# January 26th, 2007
You can be right.
It’s good to be wrong sometimes, it’s important to acknowledge it too, because otherwise you can’t make it right. In fact I would like to take a moment to say that I am often wrong in assertions I make, conclusions I reach and things that I do.
There. Now, have you noticed how it is becoming increasingly difficult, at least here in the U.K. to tell other people that something they believe is wrong? Have you noticed, that it’s becoming unpopular to even admit that ones self is wrong. To put it another way, to acknowledge that we are accountable for our actions (and our beliefs).
But in this society where no one is wrong, where what’s true for you is fine for you, if you can’t even be wrong then what value is left in those things you’re ‘right’ about? I would like to say that I believe in objective, or universal, truth. That means that there are things that are true regardless of what you or I think about them. That there may even be things that are true even though no-one believes it.
Some people say that it is impossible to know what’s right for certain, and consequently you shouldn’t believe anything. Such people are sometimes called agnostics. I find it amusing that such people often label Bible believing Christians, such as myself, as arrogant or bigots, before going on to make some sweeping statement about the certain impossibility of knowing anything for sure – I mean, the audacity!
These people in effect say, “Listen, I’ve been around a while, I’ve tried most things and take it from me – you can never be certain you’re right.”
Well, I beg to differ, but that’s rubbish. I have a God given mind that can reason and know things. I’m more than the genes in my DNA, there is no ‘christian’ gene (any more than there is a ‘gay’ gene). I’m more than my environment, I choose to influence it as well as be influenced by it. I’m more than my upbringing, I have a mind of my own and I use it to form conclusions, so that I can of my own account and shortcomings be wrong sometimes, and also, praise God, be right.
But, if objective truth is true regardless of what I believe, how can I be certain that what I believe is objective truth. How do I get from believing in the existence of objective truth to believing that I know objective truth? My admittedly clumsy reasoning goes something like this.
- If I can’t think rationally, this exercise, along with my life, is futile anyway. So lets take that as a given. (I realise that’s a big stumbling block for many people!)
- Everything particular must have reference to something else in order to have any meaning. Ultimately, all of life’s particulars must rest on something absolute, something ultimate. If the particulars don’t rest on something absolute but go round and round resting on other particulars then they’re meaningless.
- If God isn’t the ‘ultimate’, the sustainer of all things and the source of reference for everything, then what is?
- If God created me with a rational mind then it follows that I should be able to know Him rationally and personally (Not – just have faith)
- If God created me with a rational mind that works verbally, and that communicates verbally with my fellow man, it follows that He should choose to communicate verbally.
- The books within the Bible ARE Gods revelation. The written Word.
And so, unless I acknowledge that life is not just unknowable, but meaningless and futile, I accept that God exists and has revealed Himself to man.
# anonymous commented
February 15, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I have a point or two to make, one not intended to cause offence just to raise an opinion…
- - -
“I’m more than my upbringing, I have a mind of my own and I use it to form conclusions”
Whether we like it or not, our upbringing shapes our world view, and our basic belief structure. That is a fact. That does not mean that we only believe what our parents believe - because what they don’t believe shapes us as much as what they do believe.
The catholics believed that they were right about the sun going round the earth, and they weren’t very nice to a certain man when he begged to differ - with actual evidence no less.
The official catholic church only recently ‘forgave him’ for that. At the time though they were very unpleasant to him. Most notably due to the fact that he argued with their ‘objective truth’ about our place in the cosmos.
A solid belief in ‘objective truth’ is a very dangerous thing, it causes wars and ultimately causes nothing but suffering - usually for people who want nothing to do with such things. Objective truth is what drives suicide bombers and fanatics to ‘defedn their cause’ with the blood of others, though at least they have enough belief to kill themselves too.
- - -
“But, if objective truth is true regardless of what I believe, how can I be certain that what I believe is objective truth.”
“If God isn’t the ‘ultimate’, the sustainer of all things and the source of reference for everything, then what is?”
Such *loose* conclusions are formed on the basis of aquired knowledge or lack there-of, therefore ‘rationally’ one can never know or even understand objective truth because one can never know if all the knowledge exists, or if it can even be attained.
Now that is a rational conclusion.
‘God must be the ulitmate’ because I don’t know what else is is just the kind of reasoning behind ritual sacrifices… I don’t know why the mountains rumble - let’s kill a virgin and hope it all goes away…
- - -
“Such people are sometimes called agnostics.”
