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Monday, September 14, 2009

A Fifth Quote from The Truth War

So what is truth?

Here is a simple definition drawn from what the Bible teaches: truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point: truth is the self-expression of God. That is the biblical meaning of truth, and it is the definition I employ throughout this book. Because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological.

Truth is also ontological--which is a fancy way of saying it is the way things really are. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth.
You would not--I say again, NOT--believe the discussions I've had with people over statements as simple as, "A statement is true if it corresponds with reality." People get livid about that. They want to be able to say that their ideas are true even if they don't actually happen to correspond to reality.

You see this in politics, too. Conservatives--Burkean conservatives, Kirkan conservatives, Buchanan conservatives--refer to people like this as ideologues. They are people so committed to the ideas of--for example--single-payer health-care, free trade (careful; I am not referring to free markets here), a green economy, a controlled economy, nation-building, etc., that the plain fact that these all have terrible track records simply has no impact on their thinking. They want so badly to believe that the idea is okay, it's only proper implementation that has been lacking, that they will believe obvious falsehood and will take great offense at anyone having the temerity to point out that reality does not confirm their opinions.

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