Anush A. John Podcast
Anush A. John Podcast
The Moral Polaris - On Truth
"What is truth?" has been a question asked throughout the ages. This sermon explores the meaning of truth, the possibility of relative truth, and the ramifications in human lives.
https://www.anushjohn.com/post/the-moral-polaris
anushjohn.com
Good morning. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you to Abraham for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here and to meet different of you all over the course the next day or so. My name is Anush and I'm from the US. We live in Maryland, which is about an hour north of Washington DC and became a yesterday, and I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Imagine that you're a sailor hundreds of years ago and you're out in the open water at night. What would you do? I mean, how would you find your way around? What you would do is that you would look up into the sky and look for a constellation of stars called as the Big Dipper. This is a constellation of stars that looks like a big saucepan and it is the back end of another constellation called the Great Bear. And so you look for the Big Dipper and opposite the handle of the Big Dipper you see two stars. And then you draw a line straight from the two stars and it reaches another saucepan And this saucepan it touches a star on the handle end of this second, smaller saucepan called the Little Dipper, and where it touches another star that's called the North Star or the Polaris. Now, this star is not the brightest star in the sky, but it is a more stable star because it is directly above the North Pole. And so, if you wanted to navigate out in the open seas, you look for the Polaris and you are able to guide your navigation, because you knew that the Polaris did not move.
Speaker 1:This morning, in a sermon entitled The Moral Polaris, i want to look at the issue of truth. How do we navigate using a non-movable idea of truth? I've divided this sermon into five parts. In the first part, we will look at the question what is truth? Second, we will look at the issue of relative truth, and here is where I hope to spend most of our time together. Third, we will look at can we know the truth? Then we will look at relevance and responsibility of knowing the truth And then, very quickly, we will look at truth revealed. First, let's look at what is truth.
Speaker 1:Now I want you to open your Bibles to some passages. Let's turn to the first one, which is John, chapter 18. And I will read for us verse 33, about five or six verses John, chapter 18 and verse 33 following. All right, so let me just set the scene for this. This is a scene about 2,000 years ago. Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was taken first to the house of Annas, who was the father-in-law to the high priest, and then he was taken to the palace of Caiaphas And there he stayed overnight. By morning they had confirmed that he deserved the death penalty, and so in the morning they took him to the palace of Pontius Pilate. And so it is here in Pontius Pilate that we pick up the story. John, chapter 18, verses 33 following.
Speaker 1:So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered do you say this of your own accord Or did others say this to you about me? Pilate answered am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priest have delivered you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting That I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world. Then Pilate said to him so are you a king? Jesus answered you say that I'm a king. For this purpose I was born And for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Pilate said to him what is truth? This is a very, very large, fundamental question that Pilate is asking.
Speaker 1:There are various theories of truth that I'm not going to go into the different theories of truth. I'm just going to go into the most commonly accepted view of what truth is. It's called the correspondence theory of truth, and the correspondence theory of truth says that truth is a statement, a proposition, an affirmation or judgment that accurately corresponds to reality. There is reality And then there is a statement about that reality. So, for example, if you look outside, it's a sunny day outside. Now, if I said it is raining outside at this campsite in Bancroft, that statement is a logically coherent statement, but it is a factually untrue statement, you see, because that statement does not correspond with reality. The reality is that there is sun outside. And if I say it's raining outside, it is an untrue statement. Or let's say that this half bottle of water that I have here, let me just drink the rest of it to make it an empty bottle of water. Let's say that this empty bottle. I say it is an empty bottle Because that corresponds to reality. That is the truth. Now, if you said oh, there is a bottle there filled with lemonade, that is a logically true statement, but it is a false statement Because that proposition does not correspond with reality. If a statement corresponds to reality, it is true. If it doesn't correspond to reality, it is not true.
Speaker 1:Now, in the Bible, the Hebrew and the Greek words for truth mean something similar to this. The first meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words mean correspondence to fact. So let's read a verse John, chapter 4, verse 16. John, chapter 4, verse 16. It says Jesus said to her go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him I have no husband. Jesus said to her you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. You see, she was telling the truth, regardless of what her moral life was. That statement was a true statement because it corresponded to reality. So truth corresponds to reality, but it doesn't create reality. Okay, and we will talk about it here in a minute.
