Postmodernism...

[Blazin Bones]

We who are Christian believe that truth is objective and knowable. However, many in today's world disagree. How then would you as a Christian defend God as an absolute truth, rather than an subjective and personal idea?

 

[Blazin Bones]

A real apologetical discussion, and not one bite... :roll:

 

[Drew]

I do not have anything to say (at this point) in terms of defending God as an absolute truth - presumably you are interested in arguments that objectively establish God's existence and / or character.

On a possibly related matter, however, I will say that I have come to believe that a relatively uncomplicated argument can be constructed in defence of the notion of "objective" morality. I have talked about this in a number of other threads, so if you already know my thoughts on this, you may wish to stop right here.

If one thinks like an engineer / scientist and models a society as a "system" of individuals dealing with a world of limited resources (food, space wealth, etc.), one can see that certain individual behaviours, if committed to by everyone, could turn out to always (i.e. in all possible societies on earth) produce a society where certain desirable outcomes are maximized for the average citizen: the attainment of things like peace security, health, etc.

If this is this indeed the case, it could be said that there does indeed exist an "absolute" or objective moral order - not absolute because it originates from God, but absolute in the more "technical" sense that obeying the moral code simply leads to a better society (in terms of certain end states that seem to be universally desired).

The moral order would be objective in precisely the same way that there is arguably an "objectively" best way to engineer an aircraft.

 

[Quath]

On a possibly related matter, however, I will say that I have come to believe that a relatively uncomplicated argument can be constructed in defence of the notion of "objective" morality. I have talked about this in a number of other threads, so if you already know my thoughts on this, you may wish to stop right here.

Very interesting idea.

Are you talking long term (no society has yet reached this objective morality position)? Do you think we have found some of this morality already? It seems that you see morality as a philosophy as opposed to a set of rules. Did I get that right?

I personally see it as relative because how we behave is relative to environment, culture, technology and genetics. So a society in which genetics has geared people with high testosterone, may decide that boxing is acceptable than another society. Also, some cultures see full nudity as bad while others object to naked faces while others have no objections at all. Also technology shapes our morality. Medicine has increased lifespans. So death is less tolerated in our society.

Quath

 

[Orthodox Christian]

On a possibly related matter, however, I will say that I have come to believe that a relatively uncomplicated argument can be constructed in defence of the notion of "objective" morality. I have talked about this in a number of other threads, so if you already know my thoughts on this, you may wish to stop right here.

Very interesting idea.

Are you talking long term (no society has yet reached this objective morality position)? Do you think we have found some of this morality already? It seems that you see morality as a philosophy as opposed to a set of rules. Did I get that right?

I personally see it as relative because how we behave is relative to environment, culture, technology and genetics. So a society in which genetics has geared people with high testosterone, may decide that boxing is acceptable than another society. Also, some cultures see full nudity as bad while others object to naked faces while others have no objections at all. Also technology shapes our morality. Medicine has increased lifespans. So death is less tolerated in our society.

Quath

Morality is relative only to a point. There are some moral universals, or at minimimum, universal ideals. Some would argue, from a biopsychosocial level, that these are simply biologically functional programming rules.

Going back to Timothy's OP, the notion of objective reality and absolute truth is sort of a Platonic ideal, one which has been abandoned in our day, in favor of nominalism and moral relativism.

So is "love" then just a description of some hormonal impulses, or does the term 'love' serve as a symbol, and our experience of love harken to a truer form and absolute reality of love upon which our notion and experience of 'love' are based?

 

[Drew]

It seems that you see morality as a philosophy as opposed to a set of rules. Did I get that right?

Not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing. I am speculating that, for any human society, the same basic set of behaviours tend to promote the health of that society. My point of view is based on assumption: that all people want the same basic kind of society: one that is stable, peaceful, allows freedom, provides for creative expression, supports the "down and out", provides justice, etc. I admit this is an assumption, but it seems reasonable to me. The fact that some societies have not achieved these things does not mean the basic assumption is false. I am inclined to think that deep down, we all want the same things.

