G.A.P Part 3
May 17, 2023

Next section - Truth and World views

Question 9: What is the difference between objective and subjective truth?

The world has convinced us that

is not objective.  Instead secularists want us to believe that all truth is subjective or relative. 
This is called and it sounds like this:  “It may be true for you but it is not true for me” or “Live/Speak YOUR truth” (show picture of the 6 vs 9)

SUBJECTIVE TRUTH:
Something that is true about the

. It is dependant only on the and how that individual sees the world. Eg Frozen yogurt is better than ice-cream.

OBJECTIVE TRUTH:
Something that is

true for even if they do not know it or recognise it to be true (we can say, even if they completely deny it).  
Eg. You can deny gravity exists but jump off a building and you are going down.

Why is it important to know the difference between Objective and Subjective truth and to uphold it?  

Because Christianity rests on the

of Objective truth as it makes some exclusive hard claims and if there is no objective truth, Christianity is false so it crumbles apart.  No one lives as if there is no objective truth.  People daily say things like “it’s raining” or “my car is parked outside”.  

How do we prove that objective truth exists? Turn the claim on itself!
“There is no objective truth!” Ask: is that true?
“All truth is relative!”  Ask: is that truth also relative?
“It’s true for you but not for me!”  Ask:  is that true only for you and not for me?
THIS IS SELF DEFEATING STATEMENTS.  It shoots and kills itself.

There are 2 common attacks on Christianity that deals with TRUTH

Christians are intolerant of other beliefs
Tolerance means “to bear with ideas other than your own”, however the world has hijacked this term and redefined it as “accepting other conflicting ideas as being equally true to your own.” Christians are labelled intolerant because we acknowledge that conflicting ideas cannot both be true at the same time. Just because we believe objective truth exists does not make us intolerant.

Christians indoctrinate their kids

Indoctrination is “teaching someone to accept the ideas, opinions or beliefs of a particular group and NOT to even consider any other ideas, opinions or beliefs.”  Indoctrination is a problem with

someone is taught something, not is taught.  The world has hijacked this term and redefined it as “teaching someone that there is objective truth and any claims outside of the objective truth cannot also be true.” There is a strong negative emotional connection to the word “indoctrinated” if you don’t understand the true definition of the word.

It has been made

in our culture today, to believe that everyone can have their own truth and that it is tolerant to accept contradicting truth claims as equally true because we have to “love all people”.  But people need to understand that deciding on their spiritual beliefs be a matter of simply picking what they like the best; they need to know that it should be a matter of searching for what is objectively true and believing that in-spite of their personal feelings.

Question 10: Do All Religions Point to the Same Truth

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “There’s an elephant in the village today!” The blind men had no idea what an elephant was, but they decided to go find it. When they found it, each man touched a different part of the elephant. The first man, touching the leg, said, “The elephant is a pillar.” The second man, touching the tail, said, “It’s like a rope.” The third man, touching the trunk, said, “It’s like the thick branch of a tree.” The fourth man, touching the ear, said, “It’s like a big hand fan.” The fifth man, touching the belly, said, “It’s like a huge wall.” The sixth man, touching the tusk, said, “It’s like a solid pipe.” The men were starting to argue about what the elephant really was when a wise man passed by. The wise man settled the matter by explaining, “You are each saying something different because you are each touching a different part of the elephant. The elephant has all of those features. You are all right.”
Indian Fable

This fable is used to illustrate that
- Each religion is a facet of ultimate truth
- Each religion is a path to that truth
- This is Called Religious Pluralism

“While Christianity is a

way to achieve high states of spirituality, it not be considered a unique way, or a ‘correct way’.”

“I’m a free-thinking Christian who believes in my way, but I don’t believe it’s the only way, with 6 billion people on the planet.”

Oprah Winfrey
Nov 2005 Beliefnet.com Poll - 33% of 6600 respondents said Winfrey has had “a more profound impact” on their spiritual lives than their own clergypersons.

A. Can All These Religions Really Point to the Same Truth?

Judaism -

Jesus is Messiah
Islam - Muhammad Greatest
Jehovah Witness - Holy Spirit is a
Mormonism - Three Divine Beings
Hinduism - (Cycle of Rebirths)

Christianity
- Jesus is Messiah
- Muhammad not recognised
- Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity
- We deny multiple beings but that God Exists in Three Persons (Trinity)
- Die Once, then the Judgment

, we are the , but at the very , we are all

Not Small Differences
Major difference can be found in




B. Multiple Religions Can Have Some True Beliefs

A Fine Distinction
- In Reality all religions cannot logically point to God
- We’re not saying that every belief of religions other than Christianity is entirely false

Judaism, Islam and Christianity – All have a belief in one God
Compare the

of their against Christianity and you encounter claims that cannot point to the same total truth

C. The Lure of

Pluralism

Religious Pluralism Logically Fails – but it has a lure because:

a. It Seems To Make Sense on the Surface
b. It Keeps Religious Conversations Politically Correct
Ill-Defined definition of Tolerance
Easy to wave off huge differences in belief to be accepted
Tell truth is what we are called to do, not be politically correct
c. It Reduces Religion to Moral Teachings
This is truth common to many religions- good moral teachings
If the truth is that there are eternal consequences for your beliefs, as Christianity claims, then moral commonalities between religions don’t point to the same truth any more than tires all point to the same vehicle.

d. Religions Offer Very Different Views on Truth

We don’t have to be blind men feeling our way through the darkness. If the elephant speaks, the illustration falls apart:
- We do

there is a God
- He has
- We Have a of What He Said
- That is through the

Question 11: How can Christians claim they know what is objectively true?

