Objective and Subjective Truth

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When’s the last time somebody my age was writing pop music that influenced the culture? It’s not happening anymore. It’s people your age who are doing that. You have a voice right now, an opportunity, don’t waste it. Now if I was to tell you, that for the afternoon session, I want to take you on a missions trip. I want us to go downtown to Denver and we’re going to share a very important truth claim with people who have never heard it before. It’s going to cost you some money because every missions trip cost money. It’s going to cost you 150 bucks because after all we got to get there, we got to set up some things, we got to work with the local organizations. We’ve got to have food for everybody. It’s going to cost something, but every missions trip does. So we’re going to ask you to come, give up your afternoon, five hours, $150.

It’s not going to be easy. We’re going to go to the worst part of Denver and we’re going to share the truth. Would you be willing to come? You just heard Dr. Noble talked about how charitable we are as Christians. Would you be willing to do a mission trip with me today? Raise your hand if you’ll go. The rest of you are going to hell, so raise your hand if we’re going to go? Okay, I mean come on. But what if I told you the truth claim we’re going to share, downtown, is the truth about the best dessert. The best dessert that any of us could ever eat for dessert. If I told you we’re going to go downtown though, and we’re going to spend the afternoon talking to people about dessert after all we know what the best dessert is, right? You have an opinion of the best dessert. What’s your favorite dessert? Shout it out.

[crosstalk 00:01:25]

Someone said fried something, fried what? Fried ice cream.

No, it’s not fried ice cream. What else? What do you think is the best dessert, ice cream? You?

Tiramisu.

Tiramisu, okay. Anybody else? Cheesecake I’m with you, cheesecake not bad. They’re all wrong though so far. Go.

[inaudible 00:01:47].

Your grandma’s your grandma’s wrong. Go.

[inaudible 00:01:51]

What is it? What is that? Oh, bacon or anything bacon is true, good point. No, that’s not it. The best dessert of course, as we know is, chocolate chip cookies. That’s the best dessert. That’s going to cost you $150, five hours, and we’re going to spend the afternoon in downtown Denver. Are you guys willing to come with me and do this missions trip? No, that’s a stupid missions trip. Now why don’t you want to come with me and do this missions trip? Why is it stupid? It’s stupid because it doesn’t really mean who cares what your opinion about cookies is. That’s a stupid thing to even be concerned about isn’t it? Think about that for a minute. This is dumb because this is really a matter of opinion.

This is the first thing we have to get this morning. We’ve got to understand the nature of truth. If there’s no truth, there is no truth about God. We can’t talk about the truth about God until we establish whether there’s a truth and what kind of truth. I know that Scott Klusendorf came and talked to you about relativism, right? We worked together, so I know he hasn’t covered all this material. So I’m going to try to cover it with you.

We don’t want to go downtown and preach about chocolate chip cookies because that’s just stupid. Who cares if they agree with us, but this is subjective. This is a subjective truth cloud. I’m going to test you on this in a few minutes so be ready. Got to catch this. This is subjective. Your opinion about chocolate chip cookies, this truth claim does not reside over here in the cookie. This truth claim resides over here in the subject who’s describing it. It doesn’t rely, it doesn’t reside in the object. It resides in me as the subject. It’s a subjective claim. You get it?

Now, what if instead of doing this, we went downtown and we’re going to talk, not about cookies, but about a cure. What if I told you there were people downtown right now who are dying of tuberculosis. TB is on a rise you know? I have TB, I got TB positive from some crook about 10 years ago. But if you’re after year 40, if you get TB positive from somebody, they don’t even treat you unless you’re active. So I’m TB positive, but I’m not TB active.

But the point is TB is on the rise. And if I told you we could go downtown to a group that’s dying of TB, their right now they’re in a small community. They are treating it with stupid, they’re treating with aspirin and NyQuil and cough drops, but they’re going to die of TB unless we get in there and offer them the one cure that cures TB. They don’t know about it. They will die without us offering the cure. Would you be willing to spend $150 and five hours of your time to do that missions trip? Yes. What’s the difference? The differences in the nature of the claim.

This is isoniazid. Isoniazid is the one true cure for TB, nothing else would cure it. This is it. Now the reason why we’re willing to go downtown here’s cause now we’re not talking about opinion. We’re talking about truth because this truth claim does not reside in me, the subject, it resides in the object here in this vile. This is an objective truth claim. Do you see the difference? My opinion can’t make something true when it comes to objective claims. In other words, I can say, I hate isoniazid it’s going to hurt, it’s going to take a shot to administer isoniazid. I would much rather take my NyQuil, I get a pleasant buzz from it, I don’t mind the taste.

Well, I don’t care your opinion that NyQuil it’s not going to change as a cure. Your opinions does not make this work. This works because it’s in the nature of what it is that’s working. If you want to know the difference between objective and subjective claims, ask yourself this simple question. Can my opinion change it? Can your opinion change this? Can I change my opinion about this and make it not the true cure? No, because it’s an objective claim. Can my opinion change whether or not chocolate chip cookies are the best dessert? Yes. Change your opinion and everything changes. That’s because that’s a subjective claim. Do you see the difference?

I’m going to test you on this, so be ready. And by the way, most churches and most groups that I work with will fail the test. By the way, let’s go back for a second. Why are we so adamant about we’re willing? We think we feel so good about ourselves, right if we’re willing to go downtown and work in this mission field. Because we feel like this would be the right thing to do. Now I really think there’s a reason why most of you don’t share your faith like you ought to.

