“You Can’t Stand the Truth!”

“You Can’t Stand the Truth!”

Who can read those words and not think of Jack Nicolas as Marine Col Jessup in “A Few Good Men?”

Yet, that is a question that divides people, not just in a movie but in the conduct of life.

The question we all need to face is this.  “Can you stand the truth?”  If one can stand the truth, they will go wherever necessary to seek out that truth.   If one can stand the truth, they will push their truth paradigm ever deeper until it is either validated or falters.   

On the other hand if such a person limits that truth to what they  choose to believe then such truth is a product of one’s volition*—that is one’s will.  Such may mean that honest inquiry is lacking.  Why would this be so?  Consider the following.

On one side of the question you have intellectual integrity on the other side intellectual bias.  On one side you have intellectual vulnerability on the other side intellectual resistance.  On one side you have intellectual bravery on the other side you have intellectual cowardice.  On one side you have intellectual daring on the other side intellectual cowering.  On one side you have intellectual freedom on the other side you have intellectual bondage.    

Yet it is the one who lives in a world of intellectual bias, resistance, cowardice, and cowering who proclaims his intellectual freedom all the while disparaging those of differing opinion.   One must ask, “Why not hear what others have to say?” Aristotle observed,

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

What is most interesting is that those who claim to be willing to follow the path to truth wherever necessary, at least in my experience, close off all but what they can mentally deduce.  Their position is best described as cynical of anything that cannot pass their own rational filtration processes. 

Classically this is called rationalism and in the extreme it rejects all other avenues to truth such as Empiricism and Existentialism.  In lesser degrees it is the filter applied to other avenues to truth.

Three simple observations are to be made at this point.

First, one does well to push truth ever deeper to see if it is durable or destructed.  If one’s truth is not durable then it most certainly will fall in the face of challenge.  It is the brave person who can face that eventuality and re-chart his life and purpose.  The coward resorts to affective responses and personal attack.

Second, there is no new truth only the discovery of the truth that already exists.  For that reason he is prudent who does not become so ensnared in a truth paradigm that it cannot change with the discovery of deeper realities.

Third, truth is a stewardship issue.  When one discovers deeper and deeper truth such vests that person with a responsibility to then live out that truth no matter the cost.

In summary, underpinning the above is a simple principle.  It is this.  Truth is a character issue and today in western culture truth discovered, challenged, and lived out, has been relegated to a place of irrelevance.  Indeed it has been sacrificed on the altar of expedience. 

*thought elucidated at http://www.gospeloutreach.net/bible.html

A Few Questions...

From the book, The Devil’s Delusion by David Berlinski,

A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions:

• Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close.
• Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close.
• Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close.
• Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough.
• Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough.
• Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good? Not even close to being close.
• Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences? Close enough.
• Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even ballpark.
• Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.

Berlinski does not dismiss the achievements of western science. The great physical theories, he observes, are among the treasures of the human race. But they do nothing to answer the questions that religion asks, and they fail to offer a coherent description of the cosmos or the methods by which it might be investigated.

“Rationalism and Infinity”

“Rationalism and Infinity”

Someone in their rationalism postulated that “…an all knowing god (sic) could not possibly exist because there are infinities.”

Most certainly there are infinities, for example one might ask, how large is the largest number in existence?  The truth of the matter is that one could simply add another zero to that number to increase it tenfold.  For the purposes of this paper, we will call that addition the “zero factor.” 

The question that then follows the original assertion is this.  How is it possible to connect the existence of an all knowing God (omniscient God) with there being infinities?  It seems that one is not dependent upon nor connected with the other.  However, for the purposes of the argument let us assume some sort of a connection/relationship.

 Someone offered the following as the support for the assertion.

“… "ALL/Omni" knowledge...means a beginning and end to knowledge... that means there cannot be infinities...because your god is "OMNI">ALL.”

--Name Withheld

Continuing the following was offered.

“Infinities do NOT end. They can begin, but they don't end. The Judaic god is said to be the beginning and end...and to be all knowing. It's a contradiction to the notion of infinity as infinity is information that never ends.”

--Name Withheld

Indeed there are the semantic difficulties with what was being offered as support.  First, the assumption that “All” in the argument is limited.  What if the “All” and the “Omni” were just as the original illustration and the “zero factor” were added to the argument?  Then the notions behind these words would be delimited.

Second, there is an assumption that God is bounded and thus there comes a point of limitation.  What if we again applied the “zero factor” to God?  Then the person of God would be ever greater than the notion tendered.

The third matter requiring attention is found in the writers word knowledge.  Man only discovers knowledge and such discovery in no way creates said knowledge.  There are any number of examples where man had uncovered some new fact, scientific process, etc. and claimed creation when in fact he only discovered it.

Finally, there is an assumption that suggests one meaning of God being the same yesterday, today, and forever.  However there is another way in which that is true which removes limitation from the discussion.  What is commonly accepted as stability may in fact be something else entirely.  What about this thought?  What if it means that the qualities of God are stable (He knows all, sees all, is immutable, etc.) but beyond those things we can best understand Him if we include the “zero factor”?

The one who embraces Rationalism postulates that all that may be known of reality is available to the mind--that is one's understanding. Problem is that even the most intelligent cannot comprehend but a small portion of the body of knowledge.  This is especially so with the “zero factor” added to the discussion.

The simple truth is that the mind of the rationalist is finite. Such being so, then there is another question that accrues. How can such an one even acknowledge infinite realities.  This is but one of the problems with rationalism.