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Seeking Truth During an Election Year

Below you will find a primer called Getting to Know Truth.  It is a handful of biblically sound and theosophically rich blurbs of information that will hopefully reacquaint us with how truth works.  Perhaps then we will be better able to spot truth amidst the fog of misinformation.  
   
But, that leads us to our next point...how can we spot spin?  The answer to that question is covered in the next section entitled Learning to See.  There, we will explore some slippery illusions of logic that have been used for centuries, but retooled for use in modern politics and beyond.  By learning to spot these rarely discussed formulas, hopefully then we will more easily spot the patterns of spin before we accept something as truth. 
  
However, before we explore this exciting topic please consider the following: 

Getting to Know Truth 
   

• Truth is that which conforms to fact and reality. ^[2]   
    
     
• When Christians refer to truth, we are in fact referring to the very same truth that conforms to fact and reality…the same facts and realities found in economics, science, manufacturing, (some aspects of) psychology and the like. ^[11]  “Our oceans are wet” is a truth that falls within the realm of God's truth.        
      
     
• God is not only the author of Love and Truth (among other things). 
  God is Love.  God is Truth.  ^{[3, 4, 5, 7, 8]} 
           
        
• The scripture of Adam and Eve ^[14] and the rest of the Bible make this next point very clear.  Make no mistake about it; we are defined by our relationship to truth!  Or, from a different angle, we are defined by that which separates us from truth.  (I.e. patterns of the world, assumption, fear, prejudice, humanism/materialism, utilitarianism, hedonism…etc.) ^{[12, 15, 16]}
       
      
• Knowledge and truth are two different things.  Knowledge is corruptable.  Truth is not.  Gaining knowledge of truth is not a matter of invention, but rather discovery.  There are truths that exist beyond our knowledge; beyond our mortal/intellectual lines of site.  Just because we cannot easily see or understand some truths does not mean they do not exist.  ^{[7, 8, 9]}  That is the primary reason for the Holy Bible^[6]...to offer profound looks at many of the truths (spiritual and otherwise) not easily seen.  On a more rudimentary level, we may observe this knowledge/truth phenomenon played out in the physical world...Ie, just because we cannot see whales in the ocean does not mean they're not there.  Similarly, it does not matter whether or not we believe in man-accelerated global warming.  It is either real or it isn't.  
      
      
• By definition, we cannot see our own ignorance.  
           
      
• From a Christian perspective, if we are not living in truth, we are missing the point.  If we are intentionally not allowing others to live in truth, we are working against God who is Truth. (The same goes for love, joy, hope, forgiveness, charity, intellect, possibility, etc.)  Intentional anti-Truth is Anti-God.  Intentional anti-Truth is Anti-Christ. 
      
      
• Is Truth Absolute or Relative?
  As of the initial writing of this article this nation is contending with an economic crisis like few others.  If banks can't lend, then we can't spend, then companies can't earn and we can't work.  And this spiral of despair, that reaches into the purses of other nations as well, all likely began with a mortgage crisis that grew from an ideological/political/financial battle over the following questions:  "Is truth absolute or is it relative?" and "Should I run my company like truth is absolute or relative?" and finally, "Should I spend my money like truth is absolute or relative?" 
      
  Therefore, we owe it to ourselves to answer the ultimate question...the question that the entire Bible answers: is truth absolute or is it relative?  (Here's is a hint...the economic pains we are feeling today is reality catching up to us.)
  
  Truth is absolute.  However, there are many people who hold the view that truth is not absolute but rather relative.  These people are referred to as relativists.  Sadly, what relativists fail to notice is the gaping hole in their own philosophy...one that is so unavoidable that it completely dismantles itself into a puff of logic.  The hole is simply this: the entire reason relativists claim that truth is not absolute is because they believe it to be absolutely true.  Even when trying to discount absolute truth, absolute truth cannot be avoided and ultimately wins.  ^{[9, 11, 12]}
  
  The law of non-contradiction tells us that something cannot "be" and "not be" at the same time. ^[20]  For example, 2 + 2 cannot equal "4" and "not 4" simultaneously.  The correct answer is singular and absolute, where as wrong answers are infinite and go nowhere in every direction. 
    
  "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it."  (Matthew 17:13)
     
  Philosopher Avicenna once jokingly said this of the law of non-contradiction, "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." ^[19]
  
  Nevertheless, well-meaning relativists around the world are determined to contradict the law of non-contradiction by rejecting absolutes.  But, why?  Perhaps it is because they believe an absolute reality would be limited, boring, disempowering, devoid of spiritual potential and creativity...in other words, painfully finite.  This, in fact, is not the case. 
  
  Consider numbers, for example.  1 is absolutely 1, and 2 is absolutely 2, and so on.  Yet, there is no number so large that 1 cannot be added to it.  Therefore, by simply considering numbers and numbers alone we can see for ourselves that absolute truth is infinitely infinite while being non-contradictory at the same time.  Imagine, then, the infinite yet non-contradictory nature of all of God's Truth. 
        