I believe that the people you are refering to are *Nihilists* not agnostics. Or did you mean ‘anything’ in a soley religious sense? In which case, yeah, you’re right.
- - -
“The books within the Bible ARE Gods revelation. The written Word.”
It is my understanding that the majority of scriptures (perhaps vast is too big a word, but it is a lot) written concerning this subject *never made it into the bible* when the self-elected rightous few decided to compile the scriptures into one easy tome for free distribution across the land. Why not? Why did all these lost texts become lost? Because the folks ‘in charge’ didn’t think that the written words in those scriptures fitted into *their idea* of what Jesus/god was *trying* to say about how people should live their life etc.
As a result the bible is one of the most heavily censored pieces of written text in the whole of literary history.
Not really gods word is it? How misinterpreted is this content? How warped from the original statements? We can never know, so to put a great deal of stock in such a document is at best ingnorant and at worst dangerous. And by ignorant I’m talking denial, as in ‘living in’.
It’s not that I don’t believe in god. I just don’t believe in the bible. Beliefs in such things are dangerous, it’s surely far better to follow an ideal, and acheive it where possible but fail when necessary. If god had wanted me to be a good boy and do what I’m told, why would he give me free will? I don’t even get why he would do any of it. But then I never understood the facination of simcity either…
If god insists that I live by his rules, then he’s just some crazed megalomaniac and I shan’t do as I’m told on basic principle - I’m nobodies slave. If he doesn’t insist, and in fact doesn’t really care, why bother? It just complicates further an already complicated existance.
If I believed in something enough to kill or die for it, is it an objective truth, or am I just a fool?
# Matt Turner commented
February 18, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Anonymous, thank you for taking the time to respond.
Your comment about ‘objective truth’ being dangerous is most interesting, and I shaln’t deal with it now but will write about it in a future post. Now for the other comments…
“Whether we like it or not, our upbringing shapes our world view, and our basic belief structure. That is a fact. That does not mean that we only believe what our parents believe - because what they don’t believe shapes us as much as what they do believe.”
Well, yes, of course our upbrining shapes our view, but we are still individually responsible for what we believe. My great grand father was a athiest, my grand dad was, and is, an atheist, my dad is a Christian and a Church pastor, and I am a Christian. Clearly, my grand father and dad were both influenced by their upbrining, but both believe totally opposite things to each other. I could have become an athiest, who knows!
My point is that ultimately we decide and what we decide is based on more than our upbrining and what we are and choose to be, is our responsibility, and is not a direct result of our upbrining.
—
“‘God must be the ulitmate’ because I don’t know what else is is just the kind of reasoning behind ritual sacrifices… I don’t know why the mountains rumble - let’s kill a virgin and hope it all goes away…”
Yes, that’s an example of irrational response, I said it makes sense God should make himself known in a rational, verbal manner. That is a rational conclusion (an atheist wouldn’t deny this based on the presupposition there is a God)
—
“It is my understanding that the majority of scriptures (perhaps vast is too big a word, but it is a lot) written concerning this subject *never made it into the bible* when the self-elected rightous few decided to compile the scriptures into one easy tome for free distribution across the land. Why not? Why did all these lost texts become lost? Because the folks ‘in charge’ didn’t think that the written words in those scriptures fitted into *their idea* of what Jesus/god was *trying* to say about how people should live their life etc.” etc.
Self-elected righteous few… actually it was quite a large council that decided on what we have come to know as the canon of scripture - the Bible.
Anyway, the point is, the Church did not say ‘this is scripture’ and then it became so. Yes, there most definitely was elimination of candiates for scripture, but the other texts were not banned because they didn’t make into the Bible, many were and are still read today.
It’s fairly easy to show the rationale behind the Old Testament, they were already the accepted scripture of the Jews. (The only point of contention really being the ‘Apocrypha’)
The New Testament is made up of the Apostolic doctrine. Technically, accepted and imposed by the Apoltles, not necessarily authored by one of the 12 Apostles (e.g. Hebrews, James). Books that were ‘rejected’ were either done so on the grounds of being spurious and false (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas) or merely not Apostolic, however not spurious in nature (e.g. the Epistle of Barnabas)
Indeed, the Church (’self-elected righteous few’) would have not even managed to survive to receive the Scripture (and reject the others) had it not been for the Apolstles doctrine, as there were plenty of distortions and heresies rampant already. Two primary ones that spring to mind are the Judiasers (see Hebrews) and the Gnostics (see 1 John)
So the idea that there were a self-elected righteous few, is simply groundless nonsense. Further more those invovlved in the foundation of the Canon were at the behest of readily accepted Scripture looked for the marks of Apostolic authority, not ‘their own idea of what Jesus was trying to say’. There are plenty of examples of that down from Thomas up to the Book of Mormon.
