What is Truth?

Krus · Jul 30, 2011

What is Truth, to your mind? What Bible says about it? What another books or authors says about it?

Cuddles333 · Aug 2, 2011

'Truth" is that which corresponds to reality. This is what the debators claim and what they supposedly are striving for. In many instances, things must be qualified. For example, say you place a pencil on the right side of a desk you are sitting at and state that the pencil is on the right side of the desk. Another person who is facing the desk says that the pencil is not on the right side, but on the left side of the desk. What is the correct answer? It must be qualified. If one is standing in front of the desk it is on the left side. If one is behind the desk it is on the right side.

99percentatheism · Aug 2, 2011

Krus said:
What is Truth, to your mind?

Cause and affect.

Lee52 · Aug 3, 2011

Krus said:
What is Truth, to your mind? What Bible says about it? What another books or authors says about it?

Wow, deep, deep question that philosophers have sought for eons. According to most philosophers down through the ages, Truth is that upon which all other things in the universe are hung upon or ancored to.
Applying theology to the search for that upon which all other things in the universe are anchored or hang upon leads one straight to GOD. For there most certainly must be something which was the catalyst for existence. To deny this fundamental truth is to deny existence. For nothing can exist without a catalyst to start existence.

Ponder that for a few months.

Be blessed,
Lee52

Yarddog · Aug 3, 2011

Krus said:
What is Truth, to your mind? What Bible says about it? What another books or authors says about it?

1st of all, what God says and what he doesn't mention, what is proven to be the truth.

daydreamergurl15 · Aug 3, 2011

Exact question that Pilate asked Christ in John 18:38 and then walked away before Christ could answer.

God is Truth
Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.

Jeremiah 10:10
But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, And the nations will not be able to endure His indignation.

Holy Spirit is Truth
1 John 5:6
This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

Christ is Truth
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

God's word is truth
Psalm 119:160
The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

Walter Kovacs · Aug 3, 2011

I think the proper question should be 'who' is truth.

Blueforest · Aug 3, 2011

Truth is relative.

That is why there is a term called "Absolute Truth" which is more what people tend to think of as "Objective truth." But most never know the objective truth, nor strive to find it so it's largely irrelevant for most people.

Cuddles333 · Aug 3, 2011

Blueforest said:
Truth is relative.

That is why there is a term called "Absolute Truth" which is more what people tend to think of as "Objective truth." But most never know the objective truth, nor strive to find it so it's largely irrelevant for most people.

I have heard debators claim that if someone says; "Truth is relative" that they are making an absolute truth statement.

I would say that an example of a 'relative truth' statement would be one saying; "Women wearing skirts above the knee is sexually immoral." For to that person this teaching is truth to them.

Yes, absolute truth is more difficult because it must be compared to many other truths until by rational deduction, it is shown to stand the test. One would really have to want to to know the truth in order to go through the effort.

Blueforest · Aug 3, 2011

Cuddles222 said:
I have heard debators claim that if someone says; "Truth is relative" that they are making an absolute truth statement.

I would say that an example of a 'relative truth' statement would be one saying; "Women wearing skirts above the knee is sexually immoral." For to that person this teaching is truth to them.

Yes, absolute truth is more difficult because it must be compared to many other truths until by rational deduction, it is shown to stand the test. One would really have to want to to know the truth in order to go through the effort.

Truth is relative. An example: An anorexic thinks they are fat. The truth to them is, "I'm a fat pig." However, there is a greater truth out there, which says they are not fat at all, and are actually dangerously thin.

Truth and facts, by the way, are NOT synonymous, despite what some fundamentalists may claim. Truth is truth, independent of whatever some facts may purport. Truth can often be abstract and harder to discern, whereas facts are simply based on experiential knowledge.

Armistead14 · Aug 3, 2011

I see a difference between truth and fact. To me truth implies false as it's equal. Different religions claim they have the truth, but that is based on faith, not fact. Fact is like throwing a ball up and it comes down, so to me truth is relative to the person.

The bible does say in proverbs

"As a man thinketh, so is he." If you believe something to be true, then it's true to you regardless.

Nanopants · Aug 3, 2011

Krus said:
What is Truth, to your mind?

Everything that is.

I'm of the position that we cannot, within our human limitations, absolutely know absolute truth, unless it can be known a priori.

In other words, we can know absolutely that 2 + 2 = 4, but not that "if it goes up, it must come down."

RoseGraced · Aug 3, 2011

The truth is something only God knows. We can all know what we believe to be truth, and live by that. That's what I reckon anyway.

bricklayer · Aug 25, 2011

Krus said:
What is Truth, to your mind? What Bible says about it? What another books or authors says about it?