Speaker 1:The second meaning of truth in the Bible has to do with faithfulness. So let's turn to John, chapter 7, verse 28. John, chapter 7, verse 28, just three chapters before, and it says So Jesus proclaimed as He taught in the temple You know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true and Him you do not know. He who sent me is true. So in talking about God, god is faithful to His name. It's not that God corresponds to some other reality. God is faithful to His name. So the two meanings of truth in the Bible, in terms of the Greek and Hebrew words for truth is correspondence to fact and faithfulness. Now in John, chapter 17, verse 17,. You don't need to turn to it. It says Jesus said sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So there Jesus declares that the Bible is truth, which means that the Bible corresponds to reality.
Speaker 1:Secondly, let's look at absolute and relative truth, absolute and relative truth. Let me just talk about what a relative truth is. Maybe you all know about it already. We are living in a postmodern culture And one of the things about postmodern culture is the idea that everything is relative, the idea of relative truth. Here the claim for truth is dependent on the community that believes it. So if I said it is raining outside and we all said it is raining outside, then for us it is true. And you're wondering well, how does that make sense? Well, that is the issue with relative truth. In absolute truth, reality exists. Truth discovers reality. In relative truth, truth creates reality. So, if you said that there is a bottle full of lemonade on the table, and if we all believed it, it is true.
Speaker 1:You see the problem with that There are subjective opinions and there is objective truth. There is subjective, relative opinions and then, on the other side, there is absolute truth. Now, we all have opinions. What is your favorite food? Sushi, yeah, sushi, you like sushi. Okay. What is your favorite song? Country, okay, some country, some country song Okay. So those are subjective opinions, right? You cannot say sushi has to be the favorite food of everybody in the world. I mean, that is her favorite food. Some people like sushi, some people don't like sushi. Some people like raw fish in the sushi, some people don't like raw fish in the sushi, right? So that is a subjective opinion.
Speaker 1:The problem is that culture has taken absolute truth and made it subjective opinion, and taken subjective opinion and made it absolute truth. Whatever is absolute, they will say oh, it's up to you. Whatever you want, whatever you think about it is true. Let me show you a difference between subjective opinions and absolute truth. Who is the tallest person in this room? Who is the tallest person in this room? Listen, what's your height? I want to say 6 feet 6, 1. 6, 1. Okay, so that is a objective question, right, and that is an objective, absolute answer. Okay, who is the most handsome person in this room? You see, you see, this is a subjective opinion. Each person thinks they're handsome. Each person thinks that they're helpful. So that is a subjective question and that is a subjective opinion. There is an objective truth and then there is a subjective opinion.
Speaker 1:The problem is that what post-modernism has done is that it's taken an objective truth like right and wrong. They've taken it and said it's subjective. You can. If it's true for you, it's true for you. If it's right for you, it's right for you. If it's wrong for you, it's wrong for you. It's whatever you want it to be. This is the view in the cultural marketplace, this is the secular view, where it says that everything is relative. Nothing is absolute. So I want to give you five problems that I find with relative truth.
Speaker 1:Five problems with relative truth. The first one is that it is self-refuting. The first problem with relative truth is that it is self-refuting. Let me ask you a question Is the concept of relativism true or false? That's the question. Is the concept of relativism true or false? If you said it's false, there's nothing to discuss. It's false. But if you said that the concept of relativism is true, what you are saying is an absolute statement. You are saying absolutely, the concept of relativism is true and you cannot see it any other way. Once you make that into an absolute statement, you have self-refuted it. You see, it is a self-refuting argument to say that everything is relative and make it an absolute statement.
Speaker 1:The second problem with relative truth is that it does not follow the three fundamental laws of logic. The three fundamental laws of logic talk about the nature of truth and they are fundamental laws from the time of Aristotle. So it's like the laws of mathematics 2 plus 2 is 4. In any culture, in any tribe, in any language, in any people group, the laws of logic are the same, just like the laws of mathematics, and there are three fundamental laws of logic. That well, i'm not going to go into it. But it is a law of identity, it is a law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle. So these three fundamental laws of logic is not followed by the concept of relative truth.
