California Christian Apologetics Conference (I)

For the first group session on Friday night we heard from Sean McDowell. Sean is the head of the Bible department at Capastrano Valley Christian high and has two master’s degrees from Talbot. I remember him as the really smart guy who won’t talk over your head like the other really smart guys! Josh McDowell is his father, for those who are wondering.

The title of his talk was Truth or Tragedy, in which he sought to show us why truth is important, because truth itself is under attack in our culture. Not just true statements, but the idea that we can have knowledge. His opening verse was 2 Thess 2:8-10: “and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” Clearly truth is important; salvation depends on it! From another angle, he pointed out that when people even ask the question “Why does truth matter? What’s the big deal?” They are looking for an answer. That is why Sean responds “Do you want the true answer or the false one?” Even asking about the truth assumes the value of truth!

For his main arguments, he pointed out three reasons that truth is important.

First, Truth has consequences. For example (and this hit home with me), if you show up late for a midterm, there are consequences. It doesn’t matter how sincere you were in thinking that it was today rather than yesterday, because you missed it! Sean also pointed out that “know” or “knowledge” is mentioned far more in the Bible than “faith.” He again underscored the importance of this by directing us to Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Second, Truth is a compass for life. To illustrate the “compass” aspect of these, we were instructed to close our eyes and point North. Naturally, we had people pointing every which direction, and once again, sincerity makes no difference, because we could have 2 equally sincere people pointing completely opposite directions. I had no idea which way to point, so I just pointed straight up. He saw this and announced to the whole sanctuary that North is NOT straight up!

He then told us a few hilarious computer stories that I just have to tell you. He had an installation guy at his house to help him set up and he asked him what the 3 strangest questions were that he’d ever gotten calls about. “I got my computer all set up, but the foot pedal doesn’t work!” Apparently the woman had been stomping the mouse to death… “My cup holder is not big enough to fit my mug! Can I get a bigger computer?” That’s right; the dude was trying to store his coffee in the CD-ROM Drive!!

And last but not least… “The computer told me to close all the windows so I did, but it won’t let me continue; can you fix it?” She closed all the windows in her house!

The problem here was that the people were using the computer parts totally wrong! They didn’t know the truth about the purpose for each piece. Every part of life has a true purpose to it. This is why, Sean says, “the truth will set you free;” because once we know how everything is supposed to work, we are able to live rightly and fully! Sort of like when you use your CD-ROM drive for CD’s rather than coffee. You could get along with using your CD drive for a coffee holder, but why not use your computer to its full potential and use the drive for what it was meant for?

The third reason Sean gave truth being important is because simply believing in something is not enough. He told a story that I’ve heard from his dad before about a time that he asked a few students why they think the Bible is true. The answer he ended up getting was “It’s true because I believe it.” Upon asking this student whether the Koran is true for the Muslim who believes it, the student answered “yes!” Naturally the whole room was in shock. How can the top Christian students be saying that the Koran is true??? That, he noted, is the state of evangelicalism today. “The difference between you and me,” Josh remarked, “is that you think the Bible is true because you believe it. I believe the Bible because it is true!” That is where the power lies. It is not controlled by us in some mystical fashion, as if we formed our own reality in our minds based on what we believed and what we deny, as if Christ is risen when we believe Him risen and not risen when we deny His resurrection. No, as Sean said, “reality is disgustingly indifferent to what we believe about it.”

In order to move on, Sean decided to define what truth actually means. What are we saying when we claim that something is true? The definition he gave was the Corrsepondence theory of truth, which basically says that a statement or proposition is true if it matches up with reality. Truth is simply telling it like it is. Truth is a relationship between ideal or statement and reality itself. This is nothing new of course. We think of truth this way all the time in our daily lives. The rub comes when we enter the realms of morality and religion. Then people starting pulling fast ones with the definition of truth!

Ultimately, there are two types of truth. There is subjective truth which is personal, private, and changeable. For example, what is the best flavor of ice cream? This is a personal question to which there is no right answer, only your answer. The question as it is happens to be unanswerable. Its intended meaning is, which flavor of ice cream do you like most? So there is “subjective truth.” Then there is “objective truth.” Objective truths are facts of the external world that we discover, such as the fact that insulin controls diabetes.

Next he threw up some slides of statements, both controversial and otherwise. He warned us that he was asking whether or not the statements were true or false, but just that he wanted to know which kind of truth they were addressing. What kind of claim or statement were they? The statements ranged from “Lee Strobel can bench press 250 lbs.” to “Abortion is wrong.” It was a good exercise to make sure that people understood this dichotomy between subjective and objective truth, which Sean codenamed ice cream and insulin respectively.

Sean then challenged us with a question: “What if all morality was like ice cream?” If this were the case, you would have to right to judge anyone else. Or rather, if you did choose to judge someone, it would be totally meaningless, and have no authority over the person you're judging. However, we know morality isn’t like ice cream, and we know each and every person has a moral code within them. We know this not by their statements or actions, but by their reactions, by how they want to be treated. People might say they don't believe in objective morality, but don’t believe them!

At this point Sean moved to what I believe is the heart of the issue. Nobody dies and spends an eternity separated from God in hell simply for not believing in Jesus. People die and spend eternity in hell because they have a sickness called sin. To say that Buddha Krishna or Mohammed can forgive my sins, is like saying chocolate peanut butter ice cream controls diabetes. Christianity makes claims about reality that are objective. The question is: “Will we accept it or will we reject it?” Paul said in 1 Cor 15:17: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins."

Now, as is typical with philosophy papers, he had to address certain objections to his thesis that truth is knowable and important. Some will tout, "There is no truth!" But this is a self-refuting statement. Is the statement true or false? Well… the only option is false, because it can’t be true. If it were true, it would be false… the statement is about paper thin. It’s like saying "I cannot say a single word in English" or "Meet my brother, an only child" or when Winnie the Pooh says "Nobody's home!"

The next one was my personal favorite. A student walked up to her philosophy teacher and asked him "How do I know I exist?" To this the philosophy teacher responded "Whom may I say is inquiring?" Brilliant! Of course, you can’t question your own existence if you don’t exist. Things that don’t exist can’t perform any actions.

Another objection is: "But doesn't truth change? After all, it used to be true to people that the earth was flat!” At this point you would be completely dumbfounded should you be on the receiving end of this statement. It used to be true that the earth was flat? Really? Of course not! The world has always been round! Beliefs change, but objective truths don't.

There were many more such examples that he gave us, which I won’t cover here, but one point he did make before moving on was that having the truth can make us arrogant. Rather than puffing us up, it should humble us.

One of his last points I thought was very accurate, and I’ll make it my last point as well. If Jesus were walking around here physically today, it would not take 3 years to crucify Him. He loved people, but He unequivocally stood up for the truth. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” – John 14:6

Truth Matters!