The Absolute Truth

[jstrodel]

Because the Bible is a text, it means that the meaning derived from it will be subject to the person reading it. This arguably means that there will be as many interpretations of the text as there are people reading it. How is it possible then to ever think that the Bible is the Ultimate Truth, since truth is binary in nature (i.e. something can be true or false). We seem to have a whole spectrum of what God made a reality (and hence the truth) according to the broad range of interpretations, but only one interpretation will have the right combination of true/false propositions.


To sum up (assuming God exists):
P1) God exists
P2) Truth depends on what God decided to be a part of reality or not
P3) There are an endless possibility of interpretations of what this reality is
P4) There is only one correct interpretation of the truth
C) Therefore, the probability that the correct interpretation is the one the believer holds is 0

James 3:1
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

Assuming this verse means to say that anyone who teaches falsehoods will be punished, it then follows that pastors all around the world are leading their sheep astray (since the probability that their interpretation is 0) and they are earning themselves spanks on the bum for teaching these falsehoods.

To sum up: a book whose truth-value depends on time, place & culture for it to be verified and deemed as the plausible Ultimate Truth should always be discarded. A more reasoned approach to seek for truth is in nature, because nature isn't dependent on time, place & culture. Therefore the truths found in physics, maths & philosophy can always be verified and tested unlike the scribblings of a culture long gone.

P3) There are an endless possibility of interpretations of what this reality is
- If this is true, then your post is self refuting, because there is an endless possibility of interpretations of the reality that it expresses

The reality is that texts have multiple interpretations, but there is not an endless number of possible interpretations, there is maybe 5 or 6. This leads to maybe 30 or 40 different main theological movements that share the core themes and a bunch of other heretical movements that significantly deviate from the main movements, not because of differences in interpretation but because their theological methodological is totally different (e.g. reliance on philosophical theology over exegesis and/or acceptance of liberalism as an authoritative belief system).

I would suggest that a healthy dose of common sense could strengthen your understanding of the world.

I would further argue that the Bible does not really require 100% theological accuracy. Jesus says "you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free" but if you study the life of Christ, he explicitly rejects the Pharisiacal obsession with law. The New Testament is not a book of law, and adherance to Biblical morality does not really revolve around knowing every single theological issue perfectly. It does matter, and there are sharp disagreements about Christians over doctrine. But this is admist a continual reminder that Christians should center their lives around the love of "love your neighbor as your self" and not be like the Pharisees, who deified the law, sort of like todays intellectuals, and made all sorts of complicated formulas and ethical statements to require people to do all sorts of things that departed from the simple teachings of Christ, really, the teachings that each person is born with and knows instinctively from their relationship to the world.

Christianity is not really about knowledge of absolute truth, God says 'the secret things belong to the LORD our God but the things He has revealed belong to us and to our children forever' Deu. God hides things, God does not give people the original manuscripts of scripture, YHVH hides many difficult teachings from people.

The proposition "Christianity is true" does not require a complete understanding of the full nature of Christianity any more than "America is a nation with many cities" requires visiting every city in America to verify that maps and past experience and testimonies of different cities are accurate. If there was a map that contained some inaccuracies, that would be an issue, but that would not change the fact that the proposition "America is a nation with many cities" is true and verifiable independently of errors in maps or gaps in travel.