Why "Truth Matters"

I HAVE RE-ISSUED THIS POST TO BEGIN A BLOGGING EXPERIENCE WITH OUR WEBSITE AT westcog.org.

EVEN THOUGH THIS WAS MY MAIDEN VOYAGE I HOPE THIS BECOMES SOMETHING THAT ENRICHES YOUR LIFE AND ALLOWS YOU TO ENTER INTO MY LIFE A LITTLE BIT MORE. THANKS

I have been asked for a few years now, by several people, to create a blog in which people will be able to share my life and stay up with what is going down in my world. Because of this I have decided to combine a desire to meet this need with a deep seated desire to bring the truth of Jesus Christ to my reading audience.

Now the question might be, "Why the title -Truth Matters?"

I think the answer to that is embedded in the title itself. First the very concept of truth is being challenged by our post-modern world to the extent that truth does not matter. Today our culture has embraced pluralism in the religious realm (meaning, all truth claims are equal). This dominant culture sees the points of contention between competing theories of truth to be simply the hubris of religion. Added to this underlying worldview is the unwillingness to "duke it out" in the ring of reason so that the best truth claims can stand or fall based on the strength of their arguments. This is not an understatement about our culture. 68% of Americans, when surveyed, have said that there is no such thing as "absolute truth."

Everything in our generation is being challenged. The scientific community, once the bastion of the modern age, for its supposed unassailable theories of the laws of nature is a case in point. It finds itself being challenged at every turn by equally strong theories that refute the old established theories of how our world works. The historical community, also, has been challenged by this post-modern juggernaut which says that the winners write the history the way they want to. This in effect makes the very idea of historical precision and accuracy suspect. It even leaves the human mind reeling as to which history is right. It raises the suspicion if one can really know since, as they say, we all poison the truth with our bias. The legislative community establishes their legal system, according to post-modern thinking, on two biases. One is the belief that might makes right and the second is on the ever evolving nature of cultural norms.

So if you are buying into the present cultural landscape of thinking, nothing can be verified as an absolute belief or truth claim. "Question everything" has become the mantra of our generation. Once it was considered the noble mindset of someone who longed to establish the veracity or falsehood of a subject. Now it has become the sneering face of a generation ensconsed in a shroud of skepticism regarding the proposition of truth.

This leads me to the other reason for the title of my blog. I do not buy the latest post-modern worldview regarding the unknowability of truth. In fact, I believe that truth can be known and established. I believe in the substance of truth itself. The etymology of the word matter makes a good case for my fundamental belief in truth for a few reasons. First, it comes from the Latin word, materia, which means the timber from which something is built. Truth is the basic building block to understanding our world. Without truth life becomes for us a house of cards that any breezy viewpoint could blow away. However, because truth has substance, one can build a life on its convictions that not even a gale-force wind could demolish.

Second, some believe that the root from which matter comes to us goes back to the very word in Latin for mother or origin; mater. In this sense one could say that truth is the very sustenance of life. Truth nourishes the heart because it gives the human heart a sense of real meaning and purpose. If truth cannot be established than we can only expect to float on a sea of ever-changing opinions and viewpoints.

Finally, I have chosen this title to establish the direction of most of my blogs. They will primarily deal with the matters, or considerations, that arise which challenge the truth regarding Jesus and the Bible. This leaves the field open for me to engage you in the whole spectrum of Christianity and how it impacts our way of life both practically and theologically. This will allow me to have a running conversation of my thoughts about how the life of Christ intersects with the various issues that make the headlines on Google News. It will also allow me to simply visit with you about the real world of David Sulcer from time to time.

Auf Weidersehen