Ethical Answers in an Unethical World What is Truth? John Oakes, PhD Nov. 20, 2009 Rutgers U. Is Anything True Anymore?

You are Invited! 2010 International Christian Evidence Conference Concordia University Irvine, CA June 12-14, 2010 Evolution: Four Views

Also… Apologetics Research Society Presents January 2010 Certificate Program in Christian Apologetics Classes on DVD For information:

Jesus Christ: “I came to testify to the truth.” Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?”

The Problem as I See It  The Secularization of Culture  The Loss of Morality  The Loss of God  The Loss of the Intellectual High Ground at the University to Non-Believers.

The Culprits: The Leading Philosophies of Our Day  Naturalism/Scientism/Materialism  Postmodernism: The Loss of Truth Delos B. McKown: “Christianity is scientifically unsupported and probably insupportable, philosophically suspect at best and disreputable at worst, and historically fraudulent.”

World View  The perspective one uses to process and interpret information received about the world.  James W. Sire “A world view is a set of presuppositions (ie. assumptions) which we hold about the basic makeup of our world.” James W. Sire, TheUniverse Next Door James W. Sire, TheUniverse Next Door

What Makes for a “Good” World View 1. It is “true” 2. It successfully answers the important questions humans ask 3. Those who ascribe to it are better human beings for having taken this as their world view.

Questions That Need an Answer 1. What is the prime reality? (What is the nature of God?) 2. What am I? 3. What happens to a person at death? 4. Why is it possible for us to know anything at all? 5. How do we know what is right and wrong? 6. What is my purpose in life? 7. What is the nature of my relationship, with the “prime reality?”

Naturalism/Scientism/Materialism  The belief that the only reliable or valid instrument to deciding the truth or even the value of any proposition is the scientific method.  No basis for ethics or morality, no supernatural, no God, no truth (except that found by science), no consciousness, no “I.” Justice is a figment of our imagination.

Richard Dawkins  In the universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt and other people are going to get lucky: and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.

Thomas Huxley  We are as much the product of blind forces as is the falling of a stone to earth, or the ebb and flow of the tides. We have just happened, and man was made flesh by a long series of singularly beneficial accidents.  A Question for Huxley: If you believe in scientism, then in what sense is it beneficial that we exist?

Postmodernism: The Loss of Truth  Truth, if such a thing exists, is the property of culture. There is no absolute truth. All truth is relative. It is created by societies. There is no ultimate moral authority or moral absolute.

Roger Bacon ( ) Bacon’s advice: To study Natural Philosophy, use; “External experience, aided by instruments, and made precise by mathematics.” A (ridiculously) Brief History of Science:

Predictions Based on Christian Theology: 1. The universe will follow a single, unchanging set of laws. 2. The universe will be understandable to human beings. 3.The universe will be describable by mathematics. 4.The universe will be designed so that we can observe it - (“The Priveleged Planet” Gonzalez and Richards)

Assumptions of Science  There exists a single, unchanging set of laws which govern all events in the physical universe.  The Human mind are able to understand the workings of the physical universe.  The laws which govern the universe are describable by mathematics.

Basic Assumptions of Science  Assumptions are accepted without proof  Form the basis of all scientific thinking  In other words, the basic assumptions of science are accepted on faith.

Galileo “For the Holy Scripture and the phenomenon of nature proceed alike from the divine Word, the former as the dictate of the Holy Spirit and the latter as the observant executor of God’s commands.”

Isaac Newton The Universal Law of Gravity. The Mechanical Universe Is God the “Primary Mover?”

18 th Century Skepticism  If the Universe works like a machine, why invoke God?  Voltaire: Religious Skepticism  David Hume “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”  Can we really know anything absolutely? David Hume

19 th Century Materialism/Naturalism  Pierre-Simone La Place About God: About God: “I have no need of that hypothesis” “I have no need of that hypothesis”

The 20 th Century  Science appears triumphant  Scientism proposed. Beyond Morality. Eugenics.  Quantum Mechanics. Is determinism reality?  WWI WWII Hiroshima Modernity loses its luster. Humans are not getting better and better.  Scientific Materialism cannot answer our deepest questions. Scientism is hubris.  Enter, Postmodernism!

A Response to Naturalism/Materialism/Scientism  It is a faith/religious belief based on circular reasoning.  It cannot answer the questions human beings care about.  It is patently and demonstrably false.  As a world view it is does not tend to make its followers “better.” If fact it is downright dangerous.

Scientific Materialism  Only that which can be observed and measured through the technique of Scientific Method is real, and everything else is unreal.  Only that which can be observed and measured through the technique of Scientific Method is real, and everything else is unreal.

Materialism  “We exist as material beings in a material world, all of whose phenomena are the consequences of material relations among material entities." In a word, the public needs to accept materialism, which means that they must put God in the trash can of history where such myths belong.” Richard Lewontin Richard Lewontin Retrospective essay on Carl Sagan in the January 9, 1997 New York Review of Books, Retrospective essay on Carl Sagan in the January 9, 1997 New York Review of Books,

Circular Reasoning Unprovable assumptions of science. The universe is ordered and essentially unchanging. The universe is observable and understandable. The universe is governed by mathematically precise laws. None of these assumptions can be proved by experiment. In a sense, science is not scientific.

Questions Science Can Answer  When?  What?  Where?  How many?  By what means?

Questions Science Cannot Answer: (That Christianity Does Answer) –Why am I here? –Is that the right thing to do? –How valuable am I? –Does God exist? Does God act (theism)? –Will that God respond if I pray? –Do supernatural events (miracles) happen?

