My eyes have been opened to several realities of culture as I have been reading Romero & Stewart’s “Women’s Untold Stories.” The text is written by a strongly opinionated group of women who meet together as part of a feminist movement. It is a compilation of their personal narratives and their implications. As I reflected upon one such story, I was frustrated by the agenda being pushed through the story-tellers and editors. They make no efforts to hide their resentment towards men, their self-pity as victims of sexism and racism, and their hopes to convict others that horrible social injustices are being commitment against women. The women involved seem to contribute to the problem at hand, making it difficult to separate the bias from the truth. As I should have expected, this comment wrought on the response of “Is there an absolute truth?” from a liberal, lesbian feminist.
“Is there an absolute truth?”
The joy of that question is that you can not answer it without claiming an absolute truth. Anyone who has ever had a thought consciously (or unconsciously) run through their brain even once in their lives holds that there is an absolute truth. And for anyone who is of the opinion that there is no absolute truth – they just made their absolute claim (about absolutely nothing), but there is still no way around it.
So, what’s so terrible and narrow-minded about there being an absolute truth? If one has to exist, and everyone has to believe in one, than why does our culture scream for rel-a-ti-vism!?
I could live my life believing that this life is all there is. I could live my life as if it’s all about loving me… but of course, it’s all about loving people. Culture loves that, doesn’t it? Let’s love others and cry for peace and all just get along. What does every beauty pageant queen want? World peace. So we run out and serve others, we donate to charities, we volunteer, we make friends and we become consumed with otherness. Has anyone ever donated to a charity because it made them feel good about themselves? Has anyone ever volunteered so that others could see them volunteering. Has anyone ever befriended someone because they themselves want friends and hate being lonely? We need to look at the motivation and thinking behind our actions; we need to understand behavior more deeply. We live to fill our needs, and saying we live to love others is the most socially acceptable and morally correct way of presenting it.
Coming full-circle, we all have baggage and personal bias but an absolute truth remains even if it is seen through our personal lens. We can all choose what “truth” we will live for. We can create our own “truth” or we can take from the “truths” others have created. I lived 19 years of my life creating my own “truth” from my peers, family members, the media, my education and life experiences. Let me digress, as this reminds of me an article from Newsweek titled “Why I Am Leaving Guyland.” Guyland is the movement away from traditional markers of manhood – leaving home, getting an education, finding a partner, starting work and becoming a father – and towards a whole new stage of life filled with debauchery, singleness, kidding, and carousing. Men in their twenties are progressively viewing grown-up life as such a loss and they are perhaps the first downwardly mobile and endlessly adolescent generation of men in U.S. history.
Guyland has become a reality through the television, movies, beer commercials, frat-tastic magazines and the media at large. However, some reasons probably hit closer to home, such as: broken families, increased co-habitation, growing divorce rates, a falling economy or financial debt. All of these influences create a “truth” to live for – which in this case is exhibited as Guyland. Unfortunately, these influences which can justify Guyland for some, don’t make it any more of a truthful reality or fulfilling purpose. Guyland is a fabricated truth that men in the twenties are finding themselves living in, and they are ended up more alone, depressed, and confused than ever. (Men between the ages of 16 and 26 have the highest suicide rate for any group except men above 70, they are less likely to read a newspaper, attend church, vote for president, or believe that people are basically trustworthy, helpful and fair)
People live in their fabricated truths all the time. We don’t notice it because most people’s “truths” conform to the culture they live it and any nonconformists are either diagnosed or shunned. However, after living most of my life thus-far self-creating truth I realized that I knew far too little to be responsible for such a feat. My eyes were opened to the reality that only a Creator of the universe, an omnipresent and omnipotent God could be the source and definer of truth.
Part of the significance of there being one absolute truth is that other “truths” are relative to that one absolute. If we claim an absolute truth, but then hold onto ideas, beliefs, and behaviors counter to the absolute truth we are nullifying our absolute claim. It is to say that there is one way and there are many ways at the same time. Both statements cannot be true.
Explained on another level, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). To say you live for Jesus Christ and then to live for your lifestyle, your boyfriend, or your job is to live for nothing because each “absolute” becomes worthless once it shifts into a “relative”. Not only that, but this is a form of false worship and idolization, which is a sin against God. You cannot live for multiple truths because you will hate the one and love the others or be devoted to the one and despise the others.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)
THE way
THE truth
THE life
An absolute cannot be treated as a relative, and a relative cannot be treated as an absolute. There IS one absolute truth and the purpose of my life will be for it, in pursuit of understanding it more beautifully, and taking more complete joy in it.
God loves you and created you to know Him personally.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)
“And this is eternal life, that they know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3)
Man is sinful and separated from God, so we cannot know Him personally or experience His love.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)
Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him alone we can know God personally and experience God’s love.
“God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
“Christ died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)
We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know God personally and experience His love.
“As many as receive Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12)
“By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
When we receive Christ, we experience a new birth (John 3:1-8)
T
R
U
T
H
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in 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" (John 8:31-32)