If this assumption is accepted, it is a bit of a technical point that there is some set of individual behaviours that maximize the attainement of these goals (If A is some function of x,y,z, then there is some unique combination of values for x,y, and z that maximizes A). These behaviours would have a "moral" character (don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, etc) and could arguably be called an "objective" moral code.

So they are indeed rules, but rules that serve to optimise the behaviour of the "system".

 

[Quath]

So is "love" then just a description of some hormonal impulses, or does the term 'love' serve as a symbol, and our experience of love harken to a truer form and absolute reality of love upon which our notion and experience of 'love' are based?

I would go with the material/harmonal view. One of the reasons I go with this view is that it is hard to know the limits of what is love.

One example of this is whether a mother cat loves her kitten. How do we know? Does a fish love its offspring? A tree love its seeds?

Not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing.

The distinction is that a rule based absolute morality looks at questions like:

Is slavery acceptable? Is it good to kill women that have had premaritial sex? It is good to kill old people in pain?

and can answer them with "yes" or "no." Sometimes absolute rule based morality could answer with a qualification. But too many qualifications and you are back to relative morality. So for example, they could say that slavery is morally good as long as the slaves have certain rights. In that case, slavery is always acceptable in all times and cultures.

A philosophy is more like:

Treat others as if you were them.

This allows for you to derive morality rules, but it doesn't specify them. In this case you would say that slavery was not acceptable because you would not want to be a slave yourself. So such rules are derived and they change with culture, knowledge and technology. Yet the phiolosophy stays the same.

Quath

 

[Orthodox Christian]

So is "love" then just a description of some hormonal impulses, or does the term 'love' serve as a symbol, and our experience of love harken to a truer form and absolute reality of love upon which our notion and experience of 'love' are based?

I would go with the material/harmonal view. One of the reasons I go with this view is that it is hard to know the limits of what is love.

One example of this is whether a mother cat loves her kitten. How do we know? Does a fish love its offspring? A tree love its seeds?

See, already communication will break down, because I think that the word 'love' refers to something, if not uniquely human, at least essentially part of being human.

The nominalist and the realist truly are speaking two different languages.


Unless love is something genuine and transcendant, we are all simply using each other to meet our own needs.

... I don't think that I would get very far with my wife telling her that she motivates the release of hormones in me. I'm also doubting that people with your view really would say to their spouse:
"You are very useful to me."
:wink:

 

[Quath]

... I don't think that I would get very far with my wife telling her that she motivates the release of hormones in me. I'm also doubting that people with your view really would say to their spouse:
"You are very useful to me."
:wink:

Heh. Good advise.

Quath

 

[Novice]

We who are Christian believe that truth is objective and knowable.

This is robustly and naively false. To say that Truth is objective (i.e. it stands separate and apart (and without need for) our opinions of it, is to say exactly that it is NOT knowable in its entirety by any one person.

That (all) Truth is not knowable by any one finite mind has been asserted in the realm of Physics by Werner Heisenberg.

That (all) Truth is not knowable by any one finite mind has been asserted in the realm of Metaphysics by the Prophet Isaiah (40:13) and the Apostle Paul (Romans 11:33-36).

In this way we should all be "Postmodern" Christians. The arrogance of a "Newtonian" view of God cannot be overstated. To treat God like a chemistry textbook is to elevate yourself above Him. When Paul says in Corinthians "we have the Mind of Christ", he is stating that, though we don't understand Him intellectually, yet do we trust Him, yet do we rely on Him, yet do we live in Him by FAITH, not by intellectual comprehension.

 

[Blazin Bones]

Novice, who said anything about one person knowing all truth. However, there must be a definable truth, or else God is not the God he claims to be.

 

[Novice]

Timothy, there is One Truth. That Truth is God.

Insert that equivalence into your sentence, and try the result on for size:

"There must there must be a definable [God], or else God is not the God he claims to be."