Materialism is Patently False If Materialism/Naturalism is right then;  “I” do not exist. Consciousness is just random moving around of chemicals.  No soul, no spirit, no non-physical reality.  Belief in God is just a “meme” the unfortunate accidental result of brain evolution.  Life has no value. Human beings have no value. What is value?  Love is chemicals moving around (vs. God is love)

If the Materialist is right, then…  Religious thought is absolute nonsense. Prayer is chemical moving around in your brain.  Art, Literature, Music have no intrinsic value.  Justice is a meaningless word.  Human rights have no basis.  Etc….

Scientism is Patently False Because….  The universe was created.  Life was created.  The Anthropic Principle. The universe is ridiculously well fine-tuned for us to exist.  No one in their right mind can deny the existence of right and wrong  The Bible is inspired by God.

Naturalism does not tend to make its believers better people. Dangerous? If the naturalist is right then:  Good and evil are meaningless ideas.  Our purpose, if it exists at all, is to pass on our DNA.  Any kind of sexual behavior is as right as any other. Stealing is probably good.  There is nothing inherently evil about genocide.  Racism, slavery etc can be defended.

If the Materialist is Right Then…  Violence selfishness greed are acceptable behavior.  Justice is a meaningless construct.  The words “ought and should” are meaningless.  There is no such thing as sin or wrong behavior.  Consider the only societies in human history controlled by atheists. French Revolution, USSR, Communist China, Khmer Rouge, North Korea….  Is this where human beings want to head?

No wonder intellectuals (over)reacted With the result being postmodernism! Now, let us discuss postmodernism.

Postmodernism/Cultural Relativism  Positive Contributions –Importance of groups and relationships between groups. –Gives honor to culture, beauty, wonder, imagination. –More accurate description of history (including the history of science). –The Western mindset is not the only valid one.  Problems –Very confusing. –No world view is preferred. –The idea of truth, for all practical purposes, disappears.

Postmodernism: Cultural Relativism  Reality is a social construction.  Truth: It is true for you, but it is not true for me.  Meaning, if it exists, lies in a community of believers.  Self is a construction of our society.  No rational way to discover which is the best world view.

Theories of Truth  Correspondence Theory of Truth: A statement is true if reality corresponds to that which is predicted by the statement.  Relativism (postmodernism): A claim is made true for those who accept it by that very act (of accepting it).  Truth is either discovered or created.  Truth is either absolute or relative.

If The Postmodernists are Right Then…  Reality is a social construction.  Language creates reality.  “It is true for you, but it is not true for me.”  Truth is found in an accepted narrative.  No universal trans-cultural standard of truth or value.  No authorial prerogative. The truth of a text is determined by the culture reading the text.  There is no such thing as the book of Romans. –Methodist Romans, Lutheran Romans, Buddhist Romans, Atheist Romans.

Can You Accept This???  Consciousness is social, not individual. Self is a construction (mother, British, grad student…)  No rational way to decide which is the best or true world view.  All truth is relative. All truth is cultural.  Individual has no authority to determine what is true.

Problems With Postmodernism  Self-refuting. –If nothing is true, then postmodernism is not true. –Its authors insist on authorial privilege.  I do not care what they say, some things are just true.  Either God is real or he is not. Even if I cannot prove it one way or another.  If you culture told you it was safe to jump off a cliff, would you jump?

Scientism is Bogus, But Science is Not  The naturally convincing explanation of the success of science is that it is gaining a tightening grasp of an actual reality. The goal of scientific endeavor is to gain an understanding of the structure of the physical world. The conclusions are always tentative, but they are dictated by the way things actually are.

What is Wrong With Postmodernism?  It does not agree with reality—with the world as it is. Our understanding of truth may be relative, but truth is not.  It can be dangerous. –Which is better, the Nazi culture or Christianity? On what basis? –Sin is a cultural creation. Why prefer one moral system to another? –Why listen to reformers like Jesus Christ or Siddhartha Buddha? By definition, our culture is always right!

The Christian World View 1. The physical world is: (Genesis 1) a. real b. created and c. essentially good. a. real b. created and c. essentially good. 2. There exists a parallel unseen spiritual reality which is not limited to or defined by the physical reality. 3. The creator of both the physical and spiritual realm is the God who is revealed and who reveals himself in the Bible. 4. Human beings have both a physical and a spiritual nature, but the spiritual nature is more essential as it is eternal. 5. Although the physical world is good, evil does exist. Such evil is the result of freedom of will given to created beings and their subsequent decision to use that freedom to “sin” (defined as transgressing the will of God). 6. There is a definite right and wrong for human behavior which is determined by God.

Christian Theology Answers the Big Questions  How did I get here?  Why am I here?  Where am I going?  Why are human beings able to comprehend the universe?  Why is there pain and suffering and evil in the world?

Christianity Offers Solutions to the Big Problems of Human Beings  The Problem of Sin (the substitutionary death of Jesus) –Romans 7:24,25  The Problem of Suffering (compassion) –Matthew 9:35-36  The Problem of Death –1 Corinthians 15:54-56

The Christian World View Has Given Us:  Science  Abolition of Slavery (Wilberforce)  Civil Rights  Women’s Rights  Christian groups do a majority of all benevolent work in the world (James 1:27, Micah 6:8)

So, What is Truth?  John 14:6 I AM the way the TRUTH and the life. no one comes to the Father, except by me.  Why are Postmodernism, Scientism, Animism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Dualism and every other ism wrong?  Genesis Chapter One  Because Jesus is truth. Two Possibilities: Either Jesus is truth or he is not…..

How Do I Know Jesus is Truth?  Fulfilled prophecies of the Messiah.  John 6:48 I am the bread of life.  John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life.  John 2:19 Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days. Jesus was resurrected from the dead.