Speaker 1:The third problem that we have with relative truth is that it equates the knowledge of the truth as truth itself. It equates the knowledge of the truth as truth itself. Let me just explain this Whether we know the truth or not doesn't change the reality, right? So, for example, in the past people thought that the earth was flat. Now we know, obviously we have plenty of evidence that the earth is not flat. The earth is round. What relativism says is that because the ancient people thought that the earth was flat, it's true for them, and because we think that the earth is round, it's true for us. It's true for them and true for us. So what they're saying is that the knowledge of the truth is truth itself. Their knowledge of the earth was that the earth was flat. That was their knowledge. So that made truth itself. And that is not true, isn't it? If I woke up in the morning and I didn't look outside and it was a sunny day outside, it doesn't matter whether I know about it or not, the knowledge of the truth doesn't matter, it is still a sunny day outside, whether I know about it or not.
Speaker 1:The fourth problem we have is that relative truth equates belief with reality. It equates belief with reality. So it says what you think is true is true for you. What I think is false is false for me. So, for example, if you said that this bottle is full of lemonade, if y'all think it's full of lemonade and half the group thinks it's an empty bottle, what relativism says is that it is lemonade for half of y'all and empty for half of y'all. So essentially, what you believe about it creates reality, and that doesn't make sense. How can a bottle be two things at one time? How can it be fully sunny and fully rainy at one time? The fact is that reality exists, whether I believe about it or not. The fifth problem we have with relative truth is that it is incompatible with normal living. You cannot live life if there are no absolutes. So yesterday we drove up from Toronto up here, took about three hours, and some of y'all have gotten speeding tickets in the past. So y'all are driving a little gingerly and making sure the cops are not on your tail And so suppose, let's say, that the concept of relativism is true.
Speaker 1:You're going it says it goes from 100 km an hour to 80, and then 70, and then up to 100, back and forth, back and forth, and you lost sense of where you were. You're enjoying the beautiful scenery outside and you're driving, and as you drove you went over the speed limit by about 30 km an hour. And the cop comes behind you, pulls you over and says sir, you are going above the speed limit. What can you say? You can say well, that may be true for you, but it's not true for me. I was going at 80 km an hour. You see, it doesn't work. Or let's say you went to a store to buy something and you say, well, i want that. That costs about 50 bucks. I want that, and the storekeeper says, no, that's actually $70, because it's true for me, it's 70 bucks.
Speaker 1:Or I go to the airport tomorrow to go back to Maryland and I go there at 4.30, when my flight is supposed to go, and they say the flight's already gone. I say what? 4.30. I came on time. No, no, no, according to our time, the flight was the right time and we left. You see, your truth and my truth is incompatible with life. That is the biggest problem that we have with relative truth.
Speaker 1:Third, let's look at the question Can we know the truth? Can we know the truth? Now I'm not going to go into a whole bunch of theories about evidentialism and presuppositionalism and revelationism and all this other stuff. I want to tell you three things about whether we can know the truth or not. Now I'm not going to delve into the region of knowledge. I'm still going to stay in the region of truth. Let me tell you three things about whether we can know the truth or not. First is some truth can be known. Some truth can be known, especially in terms of human beings. A lot of truth can be known. But, in general, some truth can be known In terms of finite human beings. Because we are finite, there's a good chance we can know a lot of truth, or the whole truth.
Speaker 1:So, for example, i want you all, on the count of three, to give me your biggest smile. I assume that I'm going to take a picture, okay, and give me your biggest smile on the cut. Not yet, not yet. Just hold that smile, okay. On the count of three one, two, three. She was yawning, let's, let's redo it. Okay, on the count of three, one, two, three. Biggest smile, biggest smile, everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, when we smiled, what muscles of the face came into action? Okay, there are several muscles of the face that came into action. There's the orbicularis, ocular muscle, which is around the eye, that gives you those crow feet. Then there's a zygomaticus, major Zygomaticus minor levator, labia superiores, levator labia superiores, alexuinesia, levator, anguli, oris, and then maybe the Depressor, labia inferioris. Sometimes people who smile with their nose flaring, the nasalis may come into into view. So there are certain muscles that are involved in your smile, whether you knew it or not. But that is a finite number of muscles.
