns of relativism. Things change, and everything progresses – it’s okay, it’s good – but no one knows where it will end.
Politics, gender, ideas of racism, and even how we interpret the Bible are impacted. But this philosophy is not ultimately dictated by a government, university, or Bill Gates.
Something far more diabolical lurks quietly …
The spirit of the Age!
As the Apostle Paul warns …
Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction (2 Thessalonians 2:3, NLT).
Relativism is a precursor of what is coming. The man of lawlessness.
In the meantime – I will pray, preach the truth, and have an egg for breakfast.