{"id":25568,"date":"2020-01-24T14:33:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T22:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25568"},"modified":"2020-01-24T14:33:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T22:33:26","slug":"what-is-truth-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-is-truth-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Truth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In John\u2019s account of Jesus before Pilate there is an interesting exchange that I reflected on while reading this week:<\/p>\n

Jesus answered, \u201cFor this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world\u2014 to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u201d\u00a0Pilate asked,\u00a0\u201cWhat is truth?\u201d[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The idea of truth, what truth is and why it matters, permeates Mark A. Noll\u2019s writing in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind <\/em>and Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind. <\/em>This word and the importance of it became my week\u2019s continual ponderings. Whose truth is the <\/em>truth, each person seems to have a version of it. For Jesus followers the answer is simple, the one we center our life around, his self-identification, \u201cI am the Way and the Truth and the Life\u2026\u201d[2]<\/a> Noll challenges the Evangelicals in particular, to live out of the fullness of Christ, the Truth, understanding that all truth is God\u2019s truth.<\/p>\n

J.C. Sproul writes about Muslim thinkers from the Middle Ages who created the concept of double-truth theory:<\/p>\n

\u00a0The double-truth theory argued that what was true in religion could be false in science, and what was true in science could at the same time be false in religion\u2026Thomas Aquinas responded to the Aristotelianism of the medieval Muslim philosophers by replacing double truths with the concept of mixed articles, distinguishing nature and grace (not dividing them, as many of his critics allege). Aquinas said that there are certain truths that can be known through special revelation that are not discerned from investigation of the natural world, while at the same time there are certain truths learned from the study of nature that are not found, for example, in the Bible. One does not find the circulatory system of the human body clearly set forth in Scripture. What Aquinas was saying was that there are certain truths that are mixed articles, truths that can be known either from the Bible or by a study of nature. Among those mixed articles, he included the knowledge of the existence of a Creator. The fundamental point, of course, that Aquinas was arguing, in agreement with his\u00a0 famous predecessor, Augustine, was that all truth is God\u2019s truth, and that all truth meets \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 at the top. If science contradicts religion, or if religion contradicts science, at least one of them must be wrong. There have been times in history where the scientific community has corrected not the Bible but poor interpretations of the Bible, as we saw in the Galileo scandal. On the other hand, biblical revelation can act as intellectual brakes upon scientific theories that are groundless.[3]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is part of the argument Noll is making and the challenge he gives to Evangelicals, do not turn off your brains! Do not scoff at science, the natural world and the other disciplines. Recognize they are all part of God\u2019s world. If the Church is to have a voice we must be part of the conversation about all truth, affirm what is and challenge what is not. We must believe the solutions needed for the social, political, economic and other maladies of our day can be found in the mind of Christ which he gives to the Church. I found myself continually asking, \u201cWhat are we afraid of?\u201d<\/p>\n

Has the wisdom of God been given to the \u201cunlearned and ignorant?\u201d Yes, scripture is clear that it is not the knowledge and wisdom of the world or those believing they have found such, to be who God has revealed the mysteries to. Yet does it have to be either\/or? Does one need to set aside the intellect in order to receive such revelation?<\/p>\n

God certainly reveals his mysteries to the unlearned but he also told us to, \u201cLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind<\/em>.[4]<\/a> (italics added) Why would he include the mind if it were not a significant part of who we are and our influence in the world? Could it be that including it in this way is intended to say, \u201cUse your mind, engage the conversations and concerns of culture, do so with the mind of Christ. Know that all truth is God\u2019s truth. In other words, it\u2019s not yours. You do not own it. You have been given a gift of insight and understanding which you are to use for the good of others and our world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The link between Noll\u2019s two books is found in the word humility. <\/em>Reviewer Phillip Byers describes this as the \u201cone concept that unifies all of Noll\u2019s content.\u201d[5]<\/a> In Scandal <\/em>Noll challenges and grieves over the anti-intellectualism of Evangelicalism and in Life <\/em>he addresses the opposite in which some have leaned upon intellectualism only to show disdain for those who are unlearned. Paul warned about this when he said, \u201cKnowledge puffs up while love builds up.\u201d[6]<\/a> Linked together Noll\u2019s writings reminds the Church of its history, presses us to re-engage the world of knowledge and not use certain scriptures as an excuse for anti-intellectualism. At the same time, he argues that all truth is found in having the mind of Christ for the sake of the world. Not for the sake of knowing which leads to arrogance or isolation from the world which we have been called to influence.<\/p>\n

As a Regent University, Wheaton University professor and church historian, Noll has been in the bastion of Evangelicalism so he is not an outsider throwing rocks. Rather, he is a concerned insider who is inviting the Church to a different future than our recent past. Are we prepared to answer Pilate?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> John 8:37a-38b NIV<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> John 14:6a NIV<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ligonier.org\/learn\/articles\/all-truth-gods-truth-sproul\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Matthew 22:37 NIV<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Philip D. Buyers, “Jesus Christ Is the Life of the Mind: A Review of Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994) and Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind (2011).” Christian Higher Education<\/em> 12, no. 3 (2013): 229-38.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> I Corinthians 8:1-3 NIV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In John\u2019s account of Jesus before Pilate there is an interesting exchange that I reflected on while reading this week: Jesus answered, \u201cFor this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world\u2014 to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u201d\u00a0Pilate asked,\u00a0\u201cWhat is truth?\u201d[1] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-25568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-noll","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25571,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25568\/revisions\/25571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}