Coming to terms with truth

We live in the age of postmodernism, which is sometimes defined as unbelief towards, or rejection of, “metanarratives”. These are supposedly total explicative systems, whether philosophical, religious or even political like communism. People in the 20^th century became disillusioned with the apparently futile search for a global system of Truth. With no-one having come up with the obviously true system, hope was abandoned of ever finding one. The result is that there has been a generalised relativism, with a loss of hope for finding true answers to our deep questions of our existence. There seems to be no absolute Truth; everyone has their personal ideas, but no-one has a total true overarching narrative.

Previously in the Christian West, it was generally thought that there was Truth. Why? Because in the context of Christianity, God knows all Truth and he communicated Truth in his revelation, the Bible. That is still the conviction of millions of people like me, but that metanarrative is no longer the general consensus. The current metanarrative is postmodernism – whose fundamental principle is that no metanarrative is to be believed as true; so in fact it is self-contradictory as it destroys its own basis of belief. It is therefore leading us up the wrong path, and society’s existential despair is the result. With no Truth, there can be no hope. All seems hopeless and meaningless. That’s why our generation should be humbled to reconsider Christianity with its evidence of God’s coming into the world and communicating Truth to us. It has never actually been disproved – only side-lined. 

I have tried to lay the basis for believing that what we hear from Jesus is nothing less than God’s truth – as if the Creator had spoken out of heaven to you. In the Bible we are listening to the real God who is actually there – the God who has come down to earth in Jesus to communicate Truth that He alone knows for sure. In other words, we are not dealing with a “spiritual” ideal, or a philosophical vision that is mere human thinking or a religion of human invention. We said at the start that our only hope of satisfying, authentic answers is if God himself speaks them to us, since humans have proved incapable of getting absolute truth by our own reasoning powers.  I have sought to show evidence for the fact that Jesus is God’s emissary, come into the world from his Father, God, to faithfully relay to us the truth that he had heard from God: if that groundwork is sufficient to lead you to listen to God himself, you will listen, hopefully, with a humble attitude, eager to learn. And you would find the real answers to your profound questions about reality.

If, on the other hand, you are not (yet) convinced of that basis, you can still check it out by reading the Gospels – that is the least you could do to show yourself intellectually serious; or just keep tagging along, reading further the actual answers that Jesus brought. You may read them in a critical frame of mind, not convinced of their truth; and that’s okay, because one cannot believe without assessing the facts, and that extra light may help you to realise that these are indeed divine and universal answers that satisfy the heart and mind.

Clive Every-Clayton