How many of you in this room right now would consider yourselves to be the Billy Graham’s of your generation? In other words, I don’t care where you are, you’re waiting in a line, you’re waiting at her restaurant, you’re hanging out with people at your work, you’re always sharing the gospel. And how many of you are like that? How many of you are always sharing the gospel, raise your hand? Yeah, exactly. Right. Nobody, in this whole room is sharing the gospel the way you should. I wonder if it’s because you’ve been treating the gospel like a cookie instead of a cure. In other words, if you think that the gospel, that your beliefs about God, are simply a matter of your subjective opinion, like cookies, you’re far less likely to share them. If on the other hand you believe the gospel is the one objective cure for what’s killing all of us. What kind of a person would you be not to share the cure. It’s when you’re convinced the gospel is objectively true that you’re likely to move on it. And if you think it’s just subjectively true, you’re going to sit on your butt.

We got to make this distinction. That’s why we’re taking time to do it, this morning. Francis Schaeffer was a pastor, really was a great thinker, a philosopher. He had a place called L’Abri in Europe where people would go kind of like summit. This has been called like little L’Abri in some ways. And people would come and learn the truth. He made a distinction about truth claims. He said truth claims are kind of like in a house in our culture, where people put all truth claims in the house and they kind of organize them in the house. All different kinds of truth claims, mathematical claims, scientific truth claims, moral truth claims, theological truth claims they’re all in this house. Only problem is Schaeffer says this house that has all the truth in it is a two-story house. It’s not a one story house and the second story is where a lot of stuff gets stuck that shouldn’t be stuck there.

He says the first story is filled with objective claims that transcend all of us. The second floor is filled with opinions, personal subjective claims. The problem is how do we categorize certain truth claims? So for example, in Schaeffer’s model, where do you think the culture puts scientific truth? They put it in the first floor, but where do you think the culture puts truth claims about God, theological truth? They stick it in the top floor. They say that stuff’s all just a matter of subjective opinion. And the minute they do that, they weaken the truth claim because opinions don’t really matter if you think about it, only objective truth claims matter. We have to reunite this idea and get to one total truth. So we understand that the truth claims about God are every bit as objective as truth claims about math. That’s important.

And I think Christianity has the opportunity to unite all of this. Think about what Jesus said on the sermon on the Mount, right? He said that you got to be careful not to build your house on shifting sand. You’ve got to be careful to build your house on a rock. If, claims about God are subjective they’re just shifting sand. If they are objective claims though, they’re like a rock. We got to decide what are those claims like.

Now let’s get after it and we’ll do this test. I’ll give you one more quick briefing. Then we’re going to do the test together. Here’s my 2004 Hyundai Sonata. What a beautiful car this is right? This is a beautiful, wouldn’t you all love to have this car? Yeah, nobody wants this car. It’s just like what my daughter calls an old man car. But I love Sonatas and I love Hyundai’s. As a matter of fact, I’m going to make a claim about Hyundai’s you tell me if it’s subjective or objective. Here’s my claim, Hyundai automobiles are the coolest cars in the world.

Subjective.

Oh, you’re so quick to judge. Oh, this is a subjective thing. Really? Yeah, you’re right. It’s my opinion. And my opinion could change this, right? That’s why I know it’s a subjective claim. Is there a way that this claim could be an objective claim? Think about it. Now someone, a couple of classes back had a great statement. He said, yeah if it was the only car on the planet. That’s not what I’m talking about. Is there another way this could be an objective claim about Hyundai cars? Air conditioning, how would it be about air conditioning?

[inaudible 00:10:44]

Yes, if I got every car in the world together and I put them all through a shop and I measured how cold their air conditioning made every car and I discovered that Hyundai’s were two degrees colder than any other car on the planet because of their air conditioning. Then this statement will be objectively true because it wouldn’t be about my opinion it’d be about the object, the Hyundai car who’s got really great air conditioning. See the difference. Good.

That is to show you how committed I am to Hyundai’s. I have five. My son, Jimmy, when he was in college, he wasn’t a cop yet, he had long hair like I did, and he needed a car. I got him a Hyundai Access. There he is standing with his Hyundai Access. And then when my son David went to med school, he needed a car. We got him a Hyundai Elantra. There he is with Hyundai. Since then, I bought another Sonata and a GX350, which my daughters drive. So yeah, are we committed to Hyundai’s? Yes. Now, if I made this statement about Hyundai’s, I’m so committed Hyundai’s can fly you to the moon, objective or subjective? Now we know it’s a false claim, right? So it’s kind of throwing you a little bit, but isn’t an objectively false claim or is it a subjective claim?

[crosstalk 00:12:09]

Difficult huh? Can my opinion change this, make it fly to the moon? No, therefore we know since your opinion can’t change it. This is an objective claim about Hyundai’s, but it’s an objectively false claim. It turns out if a claim can be true or false, you know it’s objective. Subjective claims can’t be true or false. In other words if I said to you, I think chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies in the world. You couldn’t say no you don’t believe that. No, I believe that. It might be true for you, but you can’t say there’s a subjectively false claim, it’s my opinion. My opinion is my opinion. If I say it’s so it’s so with a subjective claim, but object of claims can be falsified. This can be falsified. Do you see the difference? I’m only offering it because we’re going to need it when we take this test. Yes, we know that only spaceships can fly to the moon.

 

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