Evidence for Objective, Absolute Truth (1)

The next several posts will be the actual text from my book, Biblical Glasses. Perhaps it will serve as an open invitation for further discussion on the topics addressed within. Here goes, skipping the preface, and beginning with the introduction chapter: Evidence for a Truthful Worldview.

The word worldview, derived from the German language in 1858, offers its best English definition as “a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint.” There are a variety of worldviews in existence today. People from diverse cultures and backgrounds have different conceptions of the world primarily because of their history in the world. Was it always that way? Was there ever an absolute truth, a single worldview that governed the lives of all people?

Although I am far from an expert historian, a brief review of our world’s history has enhanced my understanding of how culture today compares with the past and why our world is the way it is. Consider the following:

Prior to the benchmark of 500 B.C., secular history suggests most people in the world believed God or gods controlled the world; Biblical history agrees. Around 500 B.C., thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius began pondering both the world’s existence and individual relationships within the world apart from God. Despite these early attempts to reduce God in the worldview of sophisticated people, the next 2000 years saw a consistent theological worldview that God, or gods, created the world and divinely appointed leaders, who in turn taught truth to the people by their lifestyles.

During the enlightenment, an intellectual movement associated with the eighteenth century (1700s), modernism became prevalent as the popular worldview. Modernism taught that truth could be found in one’s own life, through science, technology, traveling the world, and communicating with all sorts of people in many cultures. In some societies, modernism, “a theological tendency to accommodate traditional religious teaching to contemporary thought and especially to devalue supernatural elements,” is still considered a dominant worldview; however, post-modernism, the successor of modernism, is the worldview of choice for many people today.

Whereas modernists generally maintain that a passive divine being exists, post-modernists, also known as humanists, have developed “a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism altogether and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.” Humanists generally believe there is no objective or absolute truth, no divine Being or beings; only subjective or individual truth exists.

This philosophy suggests truth can be found only by consulting inner feelings and making decisions based on internal instincts. A more common description of the post-modern or humanist worldview is referred to as moral relativism, which advocates “knowledge of morality and ethics [as] relative to the limited nature of the mind.” In the post-modern worldview, truth is what you make it, because there is no divine authority to provide universal truth!

Looking back at the world in the past 200 years, and more explicitly at America in the past sixty years, knowledge, technology, travel, and population have been growing at exponential rates just as the Bible foretold (see Daniel 12:4; Revelation 9:15-16, 13:16-18). See the chart below:

We are learning more and more about the universe in which we live; satisfying daily needs is becoming easier and more convenient than ever. Modern medicine is quite possibly the greatest achievement in all of human history. Life expectancy rates are rising due to medical achievements and discoveries! Think about it: If 200 years ago you had the flu, you would have likely died; if you had a bad fever, you would have died; if you needed an appendectomy, you would have died. The list could go on and on!

Despite the modern conveniences of which we can take advantage in the twenty-first century, there are more “wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6; Mark 13:7) than ever before. There is no way to stop a terrorist suicide bomber with all the weaponry available today. One madman could practically bring the entire world to its knees by unleashing the power of a nuclear or chemical weapon. Look at the number of deaths in all the wars and acts of genocide during the twentieth century! Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung combined to kill a tenth of a billion people. It is estimated that abortion has ended the lives of over a billion babies worldwide in only the past thirty years! Abortion worldwide killed fifty million (50,000,000) babies in 1995 alone! Over 100,000 people in this world die from starvation, AIDS, and waterborne diseases each day! As the Bible prophesied, there are increasing numbers of natural disasters like earthquakes, famines, and pestilences, and there are blatant sexual perversions throughout the world (see Mathew 24). (We will study some of these instances in chapter ten.)

The complexity of education, health care, civil rights, and church/state issues has caused more division in our country than ever before. Lack of justice in our court systems allows for professional criminals and victims to get their way while taxpayers often unknowingly support them. Corruption in the government and among large corporations dominates the news as ethical standards continue to deteriorate; we must now guard against unscrupulous financial reports and other formerly reliable corporate practices. There is decreasing morality in America, arguably caused by our own television programs and other forms of immoral entertainment. Worst of all, the family, which as we will see has been the one constant throughout all of time, has fallen apart. The following prayer of an anonymous teenager shows the effects of the family’s downfall:

Now I sit me down in school, where praying is against the rule.
For this great nation under God finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites, it violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green, that’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise. Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
Praying in a public hall might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate, God’s name is prohibited by the state.
We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, and pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible. To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen, and the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong, we’re taught those ‘judgments’ don’t belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls, study witchcraft, vampires, and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed, no Word of God must reach this crowd.
It’s scary here I must confess, when chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make: Should I be shot; my soul please take!

Notwithstanding the incredible advancements since the end of World War II (i.e. modern medicine, knowledge, technology, travel, etc.), the world is getting worse. Scientific observation has clearly proven the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which essentially says the universe and everything in it are deteriorating. Regardless of what we are told by society today (evolution and moral relativism), the evidence clearly points to the Second Law of Thermodynamics as objective, absolute truth. It is true for all people all the time our world is decaying! It has been doing so ever since the beginning. So I want to start there—in the beginning. Maybe by looking at the beginning, we can have a fresh perspective on the world—a truthful worldview. Where can we learn about the beginning? I believe it starts with the Bible. We need to take a look at the world through “Biblical Glasses.”