Truth Has Fallen in the Streets, Part Three

We Have Traded Facts for Feelings

Isaiah 59:14-15 NIV
So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice
2 Timothy 4:2-4 NIV
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Proverbs 14:12 NKJV
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
“It can’t be wrong when it feels so right…”
Words and Music by Joe Brooks
You Light Up My Life lyrics © 1977 Universal Music Publishing Group

“What is truth?”
Pilate’s famous question to Jesus when the Savior appeared, bruised and bound, in his Roman court is an ancient one. Though centuries have passed since he offered it as a counter argument to Jesus’ testimony, Pilate’s dilemma remains the central question at the heart of all civilizations. “What is truth?” There are only two options:

Absolute Truth: truth that is fixed and applicable to all at all times, and,
Relative Truth: truth that is adjusted to individuals and groups as they wish.

Each civilization operates by a mix of both kinds of truth:

Laws that are considered to be the unbreakable principles of behavior, and,
Concepts that are flexible and bendable as circumstances, personal preferences, and power structures come into play.

In the Roman court where Jesus stood in judgment, Roman law was absolute, taking precedent over Jewish customs. To keep the Pax Romana, the “Roman Peace,” was the goal. This was achieved by letting the Jews obey their laws as if they were absolutes as long as they didn’t conflict with Roman laws. The problem with Jesus was that He was charged with claiming to be King of the Jews—an obvious threat to Rome. So, as the leaders of the Jews confessed their blasphemy, “We have no king but Caesar,” it would be the cross for Jesus.

In the centuries since that trial in Jerusalem, civilizations have arisen, clashed with one another, and fallen into ruins leaving behind fractured, crumbling evidence of their greatness or violence or inventiveness according to the absolutes they embraced. Western Civilization, those nations most directly affected by Judeo-Christian thought, have had continuous progress although plagued by violence and destruction when the absolutes of these beliefs were abandoned.

Modernism
Beginning in the mid-19^th century, three intellectual movements served to shift Western Culture away from the absolutes of Judeo-Christian thought.

Darwinian Evolution claimed that the world was a product of millennia of gradual processes instead of the work of the Creator. This was a challenge to the belief that mankind was a special creation of God made in His image, imago Dei, and is thus a spiritual as well as a natural being.
Freudian Psychology taught that people were only the highest form of animal life and thus could not have special rights or values assigned to them.
In Christian thought, Higher Criticism gained a powerful influence in the Protestant Church. This belief system turned away from the idea that the Bible was “the Word of God” to embrace the belief that the Bible “contains the Word of God.” If the Bible is the Word of God, it has absolute authority. If it merely contains the Word of God, then scholars have authority over the Bible standing in judgement of it to help lesser minds sort out the facts from the fables, myths, and obviously untrue portions.

The Christian Response
The church in Western Culture had three basic responses to these challenges.

Liberal Christianity gave in to to this departure from the rule of absolute truth as found in the Bible. In a process called Higher Criticism secular methods of Bible study became the rule. Instead of the traditional method of letting “scripture interpret scripture,” scholars took authority over the Bible. This was a thorough surrender of the concept of absolute truth to the chaos and tyranny of relative truth. One’s feelings were more relevant than the facts in the text.
Fundamentalist Christianity arose in direct conflict with Higher Criticism. While well intended, there was a large measure of pride in this approach. While the Bible was recognized as absolute truth, there was no room for relative truths found in other sources, science, industry, research, etc. The Bible was seen as the only source of truth. This had the effect of setting the fundamentalist churches against the progress so readily apparent in the scientific and industrial movements of the day.
The Evangelical/Holiness/Pentecostal movements were fully committed to the authority of Scripture but were also open to other types of truth discovered through other means. This idea is best expressed in this declaration, “All truth is God’s Truth.” Truths revealed through scientific means, or industrial innovation, or scholastic discovery were testimonies to the creativity of God and served as further revelation of Who God is.

The 21^st Century
There is little room for fellowship between groups who are committed to the assimilation of life principles—biblical absolutes—and those who place themselves in authority over the Bible, making it a flexible, bendable, source of design-it-yourself ideas for living. There is, of course, tremendous appeal to a do-as-you-please approach to life. The inevitable result is the rule of emotion over reason. As was said in my college days, “If it feels good, do it!” This was the mantra of the “cultural revolution” of the late 1960s which led to the cultural chaos of the 1970s.

