The truth about truth.

So… Guy walks into the bank and says to the teller, “I want 200 bucks!”

“I’m sorry sir,” replies the teller. “You only have 100 dollars in your account.”

“Now,” said the Evangelical man across the table from me. “Nobody in their right minds would say, ‘look man, that might be your truth, but my truth is different.’” He looked around the table as if to say, “that takes care of the question of absolute truth.”

Well, I was feeling courageous (or snarky perhaps) so I chimed in. “I don’t think that’s representative of most post-moderns. We’re not debating how much money is in the account or that the teller knows best. We’re just saying you’re not the teller! You’re just a random person in line trying to tell me how much money is in my account!”

So let’s get something straight here. My generation is struggling to live in a world where competing worldviews are constantly threatening to rip each other to shreds. So in the mind of your average agnostic college kid, God exists. And God has a monopoly on Truth: Big T Truth. But you don’t. So they say, “don’t tell me about your absolute truths because who are we kidding? You’re just as flawed as me.” You’re not God. You’re not the teller. You’re just another blind man describing one part of the elephant.

But let’s say you tell me, “I know I’m not the teller, but he’s a close friend of mine. He invites me to his side of the counter every day and shows me his accounts. I could be wrong but I could swear I saw you only had $100.” Then you might believe me.

The problem is your average agnostic college kid lives in a worldview in which tellers do NOT form close friendships with bank customers and certainly do not share account information with just anybody. It seems disingenuous, even scandalous that you might purport to know God personally and intimately.

Someone recently asked me, “Do you really mean to tell me that God talks to you or are you speaking figuratively?” It took me a moment to remember that this question shouldn’t surprise me. It was a bit scandalous for me too when the Holy Spirit started speaking regularly. Now it feels normal. God is no longer a mighty untouchable King James God. His voice is familiar, affirming, challenging, and instructive. And yeah, it’s quite literal. Like “Go to the store at 10AM and look for the guy with the purple socks” literal. Crazy thing is, sometimes the guy with the purple socks is there!

So based on the trust relationship I’ve built with him and the stuff he says, I believe my beliefs. I believe them so much that I’m willing to promote them. But I also recognize my own fickle humanity and fallibility enough to be humble and intentional about the things I say most loudly. It’s not like I’m saying my word is Absolute Truth.  But I’m saying that I have a personal, if imperfect relationship with Absolute Truth. I get it wrong. I’m deeply flawed and deeply subjective in my pursuit of the Absolute. But one of the things I’m quite confident about is the existence of a personal God who is deeply involved in the process of revelation. He WANTS to be known. That’s why he keeps stepping in, intervening, pursuing His creation. So I keep looking for truth because I know that true things are not only discernable, but WANT to be discerned.

Truth is relational. (“I am the truth,” says Jesus.) But relationships are messy and subjective things. Can Christians be comfortable with the tension of confidence within subjectivity? I think we must be.