Gary interacts with Carl Trueman’s newest books about “expressive individualism” and the modern “truth” of the interior self.
The greatest offense to the unbeliever is the Christian’s insistence that there is only one truth. The statement that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only light seems rather closed-minded. For secularists, it seems reasonable that if there is a “God,” people should be able to worship him (or her or it) however they choose. In fact, George Barna of the Barna Research Group found that 62% of all Americans believe that all religious faiths teach the same lessons about life. Barna also found that while 60% of all Americans believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings, 70% believe that there are no absolutes! This general lack of foundation is reflected in the title of Barna’s book on what people believe, Absolute Confusion. Indeed, confusion is the spirit of the age.
A new worldview is emerging, a worldview that calls into question all traditional notions of truth, structure, and reality. It is called postmodernism. Postmodernism removes the anchor of objective truth and pushes human experience into the chaotic sea of human preference and subjectivity. Postmodernism says that while absolute truth was once a viable belief, it has turned out to be little more than a passing fad.
What is the source of this absurdity? For many of us, the notion that there is no objective truth is foolish, and yet this idea is becoming increasingly entrenched in our society. Who would question the scientific truth that light travels at 186,282 miles per second, or that the law of non-contradiction is a fundamental rule of logic? Better yet, who would question that 2 + 2 = 4, or that Jesus is the only way to the Father? Answer: people who seek more consistency in their rejection of God. Fact and certainty are not acceptable to people who deny universal standards. What we are seeing today is a worldview shift, from the modern to the postmodern.
Thinking Straight in a Crooked World
The nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man" is an appropriate description of how sin affects us and our world. We live in a crooked world of ideas evaluated by crooked people. Left to our crooked nature, we can never fully understand what God has planned for us and His world. God has not left us without a corrective solution. He has given us a reliable reference point in the Bible so we can identify the crookedness and straighten it.
Buy NowGary interacts with Carl Trueman’s newest books about “expressive individualism” and the modern “truth” of the interior self. This is one of the primary philosophies driving political and social policy and it is nothing more than sin masquerading as reality. However, the fact that will not be tolerated is that there is one revealed objective Truth. (Read Carl Trueman’s article here.)