Blake Long

Back in college—several years ago, crazy enough—I took speech class. I was a fairly new Christian and also couldn’t stand the thought of speaking in front of others, but I had to do it. I had to pass, didn’t I? However, this isn’t even about speaking.

It’s about facts. It’s about truth.

I had my first encounter with post-modern thought in this class. The professor, who was an unashamed atheist and liberal, went on a tirade about how ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ are not the same thing. At that moment, it didn’t make any sense—and, of course, it still doesn’t—but now I see it as my first encounter with a postmodernist, someone who doesn’t believe truth is objective or morality is absolute.

This professor, who continued to double-down on his stance, got pushback—and not just from me. Essentially, his argument was this: If society believes X is a fact, and then five years later X is revealed to not be true, it was still a fact then. Of course, that’s preposterous. It’s asinine. It’s simply outside of reality.

Along with other classmates, I pushed back by arguing X never was a fact—simple as that. It doesn’t matter if society believes it or if it’s the general consensus. Truth—or fact—exists outside societal systems and trains of thought. The professor argued that ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ are different. He argued something can be true but not a fact. But that’s simply not true—nor a fact.

Though I encountered a hint of this in college, the world has increasingly become more postmodern, as we can surely all tell. That class was nearly a decade ago (goodness I’m getting old). Every way we turn, we are inundated with people claiming morality is subjective and absolute truth doesn’t exist. What we must do as Christians is stand firm on the pages of Holy Scripture and fight. This is not a battle to back away from; this is not the time to cower in fear or to be afraid of repercussions. The battle over truth, ultimately, is a fight for the truthfulness of Scripture and the authority of God, for that is where all truth springs from—God Himself. The Lord is the source of all truth, of all morality, of everything good.

We cannot simply “agree to disagree” that truth is objective. For this world to make any bit of sense, truth must be knowable and objective. Many claim you can have “your truth” and another can have “their truth.” That simply couldn’t be further from the truth. There is one truth, whether we believe it or not.

For example, 2+2=4. That is true; that is a fact. Nowadays, some will claim that 2+2 can equal 5, or anything else for that matter. That line of thinking has no basis in reality.

John MacArthur said this in a sermon:

Nothing is certain, and the thoughtful person will never speak with too much conviction about anything. Strong convictions about any point of truth are judged supremely arrogant and hopelessly naive. Everyone is entitled to his own truth.

Adherents to postmodern thought are types of gnostics, which means they think they have some type of secret knowledge others don’t have. Except, in their case, this knowledge they supposedly have isn’t real knowledge, but only their opinion. That is the problem with postmodernism—there’s no foundation. It crumbles under their feet and will only make them sink. Those who hold to postmodern thought claim Christians are close-minded and they are the thoughtful ones. However, as MacArthur said, thoughtful people are those who hold strong convictions, who know the truth because they know Christ, who aren’t afraid to speak the objective truth to a culture that is increasingly hostile to the things of God.

Christian, today is the day—and so is tomorrow. Truth is knowable, and is found in Christ. Do not let those around you espouse false ideas and ideologies about subjective truth. There will be those who say, with conviction, that “There is no absolute truth.”

All you must say is, “Is that absolutely true?”