Where did GOD ever claim (or offer) to be "definable", and what man who ever loved Him would ever dream of trying? The ancient Hebrews dared not even speak His name, lest that be seen to somehow limit or define Him. Yet this is the outgrowth of the Bibliolatry of our day: we have confused the word of God (which can be studied and analyzed) with the WORD of God, who "before Abraham was, I AM".

As C.S. Lewis once wrote: "He is not a tame lion."

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God."

 

[Orthodox Christian]

Timothy, there is One Truth. That Truth is God.

Insert that equivalence into your sentence, and try the result on for size:

"There must there must be a definable [God], or else God is not the God he claims to be."

Where did GOD ever claim (or offer) to be "definable", and what man who ever loved Him would ever dream of trying? The ancient Hebrews dared not even speak His name, lest that be seen to somehow limit or define Him. Yet this is the outgrowth of the Bibliolatry of our day: we have confused the word of God (which can be studied and analyzed) with the WORD of God, who "before Abraham was, I AM".

As C.S. Lewis once wrote: "He is not a tame lion."

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God."

I think what needs to be distinguished is the revelation of God to man, and the definition or encapsulation of God. Truly God is all powerful and ever merciful, but those two descriptors do not exhaustively describe God. But they are nonetheless true as revealed qualities of God- or rather, revealed descriptors.

It is true that the bible has been misused to such an extent that I have heard people teach that God is limited to what is written in the bible. Still, scripture is the measure of truth (canon), so when the Psalmist says God is good, and His mercy endures forever, this is absolutely true, despite our experiences which might lead us to believe elsewise.

Even your defense of God as unlimitable, and in most senses unknowable, is rooted in an absolute sense of truth that you have, which is that God is infinitely beyond our finite capacity to understand. This is an axiomatic statement which declares an absolute truth.

It is difficult to make positive absolutist statements about God, so our best efforts are typically apophatic (negative)
For example: God is not a liar, God has neither shift nor shadow. God is not a creation.

But again we find ourself grappling with concepts of God. But the OP spoke also about truth being "objective and knowable," rather than "a subjective and personal idea." Now we must begin with an exploration of whether truth , truths, or Truth are objective or subjective only.

 

[Solo]

Truth is objective, and is not dependent upon individual subjective perception or interpretation; as is reality not based on subjective action or opinion, but is in fact based on objective existance apart from opinion or perception. God is Truth and is the author of all that we can see, even though our perception can be in error.

God is the author of truth, and is Truth; therefore he is that he is; a reminder of whom he said to Moses that it is the "I am" that spoke to him at the mount.

 

[Blazin Bones]

Novice your stretching the logic too far. Yes God is truth, however if we who are his following can't distinguish what that truth is, we end up with things like Islam of Hinduism.

Christ described it best when he said he was the way, truth and life. He was the truthful way, because he was the truth. That truth is objective. If this truth is objective then so must all truth because all truth comes from God.

 

[Novice]

Timothy, I'm not stretching the logic too far; to the contrary. I argue the very logical limitations of logic in conversations about the Numinous. The scientific community has, since Heisenberg, had to kneel to the unknowable and the limits of our understanding in the PHYSICAL universe, and yet Modern (hyper-rational) Christians continue to try to smuggle in a lie (that we can fully apprehend the Godhead) inside an unimpeachable Truth (that our opinion of God does not alter Him).

When people say Truth is objective, they oftimes mean to imply (perhaps unconsciously) that, like an object, it can be fully observed. But though I affirm that the number of grains of sand in the sea is FINITE (as it most certainly must be), I in no way will delude myself into thinking that I may ascertain that number.

I am not Postmodernist because I believe that God isn't TRUE in any way He wishes to define Himself or to define TRUTH. I am Postmodernist because I humbly believe that the limited revelation I have regarding His Character is BY DEFINITION flawed, imperfect, incomplete, culturally biased and ultimately subjective, as I myself am subjective. This is IN NO WAY a comment on the OBJECT (El-Elohim) being observed, but rather a humble and realistic assessment of the SUBJECT (l'il ol' me) doing the observing.

