The Absolute Truth

Well, I went and did it, didn't I? I told you I was sticking my neck out, doing a post on poetry, and, sure enough, a few people had a good whack at it (see A Rhyme in Time and accompanying comments). And this leaves me having to do a post on absolute truth. Challenge accepted.

There are only two ways to regard the matter of absolute truth: you either believe that there is such a thing or you don't (if you can think of a third position beyond mere indecision, please let me know - I'd be fascinated to hear of it). And, whether we are aware of it or not, our position on the matter depends on choices that we have made previously. Our personal philosophies are based upon our answer to the most basic question of all: Is there a God? If we believe that there is a God and are honest in our thinking processes, we must believe in absolute truth for we have accepted the first and foremost truth that there is. If we believe that there is no God and, again, are honest in our reasoning, then we must also maintain that there is no absolute truth.

Now, those are some mighty big statements and I wouldn't blame you a bit if you were now yelling at me that you don't have to accept my premises. That's fine; I ask only that you bear with me for a while and we'll see how I come to those conclusions.

Let us consider this question of the existence of God. Believe it or not, there are many proofs of His existence but I like the one best demonstrated in C.S Lewis' book Miracles, mainly because I think it is the easiest one for a modern mind to follow. In true apologist's style, it begins by venturing forth upon the ground of the enemy.

So we start by assuming that there is no God. This must lead us to other logical conclusions. Since there is no God, this universe must have begun as pure accident, a chance encounter of certain circumstances that led (in most modern opinions) to a Big Bang that created the universe. I will ignore the obvious question of "What created the circumstances then?" because we have to get on with our argument. And it doesn't matter which particular theory we have for the beginning of the universe; all must have no Creator behind them or we lose immediately and must join the camp of the Deists (with a bit of luck I might even get into this matter of the difference between a Deist and a Theist - stay tuned).

In our theory of the beginning of all things, we now have an expanding universe in which things happen as a result of other things happening. So the Big Bang creates the universe, which is why there are galaxies of stars, some with planets circling them, and some of those planets having the necessary ingredients for the beginning of life. Cool. And those ingredients will combine sooner or later to give rise to what we might call the first organisms that, under the pressure of existence, sometimes combine in more complex ways to begin a development into the type of life form that we have on our planet today. Fine, I have no problem with that. Ultimately, this evolution brings about the species we know as homo sapiens or mankind, an animal that has used conscious thought as a winning evolutionary strategy. This strategy has the by-product of allowing the animal to consider its own origins, indeed, the origins of all things. A pretty amazing feat, I'm sure you'll agree.

There is one minor problem, however. All this is arrived at by the process of thought, something that we call logic. And, by our first premise, that all things are created without purpose, by accident, indeed, we have no reason to believe that anything created by this process called logic might be a true reflection of what is really happening out there; it is an evolutionary strategy that happens to be useful at this moment in time and tomorrow the pressures of existence might insist that it disappear in favor of something else entirely.

Here at last we meet this annoying creature called absolute truth. If we accept that the universe is created by chance and that no Being brought it into existence, we cannot trust our own thought processes. They are chance combinations of chemicals and electrons that may have some worth when related to evolution but they do not assist us in finding out what is really going on because they are rooted in chance and accident. Our whole theory begins to collapse because it disproves the validity of any thought process; we realize that we have destroyed the credibility of our only weapon - logic. Suddenly, if we are honest, we see that what we believe has no reason to be true; it is an evolutionary strategy and can have no meaning beyond our own drive to survive as a species. Even that is ascribing to evolution a conscious reasoning which, of course, it cannot have, being the result of accident.

So we find ourselves in a meaningless universe where there is absolutely no point in saying anything at all; nothing is true and everything is accident. It is as valid to spout nonsense as it is to write a learned scientific thesis because all "truth" is relative. Now, you are welcome to live in such a universe if you wish; but do not come at me with arguments against what I believe - you have already discounted anything you might say by your own theory. Without absolute truth, there is no truth, only momentary convenience.

You may say to me that I have not proved the existence of God and I would have to say that, for me, that is true (fortunately I can use the word "true" although the atheists and agnostics cannot) but, for you, that is a meaningless statement. What I have proved is that the position of atheism is one of pure nonsense, a babbling idiocy. Be honest and live with it, if you insist on maintaining it.

I prefer to retain my sanity by believing that there is a God and that this is the first Absolute Truth. From there we come to the next choice point, which is to decide whether God created the universe and then wandered off, leaving it to its own devices (the Deist standpoint), or, having created the thing, God remains intimately concerned with His creation and does, indeed, uphold it (the Theist's view). There is also the matter of ascertaining whether God can be described as having a personality and, if so, what is the nature of that personality. But these are really beyond the scope of this little exercise. Suffice it to say that, having met the Fellow, my mind is made up.

And there we have it, the Absolute Truth post. Terribly sorry but, if you wish to comment, you're going to have to admit that there is such a thing as absolute truth or I shall be forced to assume that you're not living up to what you say you believe. Hard, isn't it?