Ask the Pastor 95

Is it possible to know absolute truth?

For many people, probably the majority of people today, the answer to that question is no, truth is not knowable. This is known as agnosticism, which is do not know. Most often this is based upon the presupposition that there is no God and therefore there are no absolutes. Others are less severe and will say that you can know truth but you must first doubt all things until you can definitely prove that they are true. This is known as skepticism and a certain amount of skepticism can be a good thing when it leads to the search for what is real and what is true. Augustine once said, “I believe in order that I may understand.” This is known as fideism, that faith is necessary to discover truth. This has resulted in the words of the old hymn, “You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart.” It is true that we begin our search for truth with the presupposition that there is a God, “he who comes to God must believe that He is,” (Hebrews 11:6). But our faith does not negate our search for truth. After the resurrection our Lord told Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands, and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” (John 20:27). The physical facts matched the spiritual truth. All that was written in the Bible corresponds to actual eyewitness account and physical evidence, with the possible exception of the first chapter of Genesis where we have only the physical evidence and the eye witness is the Lord God Himself. That is the marvelous thing about the Scriptures, we can know the truth and this truth does correspond to actual physical evidence. These things that are written were written so that we might know the Lord God, believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and have everlasting life and this truth will set us free (see John 8:32; I John 5:13).

Have questions about the Bible? Send them to Dr. Greg Koehn at gak4850@gmail.com and read the answer here in this article.