Is All Truth God's Truth?

Is all truth God's truth?
A pastor friend of mine argued that that this statement is not true. Let's discuss that for a moment.

"Epistemology" is defined as "the study or theory of the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge." This is is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. When it comes to truth there is ZERO opinion. If your opinion happens to land on truth then great, your opinion is right. If your opinion does not align with the truth then your opinion is not true. You have a right to your opinion however you do not have a right to debate your opinion as truth if it is not true. Does perspective change truth? No. Perspective is how you may agree or disagree with truth, a sort of lens on how you view truth, but doesn't change it. What is comical about 'epistemology' is that can we really study knowledge? It almost seems like a paradox. But here is the main question, is truth a social construction or solely God's? I would relegate this to an absolute, I personally feel it can only exist wholly God's or man's. All things are created by God, He is the causality of everything. I process things through reductive reasoning, reduce this down to it's simple form, truth is God's or it isn't!

Truth is not subjective, truth is not opinionated, truth is not debatable, truth is not irrational even when you disagree with it, truth stands on it's own always remaining the same and being unchangeable. So I want to use a simile to look at truth; truth is to light as untruth is to darkness. There are verses like John 1:5 that says, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. Then Isaiah 5:20 NIV says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. So if dark and light cannot coexist then (un)truth cannot coexist. So truth and untruth cannot coexist then can there be truth that is not of God, if God is truth? This is commonly called the "correspondence of truth". This basically means that something is true only if it corresponds or agrees with factual reality. Again this is limited to our understanding of our universe and reality. So check this out, this basically presupposes a flow of logic called bivalence. In technical terms, bivalence is a very deep part of epistimology. Basically, any unambiguous, declarative statement must be entirely true or entirely false. So God is either wholly true or wholly false, we know he is wholly true, this is pretty declarative in studying God with the process of epistimology, again, only limited to how we interpret and understand what truth is, the absolutism of truth. For post-moderns I can stand firm upon their belief and say they are not human, based on their definition that truth is relative, they are a higher bread of mosquitoes (this is a joke based off their reasoning). Relativism is an attempt to not have to pony up to the admittance of self-responsibility, what a nice life. However that belief does not remove truth, ignorance doesn't create, again it is perspective.

Satan has no creative abilities, he can only use what God has created. He can manipulate truth, he can stretch truth, but he cannot tell the truth and lie at the same time, refer again to the rules of bivalence. Satan can borrow only. So the same rules apply, either Satan is a being of truth or he lies. We must understand his nature is evil so if he does tell the truth it is motivated my ill actions and will be used for bad. Now his truth is truly borrowed from God, not created. So even in this understanding we can say all truth is still God's truth. It either is or isn't. If it isn't all God's then whose else is it?

If God is true and God is the creator of all things then false is the lack of truth, just like darkness is the lack of light. Did God create evil or is evil the absence of Godliness and truth? Is there hate or is hate the absence of love? Thoughts?

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Twitteranked and Self-Branding

"Twitteranked? Sweet now I can see how good I am really doing. 14.47, what a loser!

(click on the picture to read the full story)

Notice how I got twitteranked 17 hours ago then low and behold my great friend, God, updated me 10 minutes ago that I was scammed! It coulda been worse than it really was, I guess that's why God was 16 hours and 50 minutes late, the guy likes teaching me lessons.

It is amazing how Twitter or Facebook or Myspace or any other aggregate feeds and social networks create such a desire of self-branding. I will rabbit trail for a moment on 3 studs of professional self-branders, for the simple point for you to realize that...

"Anyone doing anything better than you is providing you the resources, strategies, and ideas for you to be better than you already are." - Me

• Seth Godin, who is a business genius and has an amazing ability to see what many others don't. He made famous the idea of permission marketing, which is as simple as it sounds. He has three elements that is seen in most of his writings. First, he realizes that advertisers can't command the attention of anyone they choose (great thought for church leaders in a post-modern world, that is basically post-modern marketing). Second, consumers are gaining more power, which means more respect, truthfulness and less bias on the marketers (more here for the church leader, are we slow to teach and explain theology in a philosophical way, why are so many Christian college students leaving? They lack the ability to argue theology philosophically). And third, the only way a product or idea will be spread, is that it has earned a buzz by being remarkable. (church leaders please re-read that then repeat two more times. Are we making a buzz in our culture, making a buzz in our community, neighborhood?!?)
  
• Josh Spear, is a youth specialist, trendsetter who saw the blog-phenomenon as a major thread in credible form of media. He, via his blog, has set out to be a "source of inspiration for marketers, brand managers, advertising executives, and a wide range of everyday people from around the world who love to stay ahead of the curve." (What could the church leader be looking into as the next main thread of getting into people's minds and hearts? Are you looking or are you doing tomorrow what you did yesterday?)
  
• Brian Shaler, this guy is one of my favorites, he's a jumper! He's a web developer, marketer, writer, speaker and photographer. He banks the term self-brander, probably one of the best in the field.

Now back to the original post before the rabbit grabbed my attention. In our personal seeking to be self-promoters which by all means we should be. Every human has something to market. The professional business person, themselves, their resume, their accolades, their education. The homeless, their loss, their story, their history. The Christian, their purpose, their life, their hope, their calling.

