But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing th

There's a lot of confusion about truth these days. In June of '05, I watched Joel Osteen's smile go from genuine to forced under the blunt questioning of Larry King, and one thing became clear: popular Christianity is uncomfortable with the concept of absolute truth. Since September 11, 2001, there has been increasing pressure to accept all beliefs as equally valid, and we now find ourselves in a culture that is indignant towards any claim of absolute truth. My fear is that Christian evangelism is moving away from declaring that Jesus is the Only Way, and moving towards offering up an insipid, feel-good, like-me-and-buy-my-book version of the gospel.

If we are ambivalent about truth, the world will sense our inner conflict and become confused and cynical. In determining which truth claims are indeed true, I have found it helpful to understand the nature of truth itself.

There are basically three competing views of truth:

The sensible correspondence view

The self-contradictory relative view

The illogical pragmatic view.

I'm obviously biased towards the correspondence view. It's logical and has been the view held by the vast majority of deep-thought-thinkers throughout history.

Let's begin by first examining the two fallacious competing views: relativism and pragmatism.

Relativism

"The truth of a statement depends on the views of persons or cultures...for a statement to be true simply means that a person or culture believes it to be true."

This view seems to advance tolerance and civility, but it does so at the expense of logic. Because truth is considered a very personal thing relative to the individual, relativism makes it impossible to prove or disprove the validity of a belief. In relativism, the real criminal is the one who would evaluate another's beliefs and declare them idiocy, or even - gasp! - insanity. But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing tha

tian evangelism is moving away from declaring that Jesus is the Only Way, and moving towards offering up an insipid, feel-good, like-me-and-buy-my-book version of the gospel.

If we are ambivalent about truth, the world will sense our inner conflict and become confused and cynical. In determining which truth claims are indeed true, I have found it helpful to understand the nature of truth itself.

There are basically three competing views of truth:

The sensible correspondence view

The self-contradictory relative view

The illogical pragmatic view.

I'm obviously biased towards the correspondence view. It's logical and has been the view held by the vast majority of deep-thought-thinkers throughout history.

Let's begin by first examining the two fallacious competing views: relativism and pragmatism.

Relativism

"The truth of a statement depends on the views of persons or cultures...for a statement to be true simply means that a person or culture believes it to be true."

This view seems to advance tolerance and civility, but it does so at the expense of logic. Because truth is considered a very personal thing relative to the individual, relativism makes it impossible to prove or disprove the validity of a belief. In relativism, the real criminal is the one who would evaluate another's beliefs and declare them idiocy, or even - gasp! - insanity. But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing th

correspondence view

The self-contradictory relative view

The illogical pragmatic view.

I'm obviously biased towards the correspondence view. It's logical and has been the view held by the vast majority of deep-thought-thinkers throughout history.

Let's begin by first examining the two fallacious competing views: relativism and pragmatism.

Relativism

"The truth of a statement depends on the views of persons or cultures...for a statement to be true simply means that a person or culture believes it to be true."

This view seems to advance tolerance and civility, but it does so at the expense of logic. Because truth is considered a very personal thing relative to the individual, relativism makes it impossible to prove or disprove the validity of a belief. In relativism, the real criminal is the one who would evaluate another's beliefs and declare them idiocy, or even - gasp! - insanity. But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing th

cultures...for a statement to be true simply means that a person or culture believes it to be true."

This view seems to advance tolerance and civility, but it does so at the expense of logic. Because truth is considered a very personal thing relative to the individual, relativism makes it impossible to prove or disprove the validity of a belief. In relativism, the real criminal is the one who would evaluate another's beliefs and declare them idiocy, or even - gasp! - insanity. But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing th

But how else do you characterize the tenets of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members believed that their mass suicide would transport them to the mother ship and elevate mankind into a new era of evolution? According to relativism, their belief is true.

Pragmatism

"Belief is true only if it works for a particular person."

There's not much difference between pragmatism and relativism. Both depend upon the individual sincerely believing that his or her belief is true, much like the early sincere belief system that held that the world was flat. Was the world indeed flat at that time because the common belief dictated that it be flat? Did the world somehow become a sphere in order to correspond with Galileo's beliefs? Of course this is ridiculous, but it serves to illuminate the ridiculous nature of pragmatism.

Now, let's finish up by touching on the correspondence view of truth.

The Correspondence View

"Any statement is true if and only if it corresponds to or agrees with factual reality"

Honestly, how can anyone argue with that? The correspondence view opens itself up to scrutiny by stating up front that it must agree with factual reality. By definition, correspondence can not contradict anything that we already know to be true or can verify by logical process.

In fact, the correspondence view is supported by three principles of logic: the law of bivalence, the law of excluded middle, and the principle of contradiction.

The Law of Bivalence

"Any unambiguous, declarative statement must be either true or false. It cannot be neither true nor false; nor can it be both true and false."

The Law of Excluded Middle

"Either A or non-A" Something is either true or it isn't.

The Principle of Contradiction

"A cannot be non-A in the same way and in the same respect."

Finally, let's apply these three principles of logic to a controversial statement in the Bible.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." This is about as unambiguous and declarative as you can get, and it is either true or it isn't. Jesus can not be both the only way to God and an optional way to God.

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