The history of the truth being mauled by Western civilization began innocently enough. It began with the laudable convictions of Francis Bacon, the 16thcentury father of scientific method. His thinking helped lay the foundation for The Enlightenment that followed in the 17thand 18thcenturies. Bacon insisted that science should be restricted to the study of physical actions on material things. As such, it should not give any thought to telos (a Greek word meaning “the inherent purpose of things”). He taught that science was not the place to consider the purposes of God.
Bacon was not, however, anti-God. He was a man who had a deep faith in God and he didn’t deny that there was a telosto existence. It was just that he believed that consideration of God’s inherent purpose lay outside the discipline of science.
Over time, Bacon’s thinking was pushed further so that it gave rise ‘scientism’ (the belief that science is the only valid truth, and that it alone should be used to determine our values). These were ideas popularised by the philosophers of The Enlightenment, notably John Locke (of the 17thcentury) and David Hume (of the 18thcentury), both of whom were following in the footsteps of the pre-Socratic philosophers, Democritus and Leucippus.
Their conviction that the only valid truth is that which is empirically derived was shattered by the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. He said that truth was not fixed. There was, in reality, no empirical basis for moral truth, let alone a divine one. Consistency and reason were therefore not required. Moral truth could “define itself in the moment” depending on what was going on.
The notion of truth about the inherent purpose of things had, by now, been consummately mauled. Scientism had ripped truth from the hands of God and imprisoned it within the rational human mind. And Sartre had ripped truth from rationalism and said it could be anything you chose it to be in the moment.
The final coup de grâceto the notion of truth was delivered by postmodernism. It trashed the idea of truth altogether, saying that truth was whatever worked for you, and it viewed permanent truth claims with deep suspicion as tools of oppression.
This, of course, played neatly into the hands of the Nihilist disciples of Friedrich Nietzsche who wanted to expunge all notions of truth (and hope) and replace it with a lust for personal power. Just as worryingly, it also played into the hands of the neo-Marxists who needed to dismantle all truths held dear by the institutions that had power in society. They wanted to invert society, placing ‘workers’ at the top, all of whom could share a nation’s bounty… whilst, paradoxically, being ruled by another privileged elite (Communist this time), but a more odious elite that lacked the notions of truth and kindness that once existed in a society kept civil by its Christian culture. It is little wonder that Marxism has always resulted in abusive totalitarianism. There is no example of it ever working well.
So, the notion of truth has not fared well in recent Western history.
For Christians, the idea that truth’s horizon is entirely contained within that which is currently understood by a human brain (whether Bacon’s reasoning, Sartre’s silliness or postmodernism’s chaos) is a profoundly unchristian thing. Certainly, to forbid any notion of truth until scientists have uncovered it is to trap human thought into an empirical prison. It also prompts the question: Where is truth before a scientist discovers it? Does it exist?
This debate has rather a lot of relevance for God. A moment’s rational thought should lead to the conclusion that truth (whether scientific or theological) is “out there” beyond us, waiting for us to encounter it, adopt it and honour it… which is what I invite you to do.