     

• There are many who seem to confuse subjectivity with objectivity, resulting in relativism.  So, what's the difference?
  
  Consider the following example: If you and I both took bites from the same piece of chocolate cake, and you declared it tasty while I declared it disgusting, would we have discovered a relative truth?  No.  Instead, we would have shared two subjective truths.  While we may have been using the cake as a common topic, we were actually talking about ourselves...the subjects (hence the word subjectivity).  What we were really doing was sharing our individual psychological conditions in regard to chocolate cake; more to the point; we were sharing our definition of yummy . ^[10]  So, again, our differing opinions would not have pointed to a single relative truth, but rather two individual subjective truths...one possessed by your mind and the other possessed by mine...and each absolute in its own right at that moment.
  
  But, what if we had been sharing with each other the ingredients of the chocolate cake?  In that instance we would not have been talking about ourselves, the subjects, but rather the cake, the object (hence the word objectivity). 
      
     
• Are Good and Evil Objective or Subjective? (Digging deeper into Theosophy)
  What then of the subject of good and evil? 
   
  Let us begin with evil.  Is evil objectively real or subjectively manifested?  The answer is, yes.
  
  While the Bible tells us that we define many things as evil that do not deserve such designations -- which points to fallen subjectivities resulting in baseless fears, prejudices and the like ^[14] -- the Bible also tells us there are objective evils.  Can this be proven through real-world experience?  Yes.  Even post-modern relavists who reject the existance of evil suffer in its pressence...ie, if an innocent child is being harmed they defend the child or, at the very least, cringe.  That means objective evils absolutely exist and cannot be relativistically dismissed.  
     
  For a moment, let us consider what would happen if we all subscribed to the philosophy that objective wrongs do not exist.  What would happen?  The legal system would have no merit, Mother Theresa and Hitler would be of equal moral value (an impossibility), and good itself would cease to exist in the same way 'up' cannot exist without 'down.'   Meanwhile, as we were intellectually living within this post-modern illusion, fooling ourselves into making decisions and taking actions rooted in moral relativism, absolute truth would eventually scream louder than our psychosis (I.e., the true state of the economy screaming louder than argument). We would be forced to shed our "rules" and acknowledge that Mother Theresa is something called good and Hitler is something called evil, and we would finally admit that good and evil indeed exist in reality, though we cannot always intellectualize them.  
     
  In other words, good objectively exists.
  
  However, the term evil desserves a bit more explanation. 
  
  Question: Just because we can see the pressence of evil in our world, does that mean that evil is a force like good is a force?  Actually, the answer is, no.  Evil is not a pressence of something, but rather an absense of something...a privation , in the words of Augustine.  Like a fish suffers in the absense of water, we suffer in the absense of good.  Therefore, whenever we call something objectively evil, we are actually saying that good is objectively not present.  (This leads us right back to the law of non-contradiction.) So, when we say that good cannot exist without bad, we are saying that pressence cannot exist without absense.      
  
  (To explore this topic further, click here.)
      
       
• Christ said 'I am the truth' (John 14:6) and "I and the father are one" (John 10:30).  The only way for someone to intellectually contradict God's nature of Truth and the Christian doctrine is to call truth relative.  (But, here's a secret...truth always wins.) 
      
       
• What would happen if we took the post-modern route of intellectually removing truth and reality from our equations?  Without truth and without reality there would be nothing to reason about and no categories to reason with.  In fact, without truth, even reason becomes useless...leaving only argument (a paraphrasing of Wittgenstein's philosophical discovery)^[11].   An over-reliance on argument is what got us into today's troubles in the first place.  
       
      
• Many of God's truths exist beyond what is written in the Bible.  “When [the Bible] tells you to feed the hungry it does not give you lessons in cookery.” (CS Lewis) ^[13]  
      
      
• When we say that we plan to “vote for the person not the party”, are we suggesting we will base our votes on his/her arms, legs, feet, skin or sex?  Of course not.  If that were the case, one would do well to vote for a prosthetics lab.  By "person" we are actually referring to his/her philosophy.  However, in the absence of truth, philosophy becomes nothing more than argument where the most convincing debator (seems to) "win."  ^[11] Only God wins.  Only truth wins.  People lie and create colorful illusions.
      
      
• Truth is not debatable.  Argument and truth are two different things.  Debate is formulaic (as you will see below) but truth is absolute.  No amount of argument can make the oceans dry.  No amount of emotional appeal can make a horse a duck.  Reality -- truth -- always wins.
      
      
• Flashy video graphics, creative lighting, strong music, bumper stickers, billboards, etc. within political settings should be seen as forms of argument.  (Some say manipulation.)  It can be harmful if we forget to separate the flash from the content of the message. Truth does not need glitter to be true.  
      