Truth is that which corresponds to its predicate.

Truth is that which corresponds to what is attributable to the subject, in this case truth.

daviddub · Sep 4, 2011

Walter...on the nose. Truth is Him who corresponds to reality. Jesus says "I am the...truth," inasmuch as he corresponds to the ultimate reality, namely God. He is the perfect manifestation of who God is, and is therefore the perfect truth. We see this when he speaks so often of doing what he sees with his Father. It is in fact a most profound understanding of what and whom truth is. He says if he alone bears witness of himself, then he is a liar (humanly speaking). That is, no man, bearing witness to himself as truth can in fact be true, because all men have a predicate reality. Every human comes forth from a set of preconditions. If that man does not bear witness of the truth of his preconditions, then any witness of himself he does give must be at least partly false by virtue of the negation of his true preconditions in his testimony.

Furthermore it is seen that any man (or any creature at all) that does not acknowledge, and set forth it's own dependency on it's ultimate precondition (namely God), can only offer at best partial truth.

We must accordingly recognize, that insofar as the Son of God is the perfect truth, then truth itself, is more perfectly understood as personal rather than propositional. We must come to recognize that if perfect truth is personal, then all merely propositional truth is a lesser expression of truth. All propositional truth then must by definition lack something of the quality of truth. Even though it may be true insofar as it can obtain, being propositional it is yet lacking the perfection of the quality of personality.

bricklayer · Sep 5, 2011

daviddub said:
Walter...on the nose. Truth is Him who corresponds to reality. Jesus says "I am the...truth," inasmuch as he corresponds to the ultimate reality, namely God. He is the perfect manifestation of who God is, and is therefore the perfect truth. We see this when he speaks so often of doing what he sees with his Father. It is in fact a most profound understanding of what and whom truth is. He says if he alone bears witness of himself, then he is a liar (humanly speaking). That is, no man, bearing witness to himself as truth can in fact be true, because all men have a predicate reality. Every human comes forth from a set of preconditions. If that man does not bear witness of the truth of his preconditions, then any witness of himself he does give must be at least partly false by virtue of the negation of his true preconditions in his testimony.

Furthermore it is seen that any man (or any creature at all) that does not acknowledge, and set forth it's own dependency on it's ultimate precondition (namely God), can only offer at best partial truth.

We must accordingly recognize, that insofar as the Son of God is the perfect truth, then truth itself, is more perfectly understood as personal rather than propositional. We must come to recognize that if perfect truth is personal, then all merely propositional truth is a lesser expression of truth. All propositional truth then must by definition lack something of the quality of truth. Even though it may be true insofar as it can obtain, being propositional it is yet lacking the perfection of the quality of personality.

Well said, well put, hear here.

razzelflabben · Sep 5, 2011

Seems to me that truth is not relative, our perception is relative. IOW's there are absolutes, but our perception of these things may not be truth, just because we think something is truth doesn't make it truth.

so what then is truth...God is truth, all that He says is truth...truth is that which is without question...

bricklayer · Sep 5, 2011

razzelflabben said:
Seems to me that truth is not relative, our perception is relative. IOW's there are absolutes, but our perception of these things may not be truth, just because we think something is truth doesn't make it truth.

so what then is truth...God is truth, all that He says is truth...truth is that which is without question...

What's more, Truth is personal. That is to say that Truth is one of God's names, one of His infinite perfections, one of the characteristics attributable to God without limit.

Jesus said that He is Truth.

razzelflabben · Sep 5, 2011

bricklayer said:
What's more, Truth is personal. That is to say that Truth is one of God's names, one of His infinite perfections, one of the characteristics attributable to God without limit.

Jesus said that He is Truth.

no argument on that one, my point however was not what is and is not truth, but rather that truth is an absolute while our perspective of truth is relative.

hedrick · Sep 5, 2011

I agree that the terms fact and truth are used differently, although there's a lot of overlap. Facts are normally fairly objective, requiring little interpretation. Facts are also truths. But some truths are broader than a fact. They can be broader perspectives on life (or science, or other things).

However I resist the concept of things being true for one person and false for another. Obviously people are different, and approaches may work for one and not for another. So there can be things like "this approach is better for me" which is true for some people and not for others. But that statement has a built-in personal reference "for me." So we're not really dealing with relativity of truth. There may well be things we don't fully understand, so we'll have to live with differences of opinion, or with multiple descriptions, each of which capture some of the truth, but in the end I still believe that propositions are either true or false. The type of truth may, of course, vary quite a lot, from "this object is red" to "God sent his son to redeem us."

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