The following is a post authored by Simon Templar that got buried in another thread.
I asked his permission to give it a wider audience because I find it so relevant to today's culture of post-modernism thought, through which, imo, the Devil is trying to remove all solid rock foundations of eternal truth from society, thus returning us to a time of "every man did what was right in his own eyes"
Read on and feel free to discuss................
On the issue of objectivity.
One of the common arguments people use against objectivity is that we can not know things objectively because we are imperfect. Our perception is imperfect, our reasoning is imperfect. we make mistakes, and no one knows all the truth, therefor we can never be 100% certain that we are correct, therefore we can not truly know objectively.
This sounds pretty convincing and its premises seem sound.. very few people would disagree with the idea that we aren't perfect, and most would also agree that none of us know all the truth and are always right.
This argument is, never the less, a logical fallacy. It relies upon confusion of catagories.
The basic argument could be boiled down to the statement, we can't know everything, therefore we can't be sure that we know anything. That is not logically valid, nor is it actually true.
For example few if any of us know all there is to know about love, nor do we understand God's love perfectly, but we can absolutely, objectively know that God is love, that we are required to love our neighbors as ourselves. Further, we can know objectively that love is defined not by feeling, but by action and primarily by self sacrifice.
There are a lot of things about love that we don't understand, but those are all things that we can objectively know, because God objectively revealed them.
There are a lot of things in the bible I don't understand, but there are also a lot of things in the bible which are not difficult to understand and are clear sources of objective knowledge.
Another common variation of this argument is the proposition that because there is disagreement, we can never have truly objective knowledge. Since Person A and Person B disagree about the meaning of a given passage, we can never really know objectively, for certain, what it means.
This again is a logical fallacy. My ability to correctly understand information being communicated to me is not contingent upon someone elses' ability to do the same. If we are wise we will always check ourselves and our view points against those who disagree, but that is vastly different than simply saying, you can't really know objectively.
Someone elses ability or inability to be aware of their biases and to check themselves does not impact my ability to do that.
Further, as Christians we also have added in to the equation the fact that God enlightens us if we submit and he enables us to know. It is wise to check yourself.. but to go so far as to say that we can't be sure, that we can't truly know objectively is essentially to say that God is incapable of communicating himself reliably.
I asked his permission to give it a wider audience because I find it so relevant to today's culture of post-modernism thought, through which, imo, the Devil is trying to remove all solid rock foundations of eternal truth from society, thus returning us to a time of "every man did what was right in his own eyes"
Read on and feel free to discuss................
On the issue of objectivity.
One of the common arguments people use against objectivity is that we can not know things objectively because we are imperfect. Our perception is imperfect, our reasoning is imperfect. we make mistakes, and no one knows all the truth, therefor we can never be 100% certain that we are correct, therefore we can not truly know objectively.
This sounds pretty convincing and its premises seem sound.. very few people would disagree with the idea that we aren't perfect, and most would also agree that none of us know all the truth and are always right.
This argument is, never the less, a logical fallacy. It relies upon confusion of catagories.
The basic argument could be boiled down to the statement, we can't know everything, therefore we can't be sure that we know anything. That is not logically valid, nor is it actually true.
For example few if any of us know all there is to know about love, nor do we understand God's love perfectly, but we can absolutely, objectively know that God is love, that we are required to love our neighbors as ourselves. Further, we can know objectively that love is defined not by feeling, but by action and primarily by self sacrifice.
There are a lot of things about love that we don't understand, but those are all things that we can objectively know, because God objectively revealed them.
There are a lot of things in the bible I don't understand, but there are also a lot of things in the bible which are not difficult to understand and are clear sources of objective knowledge.
Another common variation of this argument is the proposition that because there is disagreement, we can never have truly objective knowledge. Since Person A and Person B disagree about the meaning of a given passage, we can never really know objectively, for certain, what it means.
This again is a logical fallacy. My ability to correctly understand information being communicated to me is not contingent upon someone elses' ability to do the same. If we are wise we will always check ourselves and our view points against those who disagree, but that is vastly different than simply saying, you can't really know objectively.
Someone elses ability or inability to be aware of their biases and to check themselves does not impact my ability to do that.
Further, as Christians we also have added in to the equation the fact that God enlightens us if we submit and he enables us to know. It is wise to check yourself.. but to go so far as to say that we can't be sure, that we can't truly know objectively is essentially to say that God is incapable of communicating himself reliably.