      
• One of God's most profound truths is the truth of cause and effect. It is a law that governs the universe…a law like the law of gravity.  By “reverse engineering” cause and effect we learn that God's existence is irrefutable.  ^{[7, 8, 9, 21]}  We also learn, politically speaking, that we are living in the effects of yesterday's cause.  No matter the party or the politic, if the state of the nation is strong, then those who told us yesterday's causes were good ideas should be embraced.  If the state of the nation is weak, then those who told us yesterday's causes were good ideas should be avoided.  That includes avoiding the formulaic debate tactics they need to use because truth will not sustain them .  
     
     
  

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  Learning to See

In addition to Augustine's discovery that God is truth, Augustine also explained how evil (sin) is a privation from (a separation from) God (Who is truth).  In other words, evil is a privation from truth.  ^{[7, 8]}  But, how does this apply to the world of politics?

The fall in the garden and Christ's temptations in the dessert taught us that people with dishonest intent have been known to paint lies with smaller truths.^{[14, 22]}  Sadly this is quite common in today's political arena as well. ^[23]  While many in politics are good and decent people, there are others (like "spin doctors") who often employ deceptive grammatical techniques intended to further their candidate's position in a race.  Sadly, these techniques are so stealthy in their believability that innocent people fail to realize that their pools of knowledge are tainted by misinformation...leading them to believe bad candidates are good candidates and vice versa. 

While all this may sound dizzying and frustrating for truth seeking Christians, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Most of these dishonest techniques are highly formulaic; meaning they require the skillful arranging of topics before false conclusions may be drawn.  So, how does this help us?  It's simple. 

While the topics may change, the arrangements (the formulas) usually do not.  That means that politically spun messages often come with a kind of fingerprint.  Therefore, once we learn to see the fingerprints we will be able to determine when deception was intended...very telling information.  While that may not give us the truth, it will certainly help raise the red flags we need to determine untruths...what Christians seek to avoid.

Well, guess what?  We are going to learn some of those formulas right now.  Below you will find examples of things called logical fallacies.    Logical fallacies are statements that are flawed in their logic...rendering the arguments invalid.    
   
As Christians and/or God-loving people, I believe we should:
1) Learn to spot these fallacious styles of argument
2) Evaluate our own reactions when presented with them
3) Seek the truths they separate us from
4) Realize that not ALL people who use logical fallacies do so with evil intent.  They simply have not learned what a logical fallacy is.  
5) Remember that God is Truth.       
     
The conclusions of the following examples are 100% false and exaggerated as to further highlight the patterns.  
  
   

Argument from the Excluded Middle: ^{[24, 25]}

Person A: An elephant has ears, I have ears, therefore I am an elephant.

Person B: You're not an elephant.

Person A:  (Redirect) Are you saying I don't have ears?  (If this were a political program with the intent of deceiving their audience, the host would likely bring on a slew of Ear, Nose, Throat doctors to prove the existence of ears, while never proving the false conclusion to be true.)   

Truth:  Person A is not an elephant.
   
  

Ad Hominem ^[26]

Person A: I have invented the perfect light bulb.

Person B: Don't listen to him…he cheated on his taxes in ’88.  No one should buy light bulbs from this man as he obviously can't be trusted.

Truth: The light bulb is perfect.
   
   

Pro Hominem (Ad Hominem in reverse) ^[27]

Person A:  I believe the only way to attain perfect peace is to murder all violence.

Person B:  You should listen to him.  He is a man of good character.  In ’88 he saved people from a burning bus. 

Truth: You cannot murder violence because murder is violence.
   
   

A Utilitarian Style ^[28]

Person A:  Should I vote for you because you save children by building orphanages?

Person B:  Yes.

Person A:  But you have been known to steal money and kill people to get the work done.

Person B:  (Redirect) Are you saying orphanages are bad?  Think of the children.  Jesus Christ loved children.  Anyone who doesn't vote for me is anti-Christian? 

Truth:  Bad is still bad...illegal is still illegal...sin is still sin, no matter the intended end.  Person B (or others) will still have to pay for the effects of yesterday's causes (Ie, stealing and killing).  Person B is focusing solely on the end to avoid the bad areas.    
    
  

Excessive Specificity

Person A:  100% of living Americans need oxygen to live.

Person B:  Can you name every American?

Person A:  Of course not.

Person B:  Then you can't say that all living Americans need oxygen to live.

Truth:  Basic science tells us that all humans need oxygen to live.
   

Proof by Assertion (a.k.a. Argument Ad Nauseam) ^[29]

This is a logical fallacy where a position is stated and restated over and over again, sometimes loudly, regardless of verbal or even obvious contradictions.  Then, once those in opposition of the logical fallacy grow tired of debating and simply give up, the supporters of the fallacy claim victory as there is no more opposition.  They equate truth with the last man standing. 
  
