Author: Ben Taylor

What is truth?

What is truth?

In this world, anything can be questioned.
Every opinion can be argued.
Of every fact it can be asked, and should be asked, “On what basis?”
Every new generation of men disproves the science of the last.
Is anything absolute?

There must be, for if I answer, “no,” I have made an absolute statement, and disproven myself. So if there is some absolute truth, what is it? Where should I look for it?

Men are a poor source of truth—full of deceitful, selfish motives. Even I am full of them. I have sensed them lurking in the recesses of my mind, producing behavior that I do not want to do. As it is written, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”

And nature is not a source of truth, at least the kind of truth we are looking for. Science is about the observation and classification of natural facts, but we are looking for something that transcends observation and classification. Science is the “vocabulary” of truth, but we are looking for the semiotic value. As Aristotle said in the De Interpretatione, “Nouns and verbs on their own do not involve truth or falsity.” And as L. Bloomfield said, “Meaning cannot be defined in terms of our science.” So we are not contesting that if I see a blue pen, its blueness is true; but we are rather looking for a different, deeper kind of truth.

What is truth?
What is the rock of reality on which I can stand to measure and order my perceptions?
What can I trust as true and accurate and reliable?
If we cannot look to men, or to nature, then where is it?

If truth does not lie anywhere inside the world, then it either does not exist, or it lies outside the world.

And there is only one thing that can possibly exist outside the world—one being—who is called God. He is not part of the world because he is the cause and source of the world.

Existence is his first characteristic. Before we know anything about his nature, we know that he must exist. For this reason, his name according to Christianity and Judaism is:

“I am that I am.”

He has no other way of defining himself, other than to say that he profoundly, transcendently, is. There is no cause of his being; he is his own cause. He is the root of all existence.

Therefore God must be our starting point in answering “What is truth?” Unless we believe that God exists, we can never move beyond that question. As it is written, “he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”

God is truth.

A soul is costly

No man can by any means redeem his brother Or give to God a ransom for him—For the redemption of his soul is costly, And he should cease trying forever—That he should live on eternally, That he should not undergo decay. (Psalm 49:7-9)

Man has been searching for the elixir of eternal life for a long time. But the secret lies with no mere mortal. The redemption of his soul from death costs too much—we might as well cease trying to find it. But perhaps, if God Himself came to us, he could pay the sufficient price…

A bit of linguistic humor

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, plis pas on to oza pepl.

Normal days are harder than crises

“We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not.”

From Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Oct 21

Rescue or recovery

I had a conversation with the wife of the U.S. federal “expert witness” and advisor on mine safety. This lady mentioned that the news changes its terminology when reporting on mine disasters – if the miners are believed to be alive, reporters talk about the “rescue efforts.” But if it is believed that the miners are likely dead, the language shifts subtly, and the salvation measures are called a “recovery,” not a rescue. Rescue connotes the saving of life, but when there is no life, “recovery” connotes the mere retrieving of bodies.

Is our salvation rescue or recovery? I think it is more like recovery. For God does not just help out my life when I’m in a strait. He goes to get my stillborn corpse, and weeping over it, infuses his own life into my breast. Thus emptied of himself, he falls dead (for three days). God doesn’t just help my life- he gives me my life completely. I have none before I get his.
Maybe this relates to why Jesus waited two days to go to Lazarus. He decided that it would bring more glory to God (and thus more love to Lazarus) if he raised him from the dead instead of only healing his fatal illness. It seems like somehow in the divine mind, it is better that all die and some are resurrected than that all live and some are healed of their ails.

The Grand Canyon

I selected the following from the transcript of a sermon John Piper gave at Mars Hill Church in March 2010. What a beautiful picture of how God’s love and glory unite!

Let me give you an illustration here of how I’m trying to make my communication better. I used to say things like this, I still do, but I try to say more now. I say, “Nobody goes to the Grand Canyon to increase their self-esteem.” And I think that’s a pretty clever statement. [Congregation laughing] The problem with clever statements is that they can obscure a truth if you just get carried away with the cleverness of them.

The point of that statement is, why do people go to the Grand Canyon? It’s big, it’s deep, it’s breathtaking, it’s huge. It makes you feel little, and yet people go. There must be something inside of us that loves to be near bigness when we feel little. Yes, yes, yes, we’re made for God. However, if you walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon, and you’re within about a foot of the edge, and it’s straight down for a mile, and you feel like the power of the Grand Canyon might just flick you over the edge, you’re not gonna enjoy it. You’re gonna be terrified the whole time. You’re gonna be thinking like, “I could die here.”

