True and not true
at the same time. All right, let's begin
with a quote from George Orwell's book 1984. Winston is a character in the book who's
being interrogated, and I do mean interrogated by a
government official. You are a slow learner, Winston, How
can I help it? How can I help but see
what's in front of my eyes? 2 and 2 or 4. Sometimes Winston,
sometimes there are five, sometimes, three, sometimes or all
of them at once. He must try
harder Winston, it's not easy
to become sane. Alright, two
characters from about, what do you think This
tuned to equal 4? Does it always equal 4? When you think about some of the problems
we've done in this class so far. Math problems. Do the answers change? Right? Is the answer
AT for today, would it be 73 tomorrow? Is it different
when you do it than with somebody
else in the class? Does? What would be different? It is different teacher. What does the same
problem have? Same answer. What I
asked this stuff, why would we start
with something like 2 plus 2 equals 4? Something really
absurd like two plus two equals
three or five. Well, true and not
true is a phrase that describes something called postmodern
worldview. It's really a
way of thinking. The whole school
of thought, if you will, philos
feature called humanism is kind of an
offshoot of it really. And most people
in our culture, western culture
today, either embrace this worldview or at least affected by. The purpose of this video, is to help you think
about this worldview, how it might be
affecting you. And maybe make
some changes in the way you think. And if in the
way you think, then make your
life as well. All right, So what exactly is a
postmodern world view? Well, the 2 plus
2 equals to 2, 3, 4, 5 really, in a way kind
of sums it up. Another thing that
you might hear people say more
often is when you're talking about spiritual
kinds of things, god, religion,
meaning of life. These kinds of sort of
bigger picture ideas. People will say
things like, Well, that may
be true for you. My thing release.
What's true for me? As if to totally
contradictory things. Could somehow
both be true. People do talk this way about these
things, don't they? We, you really don't hear people say 2 plus 2 is 3, 4 or 5. Take your pick. But you do hear people say things like
Christianity, wonderful. You love Jesus.
That's great. I understand that
works for a lot of people. You're a Muslim. Brilliant, brilliant. I'm glad that
works for you. Hinduism, hinduism. Awesome, awesome. I understand many people find
enlightenment there. That's the mindset. That's the way
of thinking. And really right behind the scenes when
you get at it. The philosophers
and stuff that sort of teach this way of
thinking, if you will. They say it just that way. There's no such thing
is contradiction. All truth is relative. There's no such thing
as an absolute. This is true and
that's false. There's no,
really, There's no such thing as
contradiction. A problem with
that, of course, is that in real life, no, nobody lives
that way, right? You don't think that way? I don't think that way. I've never met anybody
thinks that way on any other issue other than these big sort of
spiritual type questions. I'll give you another job. We talked about equations. Let's talk about
mushrooms here. All right. Do you like mushrooms? I do. My wife loves them. One of my children
really love them. We've had an argument at my dinner table about what kinds of dip there go best with
the mushrooms, you know, I mean output. Interesting thing about
mushrooms though, is that you gotta
be kind of careful what mushrooms
you eat, right? Because some of
them are poisonous. They could kill you,
at the very least, do some damage to
the emergency room. Not a good plan, right? Well, the postmodern
type thinking says that there's no such thing
as truth, right? So that my truth could be different
from your truth. Well, let me ask you this. Can you change
your true so that doesn't
matter what kind of mushroom you eat. Can I change my true so it doesn't matter what
kind of mushroom I eat. No, it doesn't
work that way. It doesn't work that
way in real life. It doesn't work
that way in any kind of thing
that you and I can get our hands on and see clearly what's, what's true and
what's not true. But these philosophers and really the view
of our age. Tries to get us and has really convinced
most of us to think this way in areas where it's harder to
see what's right. So it's not as obvious you're dealing with
contradiction sometimes. I want to be completely
clear about this, this thinking that we're
talking about here. This is not just about dealing with situation that's really complicated. So it's hard to set,
hard to tell what's the truth or where. You get some sculpture
or something. It looks like
one thing from one direction and another thing
from the other. Um, or I want to
talk about that. We're talking about