Speaker 1:Let's say that they found about two more muscles that help you to smile, but it is still a finite number in respect to humans. Most of the time, we can know the whole thing, but also because of human limitation, there are many things that we cannot know. So, for example, how many trees are there in the world right now? See, that is a finite number. That's not an infinite number, correct? That's a finite number, but because of human limitation, we cannot know the entire number of trees in the world. How many grains of sand are on our Sandshores is? it is a very, very high number, but it is not an infinite number. It is still a finite number. So, because of human limitations, there are certain things that we won't know in terms of God, because God is infinite, we can never completely know him Because we are always finite. In terms of God, we can never completely know him. We can only know some truth about him.
Speaker 1:Second, i'll call it as indirect knowledge of truth. Now, most of our knowledge is indirect knowledge. Have you heard about a war that's going on in Ukraine? All of you have heard about it. Anybody hasn't heard about the war in Ukraine that's going on. Okay, how did you know about the war in Ukraine? Did anybody visit Ukraine?
Speaker 1:No, so it's not direct knowledge, it is indirect knowledge. It is knowledge that has been reported by somebody else about the truth, and This comes through eyewitness accounts, the people who went to there, people who took videos there. They broadcasted it, and we depend on those eyewitness accounts to know indirect truth. But there's also the fact of direct knowledge of the truth. We can have direct knowledge of the truth. Now. this comes to us directly, from direct observation. So, for example, if I ask you how many fans are in this room, no fans in this room, right? that is direct knowledge. How many lights are turned on in this room? It is an objective answer Nine. So there are nine lights turned on in this room. Right, this is direct observation. If somebody in the other room asked us how many lights were turned on, we can say nine, and for them That is indirect knowledge, but for us it is direct knowledge because we directly observed it.
Speaker 1:Now, in relation to God, i want to go through these three things and give you three different verses in relation to God. In relation to God, some truth can be known. Let's turn to John, chapter 8, verse 31. John, chapter 8, verse 31. It says so. Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So we can know some truth about God. We can know some truth about God.
Speaker 1:Second, let's turn to 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verse 16. 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verse 16. It says for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. This is Peter who walked with him for three and a half years talking And he said we were eyewitnesses. So this is indirect truth that we learn about God. We didn't see Jesus, we didn't live in the time of Jesus, so what we know in the Bible is eyewitness accounts about Jesus. So what we know about God through Jesus is through eyewitness accounts. But also we can have direct knowledge of God. So turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2 and verse 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. We have been given the Spirit to understand the things of God. So that is a direct knowledge. Yes, we have indirect knowledge of Jesus through the Bible, but once we become believers because of the Spirit of God in us, we have direct knowledge of God because of the Holy Spirit. Fourth, let's look at the relevance and the responsibility of knowing the truth. Now there is reality and then there is truth about that reality. We can know the truth, but what is the relevance of knowing the truth? Is there any relevance to knowing the truth?
Speaker 1:Back when I was studying for my surgical boards, there was an instructor that his specialty in the field of surgery that I'm in is to realign jaws. So we do a surgery called orthognathic surgery where if your jaw is too far forward or too far in, or the upper jaw is too far forward or too far in, or it's moved to the side, we can open up the mouth, cut the upper and lower jaws into smaller pieces and move them in three dimensions to where we want it to be. So we can move the whole jaw forward or back or sideways or whatever way. So that field in my surgical department is called orthognathic surgery. So this professor who was training us for a board exam for orthognathic surgery told us that there are three kinds of things to know for this exam. He said the first category is need to know. You absolutely need to know certain things about this kind of surgery so that you can pass this exam. First is a need to know. Second is nice to know. There are some things that it's not essential to know. It's not need to know, but it's nice if you know it. If you know it you can pass this exam. And the third category, he said it's nuts to know, you don't need to know about it. It's not necessary for you to know about it for the exam. So it's need to know, nice to know, nuts to know. So I've based the next couple things loosely on this category.
