Biblical Landmarks

Meet the Apostles of Denial

“Everything is just a matter of opinion. You have your opinion. I have my opinion. Truth is whatever you perceive it to be.”

So said a young lady in my home recently. A Christian young lady educated in the best public schools and the best state universities.

And she attends a church that cannot tell her how to tell the difference between truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil.

This young lady cannot think clearly. If she possessed any analytical capacity she would see that her comment does not make sense. You can tell when people don’t understand. They say things that don’t make sense and actually believe what they say.

The background to her comment was my own disagreement with something she had said. I said she was wrong. Her response was an attempt to tell me that her opinion was right for her, if no one else, and I should not say she was wrong.

Well, I asked, “Isn’t that what you are doing to me now? I tell you you’re wrong, that’s my opinion. Why can’t I express it. Under your own logic, I am certainly entitled to hold this view.”

Silence.

Me: “So if someone says it is OK for them to beat up young ladies in the park, rape and steal, is it OK for them to do that, since they believe it is right?”

More silence.

And silence is an indication of an incoherent worldview. This is why there is only one worldview. Only one worldview allows you to hold a conversation. Only one worldview allows you to believe that when you speak, you are not just speaking your own thoughts, but you are speaking thoughts that can be understood by other people.

Unfortunately, a similar idea flows throughout the Christian community in another form. “Your interpretation of the Bible is valid for you. My interpretation of the Bible is valid for me.”

Now as soon as you begin telling these folk that their ideas are wrong, you begin to see their dilemma. It’s a knowledge problem. How do you know that you know things? How do you know what is right or what is wrong? How do you know what is true and what is false?

These are easy questions — unless you were educated in humanistic schools and colleges. And here’s the answer.

You don’t know you know anything at all unless someone who does know everything tells you something. That piece of information alone can be counted on, for it comes from the mind of the person for whom there can be no surprises.

You see, some of the philosophies that exist are true — given their basic premises. The mind of man alone cannot figure out the truth of anything, for tomorrow he might learn something new that changes today’s opinions. Skepicism is one of the results of this view.

But as soon as you ask the question, “Is that statement true” and they answer you affirmatively, you know they don’t really believe it.

Under their belief system, they cannot say anything is true — or false. Their worldview doesn’t allow it. They have a worldview with no categories but one: there are no categories.

But these denials are willing to adopt the biblical worldview about knowledge in order to be able to make their statements this is wrong or that is right.

And that is why there are no worldviews but one. And that view is dependent upon the fact that God has spoken and communicated truth to His creatures, and that truth is knowable, not just as a matter of opinion, but as a universal truth for all people of all times.

You cannot begin to comprehend the Fall until you realize that sin is the attempt by man to determine right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error, unaided by divine revelation. That’s they key: divine revelation.

There is no God, screams the atheist, all the time attesting to the truths of Scripture that make his statement meaningful. There is no truth, screams the atheist, except the truths he will allow. And the existence of God is not one of them.

As St. Paul said, “professing to be wise, they become fools.”

God bless you as you advance His kingdom.