Our postmodern world leads us to be self-marketers, people want to know you, what you think and what you identify with. What is your brand? Your brand highly dictates your audience, your audience highly dictates your success. Many people get in the wrong arenas and begin to self-promote and fail because they had the wrong audience. You must sell your GENIUS, the Geenie-in-us. What is it in you that is special, that is magical, that sets you apart. Make your story and begin to sell it. Every person has an audience, a circle of people that are influenced by you. One general question I ask is who is your mentor and who are you mentoring?

Your audience was created because of your brand, now learn to market to that audience to hear the best message they have ever heard. For you Christians, be real, authentic, take off the mask regardless how ugly it is beneath the whitewash, then allow your audience to hear the best spoken message God has given voice to. Be an eikon, be the representation of God into your world not just in word but in action and deed too.

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AZ Youth Workers Conference Session 2 of 3

Speaker: Garland Owensby

Topic: Postmodern Church/Emerging Church
Postmodern is a philosophy

Postmodern Youth Ministry

Book: Soul Tsunami - Leonard Sweets

Modern world says I don't need proof, post-modern says prove it.

Postmodernism is the reaction to the unfulfilled process of modernism

Science, education and rationalism were supposed to end war poverty and sickness.

Modernism:

• Learn truth
• Reality is out there to be discovered
• Individual emphasis
• Progress undeniable
• Logic is convincing

Postmodernism:

• We make truth
• Reality is simply to be constructed
• Team emphasis
• process is highly questionable
• stories are convincing

Earl Creps AGTS July 2003

1. Objectivity is out

• The FBI would not ask for your son if there was a bomb to go off if the bad guys ordered for him OR a box of chocolates and a case of beer. There is either another option or there is only ONE way.
• Postmodernists do believe in truth, their truth is 't'ruth, ours is 'T'ruth.
• Any time we see certainty they see arrogance, hard to be a win-win.
• Feelings are subjective, truth is objective, postmodernism basically stands on subjective source over objective truth.
• Mandy Moore Seventeen 2003 p187, "Truth is discovered from passion."
• We should discover Truth then become passionate about it.
• We must proclaim truth in Love, if we feel guilty then we must search our heart for subjective thoughts.

2. Question everything/Try anything

3. You will know me if you know mt story. (Experience)

• When we read the epistles, every rule is about a real life situation.
• Every dumb rule in life is about a real situation.

4. Tolerance is a necessity

• No absolutism, we must be tolerant

5. Multi-culturism and Pluralism

• Many faiths all competing together.
• Greg Steir about Starbucks Christianity quote, this is a generation that embraces a "Starbucks spirituality. Teens today are used to customizing every aspect of life, so why wouldn't this spill over into the areas of their spiritual lives...

Modernism: Facts - influence - belief - influence - behavior
Postmodernism: Experience - influence - belief - influence - behaviors

Modern truth affects relationships experiences and feelings, postmodern affects the others.

How do we reach the Postmodern World.
1. Invite them into the body of Christ, ecclesia
2. Invite them to experience God
3. Use authentic Language
4. Speak Love before Judgment
5. Relationships
A. What's it like to be ______________?
6. Build Community - small groups
7. Train students to share their testimony
8. Emphasize Dialogue

My thoughts:
There are emergent theology and emerging praxology. One has rebuilt it's foundation while the building is standing, the other is always making sure the building will continue to stand shoring up any areas of question. Emergent theology saw the postmodern movement and changed it's foundation of theology, the emerging praxology saw the postmodern movement and changed it's ways of teaching it's theology, these are big differences to be noted. When we have exchanged our core theologies to match the desire of our culture we risk huge losses when we cash in our stock, however when we realize that the culture has changed and we begin to chase it and adapt our inadequacies to meet the demand blessing ensues and the one being chased recognizes the relevancy or at least the futile attempts and realizes the status quo has changed. The average, typical person that has set his mind against the church has perfectly adequate reason, we have met every doubt in his mind, as I always say, the worst of us (the radical rights) represent the best of us. Paul said it best, follow him as he follows Christ. Case in point, it was also Paul who recognized this when he was in Athens in Acts 17. He recognized that the culture had changed, not that culture changed literally but his surroundings had changed. He picks up right from their belief system and applied biblical theology to their pagan praxology. The theology stayed the same that he had instilled but his praxology changed to using Greek mythology and an altar that had some writing on it. This is one of the most beautiful chapters in the bible for cross-cultural communications. The bigger admittance is realizing that we live in a cross-cultural nation, no longer do we need to go over seas to recognize this. And I don't say this due to the many languages in America nor the skin tones, but the modern thought versus the post-modern thought.

Let us not change our belief to accommodate all thoughts. Yes it is true that all truth is God's truth, his inspired truth. Yes, this truth can run deep in the pagan practices and ruthless extremists, even they wouldn't approve of you raping and pillaging their families. We can't assume that morality leads to God if different religions all agree on common morals. All truths definitely share common thread but those threads eventually weave ropes of theology that are tied to anchors of religions... we can agree in the midst of truth but must not be ignorant to realize that they all lead to their own individual 'gods'/God. I love my fellow Jew and even the radical Islam, the Jewish person deep down inside might even find love for me and the Islam and same for the Islam, that doesn't mean our belief lands us all on the same cloud with the same harpist as be knock on heavens door, let us not be so arrogant/ignorant.

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