11 Feb Can I Choose My Own Truth?
In my last blog post (the one before the great website crash last week!) we made the observation that truth is objective. That is, it is true, regardless of what we think or believe.
We speculated that we may have heard a radio personality and formed an opinion of what we thought he looked like. Then when we met him, or saw a picture of him, and he did not look a bit like what we thought he would look like.
Or perhaps we had talked with someone over the phone and then one day got to meet that person, and she did not look at all like what we thought she was going to look like.
Were those people affected by what we thought they would look like? No. A short stocky person does not become tall and thin just because we envision them in our mind as tall and thin. They are who they are, regardless of what we think.
What we think about something has no impact on it.
The same is true with God.
What we think about God doesn’t change what God is like, or who He is.
We are not free to choose what is true for us
Because of this, we are not free to choose what is true for us. Modern American culture has accepted the impossible idea that we can decide what is true for us, while admitting that it might not be true for you.
In the book, What Do We Mean When We Say God? a gentleman from Fairfax, California, stated, “God is a very personal thing—which does not mean that He is a person. It means that each person has the opportunity to devise his own notion of what is God to him.” (p. 95)
How does he know that? How could he think God could be one thing to Person A, and be another, entirely different thing to Person B, and both of them be true? It’s inherently contradictory. But people believe it nevertheless.
However, common sense reveals that it cannot be true.
Ignoring truth has consequences
In a previous blog, I shared the story of Shorty found in a book by Kitty Harmon titled Up to No Good: The Rascally Things Boys Do (as told by perfectly decent grown men). It provides a powerful lesson about the connection between truth and behavior.
Harmon writes, “Lou was playing with some friends and decided to try flying. So, they climbed up onto the roof of the barn, and Lou strapped some heavy wooden boards onto his brother’s arms. Then they counted down, and he jumped. He was lying on the ground, groaning in pain with several broken bones, and Lou yelled, “Hey Shorty! You forgot to flap your wings!”
You see, Lou’s brother, Shorty, momentarily persuaded by Lou , believed he could fly. Based on that belief, he jumped off the roof of the barn. But what he believed was wrong, and Shorty paid the price. Shorty was not free to choose what was true. Truth was true, regardless of what Shorty believed.
It seems painfully obvious when we look at it that way.
However, we are in a unique time in history when many people believe that truth is relative, that they can choose what is true for them… and also believe that that might not be true for others.
The new concept of “truth”
In a recent sermon by Timothy Keller at Dallas Seminary (https://lp.dts.edu/hendricks-center-video-watch-1/), he said that we are facing a cultural shift unlike any culture in the history of the world. It used to be that truth was external and feelings were internal. So, when our feelings conflicted with truth, we aspired to bring our feelings into alignment with truth.
Now, we believe that truth is internal and individually determined, so we can choose our own truth according to our feelings. He mentioned four tenants of modern secular belief:
- You must be true to yourself
- In the end you have to do what makes you happy
- No one has the right to tell anyone else what is right or wrong for him or her
- You should be free to live any way you want as long as it does not hurt anyone else
These beliefs are almost universally accepted in secular culture. And, because they are constantly being touted in culture, Christians are being influenced by them because the mind does not always believe what is true. Sometimes, it believes what it is told most often.
What the Bible says about truth
The result is that some Christians are accepting as true things that are clearly contradicted in Scripture. Scripture clearly teaches that truth is objective, is determined by God, and is true, regardless of whether or not we know it or believe it.
The verses we looked at last week made this abundantly clear:
- Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
- Jesus also said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
- Again, he said, in a prayer to God for his disciples, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.” (John 17:17)
So, regardless of what any celebrity-of-the-day says, or a college professor, or your next-door neighbor, we cannot choose our own truth.
Just as a radio personality is not changed by what we think he looks like, so truth is not changed by what we think is true. It is God who declares truth, not us. So, the great task of the Christian life is to learn what is true, and align ourselves with it.
For help with that, I’ve created a 15 minute video with some tips on knowing and reinforcing truth from the bible. If you haven’t done so already, you can still get that video for free here: Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You.
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