Speaker 1:What are the outcomes of knowing the truth? The truth pertains to me directly. The truth pertains to me directly. It is need to know, i need to know. Truth pertains to me directly. So, for example, let's say that there was a new law passed in Canada that said that your tax rate is going up by 5% starting the next fiscal year. Does that matter to you? I mean, it doesn't matter to the kids. It never matters to the kids. It does matter to the parents. It absolutely matters If your tax rate is going up by 5%. That is knowledge that pertains to us directly.
Speaker 1:For example, let's say that you got a notification from your school before your last day of school and it said starting your next year in school, we are going to start classes on Saturday as well, just like we do in India. We want to be like India, so we're going to start classes Monday through Saturday. Does that knowledge of the truth pertain to you? It absolutely does, doesn't it? So there is knowledge of truth that pertains directly to us, but there's also knowledge of truth that pertains to us indirectly. So, for example, the war in Ukraine. Now, if you're from a country that gives financial aid to Ukraine for the war, it pertains to you directly. But if you're not a country that gives financial aid to Ukraine, it doesn't pertain to you directly. It pertains to you indirectly because, yes, we feel sad for the people that are going through this and suffering through this tragedy. So it pertains to us indirectly. There's a third kind of knowledge. So the first one is need to know. This one is nice to know. And the third one it does not pertain to us directly. This is nuts to know, the nuts to know category.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of truth that does not pertain to us. So let's say, as the folks were driving their cars yesterday from Toronto to Bancroft, you came across a small bridge And just before the small bridge there is a sign that says if your vehicle is over 1.5 tons, don't go across the bridge. And you're driving across. Does that truth matter to you? It does not, because no matter how much of schnitzel and poutine we had, we're never going to get to more than 1.5 tons. So that truth does not matter to us. Or if you found out that the tax code in China has gone up by 5%. Does it matter? No, it doesn't. So it's truth that does not pertain to us.
Speaker 1:Now, if truth pertains directly to me, i am responsible for it. If truth pertains directly to me, i am responsible for it. Now, what I'm going to say next is very important. The things of God pertain directly to us. It is need to know. And the reason why it pertains directly to us is because it affects our destiny. For every human being, the things of God is not a nuts to know or nice to know, but it is a need to know kind of truth. And if we know that truth, we have the responsibility of acting upon it.
Speaker 1:Let's read a verse Luke, chapter 12, verse 47. Following Luke, chapter 12, verse 47, following The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants, will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. The more truth we know, the more we are liable to act upon that information. Let's come back to the original setting that we started off with, and then we will wind this sermon down. Turn your Bible to John, chapter 19. John, chapter 19,.
Speaker 1:This is Jesus in front of Pontus Pilate again, but it's a little later on in that day. John chapter 19, verse 6. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. Jesus answered him we have a law and according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.
Speaker 1:When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus where are you from? Jesus gave no answer. So Pilate said to him you will not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him you would not have authority over me at all unless it has been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. He who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. What is Jesus saying? That the Jews who gave Jesus over has a greater sin because they had more knowledge about the upcoming Messiah. They knew for thousands of years that there was a Messiah that was coming And so, because they had that extra knowledge, they were more guilty than Pilate, who didn't have that extra knowledge.
Speaker 1:And then we come to truth revealed. Pilate asks this fundamental question what is truth? And he turns and walks away. He didn't stick around for the answer. If he had stuck around for the answer, he would have found the truth in the person that was standing right in front of him. Because you see, ladies and gentlemen, truth is not a concept. Truth is a person, a person who comes into a personal relationship with humans. That is who truth is. Other religions purport to show the truth. Jesus says in John, chapter 14, verse 6, i am the truth. He is the accurate representation of the Father and the truest eyewitness. He is the moral polaris. When the ancient Hindu saint cries a Satoma Satgamaya, lead me from lies to the truth, and does not know how to go from lies to the truth, jesus stands up and says I am the truth. Thank you.