In an old debate between an Atheist and a Christian, the Christian drew a very large circle on a white board and asked: “if this is everything there is to know about the universe and everything inside and outside of it, how much of this would you say you know and know for a fact?” The atheist walked up to the board and drew a much smaller circle within the big one and said “about that much I suppose”. The Christian asked “so hypothetically is it at all possible that God could exist in the portion of the circle that you do not yet know?” to which the atheist responded “hypothetically yes it is possible”. The Christian smiled and said, “then my friend, you are not an atheist, you are an agnostic, and you are one step closer to knowing my God”

We have proved that objective truth exists and that all religions cannot point to the same truth. The next question would naturally be, how then do we

it is Christianity that is the objective truth and no other religion?

What does it mean to

something?
- Knowledge of (I know my daughter)
- Knowledge of (I know how to play drums)
- knowledge (South Africa held its first democratic election in 1994)

Religion falls under propositional knowledge

Propositional knowledge is “

TRUE BELIEF” -
: You must first hold to some belief as true. But simply having a belief doesn’t mean it is right.
: You should have good reasons for thinking the belief is true before you can claim to know it (justification for your beliefs). Even if you have justification for your belief you can still be wrong eg. Earth stands still
: The justified belief must be true. Beliefs are justified when there is evidence for them, they are TRUE when there is overwhelming evidence for them. Eg Toddler eating cookies

This is where Christians and Atheists clash because Atheists loudly proclaim there is NO evidence while we say there is overwhelming evidence for Christianity to be true.

Four Key Take Aways:

  1. Our ultimate goal should not be to only believe Christianity is true, but to have justification for our beliefs
  2. We need to make sure we have GOOD reasons and evidence for our beliefs, not just poor reasons
  3. We need to make sure that we can articulate the good reasons and evidence for our beliefs when asked (1 Pet 3:15 tells us to be prepared to give reasons for the hope in us) - this is a long continual journey
  4. We need to be able to evaluate/consider the evidence/reasons for other beliefs/world views honestly and think it through to conclusions.

J Warner Wallace (homicide detective and author of Cold Case Christianity) famously said that we do not need to prove Christianity above any possible doubt. We only need to prove it true beyond a

.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt: In a criminal case, the prosecution bears the burden of proving that the defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. This means that the prosecution must convince the jury that there is no other reasonable explanation that can come from the evidence presented at trial.

We will never have absolute unequivocal proof beyond

doubt in this life but we overwhelming evidence to conclude beyond any reasonable doubt that we can Christianity is .

Question 12. How can personal experience help determine what is true?

Do the experiences we have with God (or lack thereof) constitute good reasons for our spiritual beliefs?

We have much more to offer than just a personal experience. We have good reasons to offer. But one’s Spiritual Experience is also important.

But there is a balance between the two


What Does the Bible Say?

A. The Experience of the Holy Spirit

While some people, have unique religious experiences, there is one experience

to all believers that we should understand and acknowledge: the of the Holy Spirit.

“Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).
“Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6).
“Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

B. Two Major Challenges to the Validity of Personal Religious Experience

  • People have religious experiences.
    Mormon “burning in the bosom” that Mormonism is true
    What makes this different to a Christian making the same claim?

Three possible Conclusions to the variety of Religious Experiences
i. All of them must be false because they contradict each other
Five People Witness a Car accident and give contradictory reports
Doesn’t necessarily mean no one gave the correct report
Contradictory experiences doesn’t automatically mean they are false or invalid
ii. All of them point to a common core of truth
People of any religion can experience God
Doesn’t mean all experiential claims can be true
Many are contradictory
iii. Some may be true and some may be false.
Does nothing to debunk the logical possibility of the Holy Spirit’s authentic work in the Christian’s life.

  • Religious experience can be attributed to biological activity in the brain.

Sceptics commonly offer neurological explanations of religious experience
Every experience we have is accompanied by a neurological state.
We shouldn’t be surprised to find corresponding brain activity for religious experience if we are made with the God-given capacity to experience Him in that way.
If humans can physically respond to God’s presence through some kind of powerful experience, it follows that we might see that register in the brain.
Seeing the associated brain activity in no way suggests that God doesn’t exist or that religious experiences can’t truly be encounters with the supernatural.

C. Three Cautions on the Role of Religious Experience in Faith

a. The validity of personal religious experience does not

the need to have other good reasons for faith.
b. Authentic religious experience should align with the .
Dean Parave was an alcoholic before he converted to Christianity. After his fifth arrest for driving under the influence, he begged God for help. He received a lesser prison sentence than expected and took it as a sign. He felt convicted that he and his wife should begin sharing God’s Word by swinging (swapping sex partners) with other couples. Parave says, “God has put me here to spread his word and our lifestyle community is a great place to do it.”
c. A of religious experience evidence against God.
If the Bible claimed that we would know Christianity is true because every individual would have a unique, undeniable encounter with God, then a lack of experience would indeed count as evidence against Christianity.
God chose to reveal Himself to everyone through Jesus (John 3:16).

D. Personal Religious Experiences Can Help Point to Truth
There’s no reason to deny the validity of that or other religious experiences simply because people make contradictory claims or because some types of experiences happen to have corresponding brain activity.

We should strongly value

for belief outside of ourselves in order to confirm that inner witness and be able to offer a case for Christianity to others