This humility in assessing our own apprehension of the LORD is used by some as an excuse not to continue to strive, to search, to learn, to study and to serve. For these "postmodernists" without deeds I have less affinity than those hyperrationalists without humility.

Again, the definition of FAITH is believing without knowing all that we might, and yet continuing to do all that we can.

Peace

 

[Blazin Bones]

I think I see where our clash of opinions comes in.

For you, Objectivity means knowing entirty of each thing.

For me, Objectivity is taking one truth at a time and knowing that, even if I don't know all the truth surrounding the "object". Even if I don't know it now, who's to say that One day I won't know it?

Take faith. I objectively know that Faith through Grace saves. However, I don't know all the truths surrounding this faith, such as how one obtains it, is it choice or predetermined, and so forth. Faith, to me Is nonetheless objective objective to me.

I don't know all the truth, but God does. Just because I don't know the truth doesn't mean it can't be known. I do agree that no man, besides the Christ, has ever known all truth. This still doesn't say it can't be known. It just mean I can't know it.

 

[Novice]

I think this debate is really a question of emphasis.

"Postmodernists" (non-Christian or otherwise) have had to cede that there is Truth (because even a statement like "there is no truth" is a truth statement.

"Modernists" (non-Christian or otherwise) have had to cede that truth, though it exists, is not knowable in its entirety, that we will forever be revealing new knowledge of truth, revising old accepted truths and refining current truth conceptions of truth. Therefore the argument (and what camp you locate yourself it) is what I call a "Grass is Green, Sky is Blue" argument.

"The Grass is Green!"
"NO, the SKY is Blue!"

Modernists: "An individual may not be able to apprehend it, but THERE IS TRUTH!"

Postmodernists: "There may be truth, but any one individual cannot apprehend it."

I locate myself as a Postmodernist because I see the current weakness of the church in defending to too long a laundry list of received truths.

Ask the question: "What would you die for?"

Would you die before you repudiate the divinity of Christ? I hope never to be put in that position, but I hope I would.

Would you die before you repudiate predestination of particular individual elect? uhh, no.

And like an army that weakens itself by fighting its battle on too many fronts, the message of Christianity, like a political message, loses its focus and effectiveness if it becomes diluted. (See my post "Name your favorite Gospel "Enhancements" )

God bless, Timothy. I don't see our disagreement as fundamental. There are times in each of our faith walk when we need to emphasize the truth that we know, and there are times in our faith walk when we need to acknowledge in humility how much we have yet to know, or may never know.

 

[Drew]

I would say that there certainly is truth in the (seemingly obvious) sense that "things are objectively a certain way and not another". There is, I assert, a "factual truth" about the "way things are". Perhaps this is so fundamentally obivous that it really not what you guys are talking about. It seems hard to imagine how a universe could exist without one being able to say that there are objective truths about that universe. Truth, in this sense, seems to be a necessary accompaniment of simple existence. If anything exists at all, there is a "fact of the matter" about it.

As far as any one mind knowing truth, that's another matter altogether.

 

[PDoug]

We who are Christian believe that truth is objective and knowable. However, many in today's world disagree. How then would you as a Christian defend God as an absolute truth, rather than an subjective and personal idea?

Truth is objective, but that doesn't mean it can be appreciated by everyone. In fact, a person needs to have the influence of the Holy Spirit to begin with, to appreciate the truth. Everyone who does not have the influence of the Holy Spirit is under the bind of the Spirit of this world, who constantly blinds, misleads, and makes that person antagonistic about learning the truth about things. E.g. the overwhelming majority of the time when someone who has faith argues the scriptures with another person who does not have faith, the second person rejects the reasoning simply because it is inconsistent with conventional thinking. The second person doesn't care about the soundness of first person's arguments: only that the arguments lie outside of conventional thinking. That was the problem the Jews had with Christ, and that is the problem many people in this world have with those who have faith.