In John 18:38 Pontius Pilate famously asked Jesus the question “what is truth?”
I once heard R.C. Sproul give this definition: “That which corresponds to reality.”
One of the interesting things about a Biblical Christian Worldview is that it assumes the existence of an absolute objective truth that is external to mankind.
We are not the source of truth. Our opinions or preferences do not decide what is true. There is a real truth that is really real and it proceeds from God, not from us.
Jesus said that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus is the truth! There is no truth outside of Him.
So why does this matter?
Because it has huge implications on the way people think today. A common thought today is the absurd notion that truth is a matter of personal preference.
I remember someone that I knew back in the late 1980s. I used to speak to this person about the reality of the One True God. This person, however, insisted that “that’s what’s true for you, but that’s not what’s true for me!”
The world wants there to be “tolerance,” yet the one thing nobody wants to tolerate is that which is Really Real – Real Live Truth.
How do we know truth?
- Nature – The Bible says in Romans 1:20 that all of creation testifies to God. Nature is a source of truth.
- Conscience/Intuition – The Bible also says in Romans 2:14 that man has the law written on His conscience. God has put something in us that knows His Truth on some level!
- The Holy Spirit – John 16:13 says the the Holy Spirit guides believers into all truth.
- The Written Word of God (The Bible) – We have only one external, objective and authoritative source of truth – The 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
I suspect that we as human beings were designed to know Truth primarily through relating to God, but because of sin our perception of nature, our conscience, and our sensing of the Holy Spirit is all prone to deception. Thus God brought into the world an external objective source of truth in the Bible. Although we can even deceive ourselves about what that says!
Eastern Worldview denies any real objective truth. Naturalistic worldviews say that real reality only consists of nature itself.
But the Christian Worldview holds that God Himself is the Truth, and therefore the source of all truth.
So when you are trying to analyze the world around you and make applicaton of truth, remember that your nature and your conscience are sources of truth, the Holy Spirit will lead you into truth, but the Revealed Written word of God trumps an other perception of truth!