Do you believe absolute truth is attainable? Why or why not?

Every specific statement is either true or false. Truth is reality. There are no “false facts.” If they are false, they are not facts, and if they are facts, they are not false.

Truth exists and is real whether I accept it or not. The idea that “your truth is not my truth” supposes that truth is fluid and pliable and created in the mind of each person. My belief or understanding of anything does not create reality. It is possible to believe something that is false, and it is a fact that I believe it, but my believing of it does not make it true. For example, I may believe that the earth is flat. Does that make it flat? I may believe that 2 plus 2 is five. Does that make it so?

If truth is not knowable and attainable, then life as we know it would be in total chaos. There would be no scientific truth, no historical truth, no legal truth, no geographical truth, no truth in weights and measurements, no physical truth, no conceptual truth and no medical truth. A person who says that truth is not knowable is contradicting himself because the statement that “truth is not knowable” is presented as a statement that is itself knowable. This means that there is at least one thing that is knowable. That one “knowable truth” collapses the concept that truth is not knowable. If there is one thing that is knowable, could there not be two things (and more) that are knowable? Can a person know that he exists? How does he know that? He has to exist to say or think that he does not exist. If he does not exist, he could not think that he does not exist. He knows that it is false that he does not exist. If truth is not knowable, then no one could say that something is false. In order for something to be false, something has to be true.

There are many historical evidences of the existence, life, and death of Jesus and the changes in the lives of his disciples created by their faith in his resurrection. No credible historian denies these facts. Was Jesus raised from the dead? Is his resurrection on the third day a fact, too? There are many reasons to believe that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical fact. Of the several theories of what happened to the body of Jesus, the resurrection presents the most credible evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus is a fact, this validates all the claims and teachings of Jesus. Whatever he said must be believed and obeyed in order to have a saving relationship with God. God put his divine stamp of approval on him and what he said. If the resurrection is not a fact, then Jesus is a fraud because he claimed to come from God, to be raised from the dead and to return to God. If the resurrection is not a fact, then Christianity would not be any more valid or believable than any other world religion.

If we accept the truth and reliability of Jesus, then we believe that absolute truth is in him. He said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). This truth is attainable and knowable in him. He said, “If you continue in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. . .. If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (8:31-36). The words of Jesus are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). They are living and active and God gives life through them (Hebrews 4:12).

This is the truth that is “God’s power unto salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16-17). In the first century, this power was evident in the lives of the many tens of thousands who obeyed the gospel even at the cost of their own lives. They were “born again” through “the active and living word of God” that “was preached to them” (1 Peter 1:23-25). This is the “word of God” that works now in believers (1 Thessalonians 2:13).