Assuming the view of truth presented in the op and assuming there exists in biological entities a “life force” I’ll call spirit, it seems justified to make a distinction of the appearance of what I’ll call the soul or intellect in humans as, at minimum, a higher quantity or quality of spirit than in other life forms (though seemingly identical in kind) by virtue of our capacities of abstraction and moral conception. A thought experiment I use to illustrate both the role of different levels of spiritual force or content (or both) and the role value conflict plays in our observations of its effects goes like this:
You are handed a heavy sledge hammer. Five items are laid out in front of you. Observe your own reaction as you’re instructed to strike each item in proper order as hard as you can:
1. Boulder
2. Potted plant
3. Ant hill swarming with ants
4. Baby seal
5. Human infant
Most should observe an increase in ‘moral pressure’ with each item, and only a severely defective intellect could imagine carrying out item 5.
In the analysis of truth presented in the op, “morality” is just the word or concept that describes the pressure experienced in the mind by information of a reasonably true mind encountering prescriptive false information, or conversely a falsified mind encountering prescriptive truth. The fact that pressure is felt by degrees as each biological entity is struck in the thought experiment suggests vitality is qualitative or quantitative or both. That we distinguish between a wide range of goods and evils suggests this vitality or spirit is composite, a diversity. (This state of spiritual multiplicity is confirmed in the metaphors of Scripture, but this is another thread in a different location.) A noticeable difference should have been experienced between striking the boulder and the other four items. There should have been little or no sensation in striking the rock because truth in inanimate things is inert by nature. This peculiarity was noted by Mortimer Adler in his Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985):
"In Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, clearly cognizant of what he himself had said about the character of descriptive truth, declared that what he called practical judgments (i.e., prescriptive or normative judgments with respect to action) had truth of a different sort. Later philosophers, except for Aristotle's medieval disciples, have shown no awareness whatsoever of this brief but crucially important passage in his writings."
The thought experiment above suggests that Adler’s assessment of this distinction as “crucially important” was correct; truth common to inorganic matter is static and neutral (which makes it difficult to conceive of), truth that pertains to life-endued entities is far more dynamic and vigorous. The admittance of falsity into non-organic circumstances creates only a mild tension. The notions that 2+2=5 or the most common element in the universe is radon only produce mild tensions in the mind until they are corrected. Truth in living things produce a much more dynamic resistance when they are falsified. The tendency to lie, even when faced with evidence of wrongdoing, is common to humans. We hate the light of truth, and prescriptive truth shines a harsh light on our wrongdoings.
We feel Indignation in observing (or experiencing) an injustice. These are examples of prescriptive truth’s resistance to the false. They’re value-related forces, effects experienced in intellects of spiritual causes. Secular society studies behavioral psychology based on a largely materialistic approach, but this is only the study of the effects of true-false interactions.
Based on assumptions that Christian doctrinal concepts are generally true, that God exists, that He is in essence pure Truth and reveals Himself subjectively through intuition and objectively through revealed texts of the Christian Scriptures, the view of truth presented here finds not only consistent expression in experience, but vigorous agreement with the principles of the Bible. One important harmonization is in John 3:19-21:
"And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
This short passage identifies the power produced when prescriptive truth and falsity collide. In fact, the words “truth” and “falsity” can replace the terms “light” and “darkness” in the passage above (and so throughout both Testaments for similar terms) with little or no loss in meaning. When this substitution is made the principles change from emotional teachings to technical. Technically, it seems reasonable given the true-false dynamic that a soul falsified will 1) become opposed to truth in proportion to its falsification, and 2) acquire prescriptive dispositions and tend to substitute true beliefs for false. Children from dysfunctional backgrounds who begin life in an innocent state gain inclinations (become more readily falsified by elements in their surroundings) to dissolute behavior. Jesus’ death is the Bible’s prime example of prescriptive truth’s “stimulus-response” mechanism. He was plotted against and put to death for telling His detractors truths their souls were too falsified to “hear”. I’m sure He knew exactly what He was doing and where His actions would lead. He was showing mankind what lies inside us all and our real relationship with truth.
One dynamic of falsification of the soul is that the increase of false elements within a multiplicity of true would lead to a sort of “staining”, hampering ability to understand prescriptive propositions, something similar to the way black dots used to be arranged on white newspaper to form shades of gray in pictures. In the case of the soul, this shading could play a major role in development of negative character traits, learning disabilities, deficiencies in logical processing (cognitive bias), etc. But the vigorous force produced in intellectual operation associated with moral reasoning in the juxtaposition of true and false information are union and resistance. How do predominantly falsified minds (with respect to any particular moral idea) react to true prescriptive information compared to a predominantly true mind to the same idea?
I don’t know how to do formal logic so I made up my own to illustrate this point.
Agent+ a sufficiently true mind with respect to a particular prescriptive proposal
Agent- a sufficiently falsified mind with respect to a particular prescriptive proposal
P+ a true prescriptive proposal
P- a false prescriptive proposal
U union/unite
R resistance/resist
Tev seek true evidence in support of a particular belief
Given the above, using the formula: Mind—encounters—reacts—is motivated to—in support of:
Agent+ --P- —R—Tev –against P-
Agent+ --P+ —U—Tev—for P+
Agent- --P- —U—Tev—for P-
Agent- --P+ —R—Tev—against P+
The important point as I see it is that in all cases both falsified and true agents seek truth-centric propositions in the pursuit of evidence to support their beliefs. It makes no sense to seek false information to “prove” the truth of a belief. Truth is always and ever the guiding authority, but notice the sufficiently falsified agent uses the same truth-centric method to support a falsehood as the sufficiently true agent does to support a truth. Thus, if God exists the atheist who seeks evidence for the idea that God does not exist seeks true statements to support a falsehood. Because we’re value-fragmented, no individual holds completely true or false beliefs. The Christian motivated by resistance to a truth he’s not adequately truth-oriented to hear will support a falsehood in his doctrine also by seeking true evidence to support that falsehood and stands in some degree of culpability (Isa 5:20) for fostering that false belief. Resistance to and uniting with certain truths exists in all, as Jesus taught metaphorically in Mat 12:35 where the good man and evil man are one and the same person, and the treasure proceeds from the same mind, truth creating good treasure, the false creating evil. ’m accused of making ‘sweeping generalizations’ about atheists, but value fragmentation has universal applications and universal application begets true generalizations, i.e., All redheads are imperfect human beings and sinners. Truth’s dynamics are distributed throughout humanity without respect to acceptance or rejection of religion in our worldviews.
Actually, if these concepts and their relationships are valid they leave the largest question essentially unanswered: where or what is the source of truth? What side does truth land on? In other words, if the relationships between truth and a fragmentally falsified existence play out anything like the model identified here, it’s theoretically possible that atheism is in possession of the truth that God does not exist, that theism is based on inherited intellectual and psychological weakness which atheists have risen above and that all the energy that has gone into formulating philosophies and world views contrary to those supporting supernatural systems of belief are in fact the real advocates of truth.
However, I see it as obvious and compelling that this view of truth harmonizes not only with the ideals of theism, but is expressed with particular clarity in the Christian Bible and in its paradigm.
