Absolute Truth?

I make no claims to be an expert on absolute truth and postmodernism, but I can at least share with you my understanding.

The assumption of modernism is that, in time, humanity through reliance on intellect and scientific method will unravel all the secrets of the universe and solve all of life’s problems. 

Postmodernism says the nature of existence doesn’t lend itself to such certainty. The scientific method itself, while attempting to be fully objective, nonetheless is not entirely without bias; we never get completely beyond the limitations of our own perspective.

Postmodernism can easily lead to a kind of existential despair. I think there are a lot of people in our world today who say, “Nobody knows what’s really going on, and everybody lies.” These two statements taken together make it either impossible to know the truth and/or impossible to believe we know the truth even if we do. 

We don’t trust government; we don’t trust corporations; we don’t trust educators; we don’t trust doctors: eventually we don’t trust anyone.

Such thinking pervades all of life. When we consider our own views, we say, “I’m telling you what is really true.” When we consider the views of others, we say, “That’s just your opinion.”

My own perspective is that absolute truth does exist, but we can never fully grasp it. What we believe to be true needs to be held tightly, but with a significant degree of humility.

Let me give you an example from my own life. When reading Phil Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace, I came across this phrase: “Grace means nothing I can ever do will make God love me more and nothing I can ever do will make God love me less.” My immediate reaction was to see this as a profound truth I would spend the rest of my life trying to grasp fully. That was probably twenty years ago and I still feel exactly the same: I believe it is absolutely true, but I’m still not sure I fully understand it.

The blogs I share in this group will not always (or even often) be overtly religious, but Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” I like the phrase, “All truth is God’s truth.” I also believe when you accept lies and spread propaganda, you become enslaved to those who don't hesitate to distort the truth in order to control you.

Some are already saying we have entered a "post-truth" age. My hope for this blog is that together we can keep this from becoming any more of a reality than it already is.