Is Truth Knowable?

Now I'm here to tell you that all truth is absolute truth. There are no relative truths. Every truth is absolute. And something that is true is true for all persons at all times and all places. You say, wait, I can think of a relative truth already, Frank. What is it? Well, right now I feel warm while the people in Alaska feel cold. That's relative. No, it's not relative. It's absolutely true for all people at all times and all places that right now you feel warm. Remember, truth is what corresponds to its reference. When referring to you, it's true. You feel warm right now despite what the people in Alaska feel. It's absolutely true for all people at all times and all places that right now the people in Alaska feel cold. That's absolutely true. There are no relative truths. Truth is truth. Now when you say things like this, however, you get a lot of objections in our culture today. Here are some objections we get to absolute truth. There is no truth. I heard that said on the radio once. A guy called in and said, there is no truth. What do you do with that? Someone called in one time and said, you can't know truth. You just can't know it. Or sometimes they'll say, all truth is relative. Or my favorite, it's true for you but not for me. Christianity may be true for you but Buddhism is true for me. Right? No one has the truth. You Christians, you think you have the truth? Let me tell you something. Nobody has the truth. What do you say to that? And if they really get angry at you or annoyed, they'll say, well, you ought not judge. You Christians, you're so judgmental. Stop judging. Don't you judge me. Jesus said, don't judge. We've got to deal with all these things, don't we? If we can't refute these particular objections, then we can't say the Bible is true. And the way we're going to refute these claims is to apply the claim to itself. Apply the claim to itself. For example, if someone were to come up here, suppose I were to come up here and say to you, look, I can't speak a word in English. What would you say? You just did, right? Everyone can see that's self-defeating. To say I can't speak a word in English is self-defeating. It's logically self-defeating. Now, something that's practically self-defeating would be for me to say, my parents had no kids that lived. Right? Have to be here to say that. Now, we call this in the book the Roadrunner Tactic because it reminds us of Wiley, Coyote, and Roadrunner. What's Wiley, Coyote's only mission in life? Catch the Roadrunner. And Roadrunner's just a little bit too fast for Coyote, right? Just as it looks like Coyote's about to catch him, Roadrunner stops short of the cliff. And for that split second as Coyote goes blowing by him, Coyote's hanging in midair with that question mark over his head until he realizes what? He's got no ground to stand on and he plummets to the ground in a heap. That's exactly what you can do to people who utter self-defeating statements. You can show them their argument has no ground to stand on and they plummet to the ground in a heap. The entire argument collapses on itself. So when someone says there is no truth, if you apply the claim to itself, what should you say? Is that true? You see? Or if somebody says all truth is relative, what should you say? Apply the claim to itself. Yeah, is that a relative truth? No, that's supposed to be an absolute truth. Right? How about somebody says this? This is a big one in our culture today. It's true for you, but not for me. What do you say to that? Apply the claim to itself. What do you say? This section over here. Well, you could say why, but the easiest way to refute it is to say, yes, is that true for everybody? Is it true for everybody that it's true for you, but not for me? Because if it's true for everybody that it's true for you, but not for me, then true for you, but not for me can't be true because it's true for everybody. Right? Actually, there's a more fun way to deal with this. If somebody says it's true for you, but not for me, say, sure, go try that with your bank teller. Go to your bank teller one day and say, I'd like $100,000 out of my account. Bank teller looks at your account and says, I'm sorry, you only have $47.12 in your account. And you go, huh, that's true for you, but not for me. Give me the 100 grand. Now, if it's true for you, it's true for everybody when it's a truth that refers to its referent. And that's true for religious claims as well. If it's true that God exists, that's true for everybody, whether you believe it or not. If it's true that Jesus rose again for the sins of the world, that's true for everybody, whether you believe it or not. Will your faith change whether Jesus died and rose again? No, he either did or he didn't, regardless of what you believe about it. Do you have to believe something to make it true? Do you have to believe in gravity to stay on the ground? Do all those people who don't believe in gravity float away? Look, there's another one. Come back. If you believe, you'll come back. No. Your faith doesn't change a thing about whether or not this book is true. The only thing your faith does is it appropriates the salvific content of it to you. It does not change whether or not God exists, or whether or not Jesus rose again, or whether or not this book is true. How about this one? There's no truth in religion, only science. You hear this a lot on college campuses. Or camp I. That's what they say. They say there is no truth in religion, or philosophy, or anything else. There's only truth in science. We get all our truth from science. So all your religious truths are just a matter of faith. And all the scientific truths over here, they're really true. What's the problem with the statement? Yeah, is that a scientific truth? No, that's not a scientific truth. You can't go in the laboratory and prove that. That's a philosophical claim right there. So it defeats itself. And wipes away a lot of skepticism about Christianity. You ignorant, arrogant, judgmental Christians. You think you have the truth. Let me tell you, nobody has the truth. What do you say to that? Yeah, then how do you have the truth that that's true? If we can't know the truth, how do you have the truth that nobody has the truth? Because if you have the truth that nobody has the truth, then I guess somebody has the truth, namely you. Which means that nobody has the truth isn't true. I know this can give you intellectual constipation if you think about it long enough. In fact, in order for you to say that somebody is wrong, what do you have to know? You have to know what is right. You can't say somebody is not right unless you know what is right. You know, you're hearing a lot now from our postmodern culture that everything is meaningless. Or that words don't have any meaning. What do you say to that? Everything is meaningless. You say, hey, what do you mean? I mean, if everything is meaningless, what do you mean by that? Trying to tell us how to live when you say there's no meaning. Of course there's meaning. How about this one? You should doubt everything. This is the skeptical claim, right? What do you say to that? Yeah, should I doubt that? See, why are skeptics skeptical of everything but skepticism? Why don't they start doubting doubt? See, if you start doubting doubt, then you're back to knowing something for sure, right? Maybe skeptics ought to start doubting their doubts. Have you guys ever thought about doubting your doubts? I doubt it. Actually, how many in here have doubts? Everybody has doubts. If you don't have doubts, you're not thinking. All right, so a lot of people aren't thinking, sorry. Everybody has doubts. But when you look at the evidence, at least for me, I realize that most of my doubts are emotional, they're not intellectual. And when they're emotional doubts, I should go, look, that's just emotion. Emotions come and go, but facts never change. When you look at the evidence for Christianity, you realize that you ought to start doubting your doubts. How about, oh, this is the biggie. This is the trump card. You can get through all this, and they're going to say, but you ought not judge. Yeah, there you go. What do you say to that? You say, isn't that a judgment? See, so the next time somebody tries to stop you dead in your tracks for judging, they say, don't you judge me. You know what you ought to say to them? Then why are you judging me for judging? That's what they're doing. You can't avoid making judgments. Now, this roadrunner tactic is an easy way for you to be a lie detector. We have a built-in lie detector called the law of non-contradiction, and the built-in lie detector reminds me of Homer Simpson. Check this out. Now we're going to run a few tests. This is a simple lie detector. I'll ask you a few yes or no questions, and you just answer truthfully. Do you understand? Yes. That is known as a self-defeating statement, ladies and gentlemen.