Arguments against Truth Refuted
In the last post, I explained how God is the source of all Being and goodness. He is man's beatitude, the only one capable of giving humankind the complete satisfaction of every desire for truth, goodness, and beauty. However, is God merely a warm, fuzzy idea some people made up to feel good or to make others feel good? Does God really exist or is He just a big fake? Also, does it even matter? What if both ideas are right? Shouldn't people just believe what they want? After all, some might propose, there isn't any truth and even if there is, we really can't know it. So, before we explore and defend God's existence and His attributes, we most certainly should address the realities of truth and falsehood and how we as human beings can come upon and know truth.
First of all, some of the questions I posed above are ones that many people today might ask. In most of modern thought, the idea of relative truth is quite prevalent. This concept states that no absolute or objective truths exist in reality. As we can see right off the bat, this view is unintelligible and ridiculous for most of us.
We must make a point, though, about the relativism of truth. Some relativists hold to the statement that there is no truth while others state that there is no absolute or objective truth. Members of the former group are often called skeptics while the latter group is known as the subjectivists. The former group's declaration falls apart quite swiftly, especially if you ask them whether or not they hold their statement to be true. If they say yes, then truth is out there for the taking. If they say no, then their whole line of reasoning is bunk.
In regards to the latter group of people, the subjectivists, who believe that there is no absolute or objective truth, we must point out a few things. These people believe that there exists some truth but this truth, all things considered, means nothing in reality. This truth is called subjective truth. The reason these people say that truth is relative is because a thing is said to be true only for some person or persons. A truth is true only insofar as it is compared or relative to a given set of beliefs among various individuals or groups. Basically, according to these people, all truth is opinion... except for the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth. As we can clearly see, both the skeptic and the subjectivist fall into the pit they dug for themselves; they assume the thing they're trying to disprove.
Getting deeper into this mess, some skeptics might attempt to bolster their view by asserting that humans can and often do commit errors of reasoning. So, they argue, how can we be certain of any real truth? If truth is, as Aquinas and Aristotle said, the agreement and conformity of reality and the intellect's judgment of reality, can we really know truth given that we are prone to frequent error and confusion? The answer is a sound "Yes" for many reasons. First of all, error, regardless of how frequent it is, does not disprove the existence of truth and does not support the skeptic's case. In fact, the reality of error necessarily requires the reality of truth. This is because when we recognize a human error in reasoning (for example, when I thought there was ice cream in the freezer but found out that you ate it all), we correct it, being conscious of our flaw in apprehending the way things are. But, we must ask ourselves how we recognized the error in the first place. We end up discovering that the principle or standard by which we found ourselves to be in error must necessarily involve a certain knowledge of truth or else, if this standard were erroneous itself, we would never have recognized our error in the first place. Thus, we can see that the skeptic's case does not hold water.
In conclusion, as Saint Thomas Aquinas argued in his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, "The existence of truth is self-evident. For whoever denies the existence of truth grants that truth does not exist: and, if truth does not exist, then the proposition 'Truth does not exist' is true: and if there is anything true, there must be truth." So, in order to be truly coherent and fully rational human beings, we must needs acknowledge the existence of objective truth. To do otherwise would be to commit serious errors in our reasoning and to indulge in the airheaded and supremely foolhardy philosophies so popular in modern thought today. Along with the rich intellectual tradition of truth as expounded upon by men like Aquinas, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many others, come, let us reason together and pursue the truth, following wheresoever it may lead us. All things considered, truth is what everyone ultimately desires and should desire, because after all, who wants to be stuck in the murky fog of doubt and falsity? In the words of Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" This is a question all men ask in their heart of hearts, even if they aren't immediately aware of it. In the next post, I will examine how the human intellect can stand in regards to true and false statements and also I will delve more into how we as humans can come upon and apprehend truth.
First of all, some of the questions I posed above are ones that many people today might ask. In most of modern thought, the idea of relative truth is quite prevalent. This concept states that no absolute or objective truths exist in reality. As we can see right off the bat, this view is unintelligible and ridiculous for most of us.
We must make a point, though, about the relativism of truth. Some relativists hold to the statement that there is no truth while others state that there is no absolute or objective truth. Members of the former group are often called skeptics while the latter group is known as the subjectivists. The former group's declaration falls apart quite swiftly, especially if you ask them whether or not they hold their statement to be true. If they say yes, then truth is out there for the taking. If they say no, then their whole line of reasoning is bunk.
In regards to the latter group of people, the subjectivists, who believe that there is no absolute or objective truth, we must point out a few things. These people believe that there exists some truth but this truth, all things considered, means nothing in reality. This truth is called subjective truth. The reason these people say that truth is relative is because a thing is said to be true only for some person or persons. A truth is true only insofar as it is compared or relative to a given set of beliefs among various individuals or groups. Basically, according to these people, all truth is opinion... except for the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth. As we can clearly see, both the skeptic and the subjectivist fall into the pit they dug for themselves; they assume the thing they're trying to disprove.
Getting deeper into this mess, some skeptics might attempt to bolster their view by asserting that humans can and often do commit errors of reasoning. So, they argue, how can we be certain of any real truth? If truth is, as Aquinas and Aristotle said, the agreement and conformity of reality and the intellect's judgment of reality, can we really know truth given that we are prone to frequent error and confusion? The answer is a sound "Yes" for many reasons. First of all, error, regardless of how frequent it is, does not disprove the existence of truth and does not support the skeptic's case. In fact, the reality of error necessarily requires the reality of truth. This is because when we recognize a human error in reasoning (for example, when I thought there was ice cream in the freezer but found out that you ate it all), we correct it, being conscious of our flaw in apprehending the way things are. But, we must ask ourselves how we recognized the error in the first place. We end up discovering that the principle or standard by which we found ourselves to be in error must necessarily involve a certain knowledge of truth or else, if this standard were erroneous itself, we would never have recognized our error in the first place. Thus, we can see that the skeptic's case does not hold water.
In conclusion, as Saint Thomas Aquinas argued in his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, "The existence of truth is self-evident. For whoever denies the existence of truth grants that truth does not exist: and, if truth does not exist, then the proposition 'Truth does not exist' is true: and if there is anything true, there must be truth." So, in order to be truly coherent and fully rational human beings, we must needs acknowledge the existence of objective truth. To do otherwise would be to commit serious errors in our reasoning and to indulge in the airheaded and supremely foolhardy philosophies so popular in modern thought today. Along with the rich intellectual tradition of truth as expounded upon by men like Aquinas, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many others, come, let us reason together and pursue the truth, following wheresoever it may lead us. All things considered, truth is what everyone ultimately desires and should desire, because after all, who wants to be stuck in the murky fog of doubt and falsity? In the words of Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" This is a question all men ask in their heart of hearts, even if they aren't immediately aware of it. In the next post, I will examine how the human intellect can stand in regards to true and false statements and also I will delve more into how we as humans can come upon and apprehend truth.
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