Assumptions
An assumption is something you believe without proof. I was never a good math student. I joked that I was convinced that higher math was simply a cruel hoax. However, one thing I learned in geometry aided me in my college days—the acceptance of axioms and postulates as truths that one must believe without proof in order to do the work of geometry. When I went to a secular college to study music, I knew I would be exposed to professors and fellow students who were dedicated to relativism, and that, as someone who believed in absolute truth, I would be a target of derision. So, I did the math! I counted the impressive number of axioms and postulates (12!) that must be accepted as truth without proof and compared that to my meager set of assumptions. I had only three things that I chose to believe by faith:

God is Creator of all things.
He loves His creation so He has communicated with us.
The Bible is that communication.

All of my beliefs could then be deduced by the careful study of God’s Word. So, this Pentecostal music major was well equipped to do battle with the liberals because the score was 3 to 12! (Low score wins!) My philosophy required less faith and fewer assumptions than geometry! I learned much from my professors and tempered their wisdom by the Word of God.

When Feelings Rule
Order in any civilization is defined by the assumptions of that culture. When there are no absolutes, these assumptions are seen as “reasonable.” For instance, with no absolute understanding of right and wrong…

The genocidal policy of Adolf Hitler is just as legitimate as the “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” the angel choir announced at the birth of Jesus.
The massacres required by socialist dictators like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao to gain and hold power are as justifiable as a democratic election in the USA. This is the assumption: “The ends justify the means.” The results prove this axiom: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The life of the unborn child has no more intrinsic value that of an insect if human life is merely the highest form of animal life.
Gender is a huge buffet of roles one might play—“you pays your money and takes your choice.”
Marriage between a man and a woman is only one option among many, not a divine institution blessed by God.
Sex is for pleasure and creates no bond between a husband and wife.
The home is a privilege granted by the state, subject to replacement by governmental whim. It is not the fundamental structure of human life.
There is no “spirit-realm.” All paranormal phenomena are illusions.

This is just a partial list of the lies that are presented to us as truths when truth is seen as relative.

The Way that Seems Right
I find it amazing that ancient words spoken into “primitive” societies can sound as such pressing and relevant warnings in these “enlightened” modern times. Read this verse carefully.

Proverbs 14:12 NKJV
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

These words come from Israel’s wisest king, King Solomon. Written hundreds of years before Jesus came to us, their warning is alarming still today. What does it mean to us? Only this: As smart and educated and advanced as we are, we can still be wrong, and not only mistaken, but deadly so. Today our culture has been captured by a sinister, deceptive enemy who appeals to our basic desires. Whatever we really, really want, must be what we really, really need. In the words of a song from the 70s. “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right.” We have traded facts for feelings. Still, the facts do not go away. They still rule the cause-and-effect nature of life as God created it. We still reap what we sow, even if the seeds we sow fulfill our temporary, self-centered desires.

The Facts of Life
Each of us has a story to tell of the moment when as a child we learned about “the facts of life.” I remember my conversation with my father. He framed my emerging adolescent mind and body in the truth. He was careful to point me toward righteousness with the blessings God intended. He balanced these with the warnings of the potential disasters awaiting the wrong choices. Today these facts have been discarded and the tragic results are all around us in the death of innocence, the broken hearts and homes, the unavoidable products of iniquity, and the horrible holocaust of pre-born lives.

The Desire for Truth
God installed in each human being a desire for the real truth. Human history is the multifaceted account of this quest expressed in the many languages of earth and the myriad of cultures readily observed around us. God loves us all so much, He has revealed His truth to us so that we are no longer alone in this quest. We are no longer destined for the ditch as when the “blind lead the blind.” (Lk 6:39) Yes, it requires faith, believing things for which there is no proof. The truth then and now is this: Everyone lives by faith. We base our choices on things we believe without proof; it isn’t just geometry, it’s us! Why not lift your eyes above your bodies and seek a higher, proven vision of reality? Hear the words of Jesus:

John 3:16-18 NIV
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

May I suggest an inventory.
Examine your assumptions. They are so pervasive in our world that you may not even be aware that you have them. Do you assume these things to be true?

The universe is the result of chance, a gigantic accident.
People are just the highest form of animal life, simply a physical being with no spiritual element.
There is no written rule of life; we are each on our own, left to our own devices.
There is no prescribed order to life or “mother nature.” All events are random.
If there is a creator god, he/she/it has left us to our own devices.
My feelings are my guide through life.
There are no absolute truths; all “truths” are relative.

There is no proof for any of these beliefs. What is your score?

There is another way, one proven by more than 2000 years of testimony.

Trade your feelings for facts.

Stephen Phifer
July 20, 2024