What you need to have added to the awe of the moment is security. The God who is the Grand Canyon needs to have his arms around you. He needs to be whispering in your ear, “It’s all right. I won’t drop you. I’m your dad. I’m your friend. I gave my life for you. I won’t drop you. I just want you to enjoy this, so relax, and look.” And what I’m arguing against is that the people say, “I just want his arms around me. I just want his arms around me. I want to feel that I’m central to his life.” I’m saying, please, please, don’t feel like you have to sacrifice that longing to be God-centered, to really see the canyon, to really know that the one whose arm’s around you is doing it so that you might not miss the deeply, all-satisfying more of the canyon, because as wonderful as it feels right now to have the arms of God around us with ourselves for maybe the first time in our life being cared about. “Nobody’s ever cared and now God seems to care and Piper comes along, he ruins it.” I’m just, I’m pleading with you. I’m pleading with you, that’s your brain, it’s not the book talking. That’s your background talking, it’s not the book.

Own the arms, love the arms, feel the arms, relax in the arms, enjoy the arms. “He seeks one sheep.” Don’t stop there because the Bible doesn’t stop there. It may take you awhile and maybe this is what I’ve left out is the process that’s required for some broken people. It may take you awhile to become so secure there, that you can open your eyes and say, “Whoa. That’s deep. You sure about this?” “I’m sure.” And maybe over some years they could fall in love with the canyon, the grandeur, the majesty, the awe, the wonder.

We are made for relationships

“The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.” – Pearl S. Buck

This is very true about my relationships with other humans, and exceedingly true about the Great Relationship with our Father! Thanks to my ol’ roomie Grant for posting this originally.

Light shining out of darkness

by William Cowper (1731–1800)

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

On tawhid and the trinity

A Muslim friend recently challenged me on the point of God’s consistent message of Tawhid, or his Oneness, as found in the ancient revelations. Why would the unchanging God fundamentally change the way he showed himself to man, shifting from oneness to three-in-oneness? He raises a very good question. Below was my attempt to answer him, which I think resembles theories of progressive revelation.
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Although the scriptures are clear about the singleness of the Sovereign One, they are also replete with hints about something much more grand and mysterious, hints I believe are preludes to the Messiah, the climax of God’s reaching out to man.

1) In Genesis 1:2, the “Spirit of God is hovering over the waters”- before he begins creation. With the traditional Islamic interpretation of the “Spirit of God” meaning Gabriel, this would mean that Gabriel existed “in the beginning” before God started creation.

2) The word translated “God” in the first chapter of Genesis is plural (“Elohim”) and he talks to himself saying “us”, as in Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:22.

3) Ibrahim meets with Allah in person in Genesis 18: “behold three men were standing opposite him”…two of them go down to Sodom while “Ibrahim was still standing before YHWH” and barters with him about the city’s fate. It is YHWH who replies to Ibrahim during this conversation, and YHWH is the one who departs afterward.

4) Yaqub/Jacob wrestles with God in Genesis 32. “A man wrestles with him until daybreak” – literally grappled with Jacob. When Jacob asks for his name, he says “why do you ask my name?” When he departs Jacob names the place Peniel (meaning, the face of God), saying, “I have seen God face to face and lived.”

5) When Moses received the second copy of the ten commandments in Exodus 34, YHWH: descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of YHWH. Then YHWH passed in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to ander, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth…” This seems like a physical presence of God

There are many interesting hints like this in the book of Judges (Samson and Gideon have similar mysterious encounters) and the prophetic revelations to Israel and also the Zabur of David/Dawood have hints of God coming to man, but I’ll select a very intriguing one, one of my favorites:

6) The book of the prophet Isaiah, in 9:6- “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the governremnt will rest on His shoulders; And his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace.” (!)

So you see, I’m not saying that these things make God into gods plural. I’m saying that the true nature of the one God was gradually being revealed throughout time, he was preparing his people for the time when he himself would come to save them. Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s constant intention throughout the ages, ever since the Fall of Man.

7) God gave the first prophecy: “And I will put enmity between you [shaitan] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15) That is, there would come one born of woman who would defeat Shaitan. And who can defeat the greatest of angels but the Maker of the angels?

God has always been one, and he has always three in one. Only at the coming of Jesus did God see that it was time to reveal the fullness of his nature, and the true meaning of his name Immanuel, which means “God with us.”