HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT IS TRUE?
Paul Feinberg looks at the question "How do we know what is true". He lists five approaches: subjectivism, rationalism, empiricism, pragmatism and authoritarianism (faith). My pencil may tell me what is 2 times 2, my senses may tell me which is the most lovely flower, but they cannot tell me what is ultimately true. I do not have the resources or wisdom to determine truth. Someone must tell me what is truth. Thankfully God has spoken in His Son and proved it through the resurrection. Additionally Christ said "Thy Word is truth" and that He always speaks what the Father tells Him. If I doubt the Scriptures I call Christ a liar. I may misunderstand what God has spoken but I know that it is absolutely true. I should be humble about my ability to listen, but not in God's ability to speak.
This is something i've noticed about many 'conversations' that happen today regarding theology. a couple of guys get in a room together and all share the same doubts. they kick these doubts around for a while, each lacking conviction, and are surprised to walk out of the room with no answers.
or else they walk out of the room with a completely wrong answer.
The End of Controversies?
Toward the end of his life Richard Baxter wrote a book on the end of controversies. It was, to say the least, a somewhat premature assessment of the state of the doctrinal life of the Christian Church.One doesn't have to look around the Christian world for long to know that not only are so called "secondary issues" as vigorously contested as they have ever been, but every major Christian doctrine is disputed, denied and debated. Gresham Machen wrote at the start of his classic Christianity and Liberalism that the things that men will fight over are usually the things worth believing.Controversy has the capacity to bring out the best and the worst in us. Some shy away from it for personal reasons (they simply don't like confrontation), whilst others seem to thrive on exposing errors and are quick to draw strong condemnatory conclusions.Handling controversy is a test of our godliness, a test that all too often, when we come to pray, we realise that we have failed. Defending orthodoxy and attacking error demands more from us than the use of reason and knowledge. It also demands the exercise of patience, prayerfulness, humility, compassion, faithfulness, truthfulness, fairness and so on.Tests like these are unavoidable. But evading controversy to keep the peace when the truth demands that there be conflict is moral and spiritual failure.
Drafted by Charles E. Whisnant