Other times the simple repetition of the fallacy is itself used as a kind of "proof"...as if to suggest that ‘only true things are repeated excessively.’  While a person or group using such loud bullying techniques should be held in suspicion, so should we voters who somehow equate the "winner" of a debate with the possessor of truth.  Truth is not debatable.  Debate, as we are learning, can often be nothing more than formulaic. 

This argument ad nauseam can also be seen in the form of campaign slogans or talking points that are handed to multiple political players in the same party.  Then each player goes to the media (often multiple outlets) and recites identical messages, thereby guaranteeing maximum repetition while also giving the illusion of truth by mass agreement.  This tactic also employs logical fallacies like appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum .  
   
This is all heavily tied to a quote often attributed to Lenin that states, "A lie told often enough becomes truth."  

Therefore, perhaps it can be easily argued that the widespread usage of this deceptive tactic in politics helps illuminate at least two key points:

1) Political parties that routinely and excessively speak with one voice may be dangerous. 

2) While political parties that argue amongst themselves may seem weak in comparison to those with a unified voice, they may actually be the stronger of the two, as they are debating in search of a strong bill. 
    
   
Non-Sequitur^[31]
If I buy this watch,
everyone will love me.   
Truth:  Watches and love have nothing to do with each other.
    
   
Denying the Antecedent^[30]
If I am in Miami, then I am in Florida.
I am not in Miami.
Therefore, I am not in Florida.   

If Prince Charles is an American citizen, then he is a human being.

Prince Charles is not an American citizen.

     
If you vote for this bill, then you are an American congressman.
You didn't vote for this bill,
Therefore you are not an American congressman.


  
      
(Much more to come.  If you would like to contribute, feel free to contact us via the form on the left-hand side of this page.)

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”(John 3:20-21)

Resources:

1.  John 18:38 (NIV)
    
2.  www.Dictionary.com  --  "Truth - 2.)  conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement"
   
3.  1 John 4:8 (NIV)
   
4.  John 14:6 (NIV)
   
5.  John 10:30 (NIV)
   
6.  The Philosophy of Religion  (Course)
Taught by Professor James Hall
University of Richmond
Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Great Courses Series - The Teaching Company   
    
7.  Augustine: Philosopher and Saint  (Course)
Taught by Professor Phillip Cary
Eastern University - St. Davids Pennsylvania
Ph.D., Yale University
Great Courses Series - The Teaching Company  
    
8.  Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages  (Course) 
Taught by Professor Thomas Williams
University of South Florida
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Great Courses Series - The Teaching Company  
   
9.  Great Ideas of Philosophy   (Course)
Taught by Professor Daniel N. Robinson
Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University; Distinguished Professor,
Emeritus, Georgetown University
Ph.D., City University of New York
Great Courses Series - The Teaching Company  
     
10.  Great Ideas of Psychology  (Course)
Taught by Professor Daniel N. Robinson
Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University; Distinguished Professor,
Emeritus, Georgetown University
Ph.D., City University of New York  
       
11.  "Revelation: Who is God?"  (Lecture)
Michael Ramsden
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
www.RZIM.org  
     
12.  "Absolute Truth in Relative Terms"  (2 Lectures)
Ravi Zacharias
www.RZIM.org
Click heretohear--->  < /FONT> Part 1  |  Part 2 
(2 of the most profound lectures you may ever hear)  
     
13.  "Mere Christianity" -- pages 83 & 84
CS Lewis 
   

14.  Genesis 2 and 3 (NIV) ...ending with Genesis 3:11 - "Who told you that you were naked?"   
15.  Romans 12:2 (NIV)
    
16.  1 John 4 18
    
17.  Genesis 2 and 3 (NIV) ...ending with Genesis 3:11 - "Who told you that you were naked?"
   

19.  Avicenna, Metaphysics, I; commenting on Aristotle, Topics I.11.105a4–5     
20.  Wikipedia.org "Principal of Contradiction" 
found ---> < /FONT> here  
       
21.  Romans 1:20
   
22.  Luke 4:1-13
    

23.  Wikipedia.org " Fallacies in the media and politics"
found ---> < /FONT> here       
24.  Wikipedia.org "Law of Excluded Middle" 
found ---> here
    
25.  Wikipedia.org "False Dilemma" 
found ---> here
     
26.  Wikipedia.org "Ad Hominem" 
found --->  here
    
27.  Wikipedia.org "Pro Hominem" 
found ---> here
    
28.  Wikipedia.org "Utilitarianism" 
found--->  here
    
29.  Wikipedia.org "Proof by Assertion" 
found --->  here

30.  Wikipedia.org "Denying the Antecedent" 
found ---> here

31.  Wikipedia.org "Non-Sequitur" 
found ---> here