This is a continuation of several blog posts having to do with the existence of real truth. Our society today is mired in relativism, which states that you may be able to find truth in other areas like science, just not in morality or religion. Previous blog posts have dealt with various aspects of this – how we got such an increase in relativism, problems with relativism, and challenges offered by relativists.
This time I’d like to explore how we can find truths in morality and religion. For one thing, we can use intuition. No experience is necessary, it’s simply a truth that’s obvious upon consideration, and it’s the way we start knowing everything. For example, in the Declaration of Independence the authors say they hold certain truths to be self-evident. They did not feel it was necessary to explain why this was the case; it was a truth that was obvious to everyone upon consideration. We all have moral common sense and recognize, for example, that since humans are valuable, we ought not take their lives without proper justification. Anyone who denies obvious moral rules doesn’t just have a different moral point of view; he or she has something wrong on the inside.
What other ways can we use to begin to find truths in morality and religion? One way is the use of logic. For example, there is a law of non-contradiction. In the area of religion, we might get people to see that Jesus either is or is not God. There’s no middle ground, there’s no fuzzy waffling, there is no way to bridge these two points. So much for the idea that all religions are truthful. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong regarding Jesus.
Another way we can begin to find truths is factual evidence. Some people may scratch their heads at the idea that there is factual evidence for religions, but there is. Consider manuscript evidence. Christianity is far ahead of other ancient religions in the number of manuscripts available and their closeness to the original events described. Look at the history of ancient religions – Christianity spread by non-violence while others, such as Islam, spread by violence. Look at science as well – Christianity and Judaism reference Old Testament passages which talk about the expansion of the universe while Eastern religions like Hinduism say there was not a beginning or an expansion to the universe. Then there’s archaeology – compare Christian evidences with Mormon teachings. There is so much more archaeological evidence for the accuracy of Christianity.
There are other ways we can begin to find truths in morality and religion, but I will save those for a future blog post.
