Is There Absolute Truth?

This is the question that keeps theologians and apologists employed.  This is also the one question you never ask unless you want to spend the next few hours being lectured. Books have been written, courses taught, seminars and sermon series presented and debates fought all around this one question, is there absolute truth? The answer is yes but it may not be the truth you embrace.

We can spend a lot of time in circular arguments.            

In the quest to prove the existence of absolute truth Christ followers are taught to employ a circular argument. After a person states that they do not believe in absolute truth we are to counter with, “if there is no absolute truth then how can you say with absolute certainty that there is no absolute truth? Isn’t your statement by nature based on the existence of absolute truth?”

I love circular arguments. If you get the person confused they will never be able to articulate their point of view. It works even better if you badger them when they try to answer. Every time they open their mouth to speak say, “tell me how you can make an absolute statement while claiming there are no absolutes – tell me – no, tell me – you don’t have an answer do you?”

That’s the way to get people to want to follow Christ, badger and belittle them.

At one time I would employ circular arguing when in heated discussions (fights if I am being truthful) with my wife. I usually won but really lost. I didn’t change her opinion on the topic just her opinion about me. By badgering her on a small point and dragging her around in circles (figuratively) she would give up. I may have felt I won but really all I did was shut her down. She felt stupid because she could not effectively present her point of view and she felt overpowered because she could not out argue me. The one thing she didn’t feel was heard.

If Christ following is about relationship with Jesus and with fellow followers, what type of relationship are we presenting through circular arguments? I cannot think of Jesus ever using a circular argument on anyone. When questions were asked and point of views expressed, Jesus, who we are often told knew that the religious leaders were trying to set Him up, answered their questions. As a matter of fact, the only people using clever arguments to trap Jesus in his own assertions were the Pharisees and Sadducees.

I believe in absolute truth, but what truth is absolute?

There is only one way to be reconciled; God’s plan carried out by God’s chosen person at God’s chosen time, through the death and resurrection of His son. To those who follow Christ this is the absolute truth of all truths. After this absolute truth, finding agreement on other absolutes can be difficult. For all the people who love circular arguments to back their belief that there is absolute truth, watch out for the well-informed person who takes the position that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Circular arguments go both ways.

“So you believe in absolute truth which means there is right and wrong,” an absolute truth denier might say. “If there really is absolute truth how come some of you believe that you can drink alcohol and others say it is a sin? How come Jesus drank wine and even turned water into wine, how come Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine? Tell me how come not all of you agree on this – tell me – no tell me – you don’t have an answer do you?” Then they might say, “didn’t Jesus teach that there would be judgement on those who caused others to sin, wasn’t turning water into wine causing those who drank it to sin? Doesn’t that mean Jesus sinned and didn’t you say he was without sin – tell me – no, tell me – you don’t have an answer do you?”

This is not a post about drinking alcohol.

I am not trying to start a holy war. Baptists on the one side and Christian Reform people on the other. Please forgive me if you belong to one of these groups, I just needed two doctrinally different groups to make my point.  I could have chosen Calvinism and Arminianism. You can chose your own doctrinal disagreements that can then be turned into a circular argument by the absolute truth deniers as they point out that Christ followers don’t seem to have absolutes. Then just for entertainment, you can play out the ensuing arguments in your head.  Hope this post has provided hours of fun daydreams of endless circular arguments.

The real points I hope you will take away from this blog.

  1. Don’t use circular arguments. In your marriage or in defending your faith, live by the sword, die by the sword. There are plenty of circular arguments that can be made by highly skilled people who oppose your faith. Count on the Holy Spirit speaking through you not human arguments made by you. In the case of marriage, offering them the couch to sleep on is the winning move when combating a spouse who uses circular arguments.

 

  1. Absolute truth starts and ends with the grace offered through the cross. There will be many takes on how to live out our lives as Christ followers, not all are absolutes and not all can be applied to all circumstances. What is important is, sin is the result of rebelling against God; grace is the result of God defeating sin on the cross, everything we do must be about avoiding the first and accepting the second – now that’s an absolute!

23 comments

  1. When I teach/preach to anyone, Christ followers or the unsaved, the only mission in my heart is the mission of the Living Word and the Written Word, to re-establish the relationship with God, the Father, through Christ Jesus the Son. Everything I TRY to do revolves around that. The Holy Spirit is the power behind that mission, not me nor my intellect or education.

