I heard a recent lecturer ask, “What is truth?” He remarked that Pilate had asked Jesus this very question. Society has been struggling with that question in the 2,000 years since.
Is it true that spending lowers inflation? President Biden articulates the answer is yes. In politics should a leader do what is necessary to maintain power, or should they focus on truth? Are there only male and female or is gender a human invention? Is abortion a constitutional right or the murder of an innocent human being?
The Stoics in Athens believed life was bad and you just had to tough it out. The Epicureans thought life was short and one should live it up. What is truth? In the 1890s, there was a time known as the Gay 90s, and later, of course, the Roaring 20s and the Free Sex 60s. The Gay 90s brought German rationalism.
“I think, therefore I am,” said Descartes.
The Old Testament was attacked as wrong, and truth was limited to the natural world. (Truth was only that which could be seen, heard, or observed.) The 1920s saw attacks on the New Testament and Nietzsche’s famous “God is dead” grew in popularity. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, etc. Of course, Nietzsche is thought to have died insane.
Remember the 60s? It’s been said if you remember the 60s, you weren’t there. Colleges seemed to take over thought patterns and created what is known as post-modern thought. Modernity began, roughly, with the French Revolution in 1789 and is generally thought to have ended in approximately 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this time, Pol Pot, a Cambodian leader, studied truth in Paris and returned home to kill one-third of Cambodia’s 3 million people.
Postmodernism teaches us to distrust and deconstruct traditional institutions and conceptions. Also, the idea of pluralism came into vogue: what is true for me may not be true for you. Without a foundation, there can be no foundation for truth, which leads to radical inclusiveness of all ideas, whether good, bad, or evil.
All ideas are thought to have a place at the table. But ideas can be dangerous. Take Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Does he have a place at the table of ideas or is he a criminal that should be rejected? Few people know all 31,102 verses in the Bible, but everyone can cite the verse that says not to judge. Of course, the Greek word used means do not condemn. The Bible obviously asks each of us to discern good and evil. What is truth?
Postmodern idea proponents and Evangelical Christians agree about truth in some areas. They both see errors in the liberal church. The Evangelicals see Jesus and the Bible as not negotiable. Both see that the Marxist view of economics does not work, and both reject Rene Descartes’ idea that there is no supernatural. Both reject Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis requiring someone to be blamed.
What should you do? Find truth. I was blind but now I see. I can change. This life is not all there is. There is a supernatural. Some say truth is found in Jesus. Like Pilate, I find no fault in Jesus.
P.S. My summa cum laud philosophy editor took issue with one of my statements. To his reading of Descartes, he did not reject the idea of the supernatural. His fifth Meditation was about bringing God back into the equation as the foundation of the truth that began in the First Meditation with the assertion “I think, therefore I am.” He thought Descartes snuck consciousness in the back door with “I think, therefore I am.” If one is doubting everything, that should include the existence of the self and his assertion would have been on firmer ground if it was something like “There is thought, therefore there is the existence of a thinker.”
Educational material and not legal advice, written by the team at Adler attorneys. Email andrea@noblesvilleattorney.com with questions or comments.