—
“If god insists that I live by his rules, then he’s just some crazed megalomaniac and I shan’t do as I’m told on basic principle - I’m nobodies slave. If he doesn’t insist, and in fact doesn’t really care, why bother? It just complicates further an already complicated existance.”
And where does ‘basic principle’ come from?
God does insist, as Paul told the philosphers at Athens “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooke,d but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
God is not a ‘megalomaniac’, He has no deulsions about His power because He is omnipotent. He gives us free will because He has free will and we are made in our image. If God is, then it is clearly futile to think of Him in human terms as a megalomanic or any other such thing, who are we to say what He can and can’t be, or should and shouldn’t do?
As it’s recorded in Isaiah 55 v8-9
“For My thoguhts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
—
If I believed in something enough to kill or die for it, is it an objective truth, or am I just a fool?
No, and this is what i’m going to write about soon. You can be sincere in believing something is objective truth, but you can be sincerely mistaken.
Believing in something that strongly just means you will not be persuaded of anything else, even if it seems rational to you, because you have ’staked your claim’ with it.
I must stop there though, or i’ll start to write my next blog post!
# Anonymous commented
February 18, 2007 at 6:56 pm
“…who are we to say what He…should and shouldn’t do?”
Who are we *not* to say? Are we just toys to be done with as he pleases?
To give free will, but to punish for exercising it the wrong way… sounds like megalomania to me. To essentially force your will onto others?
“…unless I acknowledge that life is not just unknowable, but meaningless and futile”
Why let so many suffer at the hands of so few, where’s the purpose in that? Wouldn’t you help if you could? I know I would. Or will these people get more comfortable seating in heaven when they die screaming in agony?
Of course, god’s not responsible for that is he - but I should thank him for it not happening to me? Or maybe I should pray for them, even though I know he’s not going to intervene…
Of course, praying for them would be ’selfless’ and as such might help *my* chances… but would that make me a hipocrit because I know it’ll not help them?
ALSO, I notice that you are quite adamant in your writing that god is, infact, a man:
“…who are we to say what He can and can’t be”
Ooo, that’s a contradiction. I look forward to your future posts and possible future discussions.
# Matt Turner commented
February 18, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I see you’re on the ball. The fact that I use the pronoun ‘He’ is not to suggest that God is human, or a man. It’s simply convention. Except for Jesus Christ, who most certainly was a man, I believe the Bible clearly teaches that God is spirit, infinite and yet personal.
I going to come straight forward and confess that some things I hold dear, are probably never going to be fully reconcilable to my, or any other human mind. Such as God’s sovereignty vs human responsibility / free will.
I am by no means a theologian, an naturally you have gone straight to the heart of one of the most difficult matters in the Bible (have you done this before?) However, I will do my best to offer an answer I hope reflects what the Bible says.
So to the main thrust of your argument:
“Why let so many suffer at the hands of so few, where’s the purpose in that? Wouldn’t you help if you could? I know I would. Or will these people get more comfortable seating in heaven when they die screaming in agony?”
Who we are not to say what God should and shouldn’t do is His creation. Further more, we are all, since Adams sin, in rebellion against God. If we got what we deserved each and every one of us go to Hell, where the torment is not temporarl but eternal. Jesus “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10 v28)
But then why is suffering continuing? Because it is Gods purpose to still save people, not from bodily affliction, but from the destruction of their souls.
When God does stop suffering, it wil be because He will stop all sin - not just murder and torture, but lying, covetouness, selfishness, hate etc etc.
I’m sure that won’t be a particuarly satisfactory answer, fwiw I don’t find Christianity to be incompatiable with humanitarian effort. The early church were recognized as the ’social care’ in a time when there really wasn’t any. When Christ was on earth, He didn’t just preach but ‘went around doing good’.
I’m afraid it might not be until the middle of the week until I have the time to get my next post on my world view down. I hope next time you can assume at least an alias so I can know you by something other than ‘Anonymous’.