    Christ came to earth in the flesh, to point man to the Father, a Spirit and every time, reiterated that the ONLY way to KNOW God intimately was through Him. He came to make that ability possible by taking away the penalty we deserve and giving us the liberty to “go boldly to the throne of Grace,” without reservation. No denomination, (no offense), no argument, no intellect can compete with the undeniably gracious plan of God Almighty!

    As my Brother in Christ, Wally Fry stated, I love the fact that Brother Dave, you write to make us think. You cause us to re-evaluate our teachings and focus on our callings (ministries) of service and this is WHY it is so very important to understand the Body of Christ. We NEED one another!! Without the gifts, no matter how slight they may seem, they help complete EACH of us individually! This is why I love the medium God has given us in this time we are living, for we can connect so much more openly than ever in any other time in history as a Body with Christ as the head!!

    God Bless and thank YOU in the Holy Spirit for this great article!!

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  2. So true. Thank you for sharing.
    John 4:24 tells us: ‘God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

    There’s a change of heart that needs to happen within us to inspire a higher-order of thinking that enables our understanding to truth, and that happens when we allow the Lord into our hearts. Through repentance and forgiveness, through acknowledgment and prayer, through baptism we leave behind our old self and become reborn through His Spirit who guides us through all things. Especially in having a relationship with the Father. This is absolute truth as you point out in your closing statement.

    We hang on to the pettiness of right and wrong, justifying the wrong and not truly knowing the the truth. The truth is in God’s manual to us, regarding life itself and our conduct. Faith in Christ is essential and the doors to truth will open. We’ll be richly blessed with a calmness that surpasses understanding, making it possible for us to carry on through the trials and tragedies of the current world we live in. The war has been won, we forge ahead with our armor on, enduring all things with Christ at the helm of our lives.

    Thank God the Father for the gift of life. Thank our Lord Jesus for taking our sins and bestowing His Spirit to all humanity who believe and have faith in Him. Thanks be to the Holy Spirit for always striving to connect our spirit with the Father’s. All three are One with the same purpose, to bring us home. God bless us all to receive this gift of ultimate love and absolute truth. Shalom.

    Again thank you for sharing a thought provoking post. God bless.

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  3. You always make me think Dave. …and I am a Baptist LOL. did you know that even within Baptist, the variance is huge right. There are hardcore Arminian Free Will Baptists, and hardore ultra reformed Baptists. The only thing that makes us that is…well Baptism. If you want to argue about Baptism we can!

    I quit arguing with the Atheists and just preached to them. For some reason they quit bothering me after that.

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    1. I remember the first time I saw a church called Free Will Baptist when we were driving through Michigan – I laughed and my wife didn’t understand why – turns out that my limited knowledge of the 6 million different conventions (lol) did not include the one that had free will – last time I laugh out loud out of ignorance – I hope!

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      1. They are quite common in these parts. I actually don’t know of any Reformed Baptist churches around here. Our work is the American Baptist Association of Missionary Baptist churches. We actually are not one of 6 million conventions. We are an Association. I may have to write about that distinction sometime. Conventions are too infringing on the autonomy of local churches for our taste. Like I said, that is another story I might tell some time. We tend to be what I like to call Calviminian in our outlook. Oh yeah, and we don’t call our selves Protestants either! I am curious as to what work, denomination or what ever it happens to be that you are part of?

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      2. Because I originally ran a para-church organization I have worked with most denominations including the Christian church/church of Christ (instrumental) who would say they are neither a denomination nor association. I have held credentials with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and worked under Presidential Appointment with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada and have pastored, preached and/or overseen programs without official credentials at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, Free Methodist Church, Associated Gospel Church and I have also work on special programs with Fellowship Baptists, Apostolic and Salvation Army. My job now is to work with churches that are in transition because of the removal of a pastor or a split etc. I go where they hurt although I will not work with churches that have given up teachings in the bible to appease special interest groups.

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      4. The best part is I have met and worked with Christ followers that are so different in their expression of their faith and out of their diversity I get to incorporate as much as I can in my journey and I am better for it.

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      5. Yeah I have found that here myself. We tend to be very insulated in our work and leery of anything that seems to be eucceminical in nature. We like to fancy ourselves guardians of the truth. I’m ok with that really as somebody has to be willing to draw line. For instance in your case you would never speak in one of out pulpits. We have some that oppose even the Gideons coming unless the speaker is one of us. To say WordPress has been enlightening for me would be an understatement

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      6. I still run into that here as well but it has been neat to see God has opened doors at churches that I never thought would let me in – If I am ever down your way I will visit your church -I don’t mind sitting in a pew – It would be great just to meet you in person

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