THE LOGIC OF TRUTH

If the New York Times is right, there is a lot of public support given to paperback authors who attack Christianity at the moment. In recent times they have ranked several books in their Best Sellers List which have made almost shrill allegations against Christianity. One of these “NY Times Listed Best Selling Books” was brought to me by a member of our local community who is investigating his spiritual options. He asked me if I would give him a “Christian response” to it. This particular book, THE NEW REVELATIONS – A Conversation with God, presents itself as a reasoned and rational approach to understanding God and our relationship to Him and then to each other. It claims to be a direct “revelation” from “God”. From all reports this book has made a significant impact on the way millions of people regard God and how we should live. For those familiar with the Bible it shouldn’t take long to recognise that the message of this book could not be either a revelation from God or even about God. But for those not familiar with the Bible, but familiar with the principles of logic, they too should be able to detect that this book has no credibility to what it claims.

PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH

How can we know what’s true? The temporary growth of Relativism in Western culture has attempted to persuade people that there are no “wrongs” or “rights”. It has vainly tried to convince people that the only wrongs and rights are those that they hold to. That is, the concepts of wrong and right are not the same for everyone – they are instead relative to an individual and their particular circumstances. What might be wrong for me may not be wrong for you, says Relativism. While this might apply in certain areas, such as tastes and preferences, it simply cannot apply in real life. If two people walk up to a busy roadside where fully-loaded trucks are hurtling down the highway, one person might believe that they could step out onto the road and simply walk across without hesitation or reference to the oncoming traffic. The other person disagrees and thinks that this person is wrong. (Believing something doesn’t make the belief right.) The first person is the Relativist while the second is a Realist. In the Real World the facts aligns with the truth. The first person thinks that they can walk across the highway unimpeded despite the fast-moving, heavy traffic. While the oncoming traffic thinks that it will drive down the highway unimpeded despite the pedestrian. Both cannot be right. That is, this matter will not be determined Relatively, but Realistically. That’s why it’s impossible for the Relativist to live consistently with their philosophy of relativism in the real world. One of the principles for determining truth therefore is its correspondence to reality. This means that the truth will not be contradictory (two contradictory statements about the same thing cannot both be right as it pertains to something at a particular time). It also means that the truth can be tested and scrutinised.

Christians sometimes think that there are different kinds of truth. Since science disagrees with Scripture, some Christians suggest, it must be because there is “scientific” truth and “Scriptural” truth. Some Christians have been led to believe that the facts of history disagree with Scripture and that there must therefore be “Historical” truth which is different to the truth of Scripture’s historical record. But this kind of thinking is really Christianised Relativism. It is the error of both Liberalism (which diminishes the truth of Scripture) and Fundamentalism (which diminishes the truth of the evidence). Truth is found both in Scripture and the evidence. This is what the Bible itself says.

TRUTH FROM SCIENCE-

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [1:20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Romans 1:19-20

TRUTH FROM HISTORY-

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Luke 3:1-2

“All truth is God’s truth, wherever it might be found.”
Clement of Alexandria, AD 150 – 215

ILLOGICAL TRUTH CLAIMS

The swag of popular paperback books on spirituality that have made the NY Times Best Sellers list reveals that most people are really hungering for the answers to the important questions of life and are seeking answers from a spiritual perspective. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (which I have responded to in another FTM article), The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, and The New Revelations – A Conversation With God by Neale Walsch, are books about spirituality which each make certain truth claims which contradict the Scriptures. The Biblically literate person will have little trouble recognising these contradictions and their illogical truth-claims.

In the opening pages of Neale Walsch’s book, The New Revelations – A Conversation with God, talks about the need for world peace and more love. It then immediately says the reason we currently have neither is “spiritual”. It had clearly made an impression on the person who asked me to review it. And its appeal for world peace and brotherly peace might lull the reader into thinking that this book may have some authentic spiritual credibility. But within the first twenty pages the contradictions begin to mount and by the end of the book any reasonable person should wonder whether “God” is so uncertain, vague and contradictory. For example, the book opens with the concept that something is wrong with the world and that too many people are committing wrong. It then takes its first swipe at the Bible and Christianity and tentatively lumps all religions into the same “divine” criticism. People are not interpretting the Bible correctly. They are wrong, “God” says, to think that there is only one way to interpret the Bible. They are also wrong to think that the interpretations of the Bible by others is wrong. These differences of interpretations are at the root of all wars, despots, societal breakdowns, and the destruction of civilisations, claims Walsch. Neale Walsch’s “God” has a lot to say about where mankind has gone ‘wrong’. He points the finger of God squarely at those Christians who regard the Bible as the only revelation of the Word of God and states they are wrong for doing so. But then later on in the book he addresses the claims of Christians that certain beliefs and behaviours are ‘wrong’. Neale Walsch’s God condemns as ‘wrong’ the idea that certain ideas are ‘wrong’. When asked about how people could receive His forgiveness, “God” responds-

“I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is “judge not lest ye be judged”.”
Neale Walsch, The New Revelations – A Conversation with God

In other words, Neale Walsch’s does the very thing he supposedly says should not be done! This book then goes on to claim that Christianity teaches children that God is “intolerant”, “angry” and “vengeful” (page 20) based presumably on the New Testament. But this is blatantly wrong. The New Testament teaches that God is merciful, loving, kind, forgiving, just, and patient. Incidentally, just prior to this, Walsch’s God actually endorses as true the New Testament Scriptures!

TRUTH IS LOGICAL

Truth is logical. That is, it makes sense and is coherent. It can be tested and tried For years, leading English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 – 1990) was an avid agnostic. He ridiculed those who believed in God whenever he had the opportunity. His writings were an assault on the faith of many Christians. But then the evidence overtook him.

During the 1960s this former Socialist and vocal agnostic – considering Christianity “a load of rubbish” – gradually modified his positions on religion and became a Christian. The British press nicknamed him “St. Mugg.” Reflecting on his conversion, he writes in Confessions of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim:

What, then, is conversion?…Some, like the Apostle Paul, have a Damascus Road experience…No such experience has been vouchsafed me; I have just stumbled on, like Bunyan’s pilgrim, falling in the Slough Despond, locked up in Doubting Castle, terrified at passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; from time to time, by God’s mercy, relieved of my burden of sin, but only, alas, soon to acquire it again.
http://www.wheaton.edu/learnres/ARCSC/collects/sc04/bio.htm

Antony Flew was perhaps the most vociferous atheist of the twentieth century. He publicly debated Christians on the campuses of the world’s leading universities representing the arguments for atheism. But something began to increasingly trouble him: the evidence. Antony Flew, at the age of 86, then renounced his atheism and declared there must be a God! He cited the growing body of evidence from biology which was revealing that life was complex and the result of deliberate information rather than random chaos. He was particularly moved by the results of the Human Genome Project which were announced to the world by former President Bill Clinton as “the language of the Creator”.

The truth claims of the Bible are logical. They are verifiable. Books like Neale Walsch’s or Richard Dawkins’ will be largely forgotten in five hundred years time, but the truth of the Bible will remain and weather the storms of not just these attacks but the more vicious ones yet to come. Christians have nothing to fear from science, history, or experience. Rather, each of these areas will increasingly confirm the truth of Scripture. In the meantime, it is my prayer that more Bible-believers will become Daily-Bible-Readers so that we will become so familiar with the Truth that we can spot the illogical straight away.

Dr. Andrew Corbett
8th October 2007

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