that fundamentally at the most basic level, the philosophy
behind this kind of thing and the
thinking says that there is
no such thing as true and false. There is no such thing
as absolute truth. There's really no such thing as
contradiction. 2 plus 2 equals 4 is fine. Two plus two equals
five is five. Now, the thing is
they wouldn't use that example because
that example makes it to clear that what they're talking
about doesn't really make sense. Let me ask you
something here. In your experience, is that the way that
life works really at all? Is that the
way it works? Can we take, can you make any decision you want and decide that it's
real for you. Kenya. Does that
change reality? Doesn't nothing. So why would thinking
this way apply in this one area of
spirituality, morality, religion? And nowhere else. What reason can
you give me? What reason can you give yourself that you believe? Heck, what reason when you give yourself
that's right. That you can think this
way about this stuff. As far as I can tell, we only use this
kind of thinking to justify behavior that we know has a problem, right? Justify behavior that
is at least suspect. Doesn't that make it
clear really, really, If the only time I use
this type of thinking is to justify my behavior in questionable
situations. Doesn't that make it
clear what I really think about this, right? If I only accept this kind of thinking what
allows me to Joshua behavior and then make it pretty obvious
I'm a hypocrite. If you do this,
doesn't make it pretty obvious to you that you're a hypocrite. All right, So let's compare this idea about not having absolute
truth, right? Let's see how this goes
with the scriptures. We're just going to
take one verse here. John, chapter 14, verse 6. Jesus is speaking. He says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father but through me. All right. That is one sentence, maybe two, depending on
how you punctuate it. Less than 20 words
for absolutes. The way v life, right? The truth. And just to make sure you
understood that he was talking about
absolutes it and says no one comes to God except through me
right here, Right? Totally all
about absolutes. That's the way the
Scriptures think. That's the way
Jesus thought. All right, let me
highlight a couple of ways that people are affected by this kind of thinking. Have you ever
found yourself saying what I do
here doesn't matter, my life doesn't matter. God doesn't
really care how I act in this situation. That really, when you
get right down to it, it probably comes if you go back far
enough from this kind of thought that they're rarely truth doesn't matter because
there's really no such thing as truth. I watch it. If you find yourself in that
situation somewhere, if that try thinking
about that. The center point
of Christianity is Christ's death
on a cross. His resurrection from
the dead, right? His death pays
for our guilt, for our sin, and gives us a way to peace with God, to a relationship
with Him. That's the center.
You had to pick a wrap-up Christianity
and a small nutshell. You'd use words,
something to that effect. The point though, where
Christianity most clearly contradicts
this kind of postmodern world
view I'm talking about this element of humanism is not so much about Christ's death on a cross, where it really contradicts
it is where make the assertion that there
is absolute truth. And that in some, in the case of
the scriptures, we know what it is. God has given it to us. For instance,
Schaefer, who is a actually,
I don't know. You may have heard
of him release. I'm almost 50. He's
right in my time zone. If you're 20, he maybe
before your time, he was a very famous
Christian thinker. Francis Shaffer
put it this way. Are we beginning with
man as autonomous? And by that he means able to decide what is
right and wrong, able to create
right and wrong? Or are we beginning
with the claim that there is truth from a personal God that gives us real absolutes. Which is it? If there's no
such thing as truth with a capital T? If there's no such
thing as contradiction, means there's no such
thing as sin either. There's no right
and wrong. Jesus death on a
cross. Meaningless. Jesus himself. The best you could say. Really nice guy,
seriously diluted. If you're going to
balk at absolutes, you have to throw
out the whole thing, that they don't go
together at all. Truth does exist. It does matter if you're going to throw out the absolute claims
of the Bible. Because you're not comfortable
with absolutes. Or maybe because
it, you know, people are uncomfortable
with and you just don't want to get into
that kind of conflict. Really, if you're
going to be real to yourself there, you have to throw
out Jesus as well. And back, if you're
going to do that, you have to do things like eat random
mushrooms, right? After all. If you can create
your own truth, surely you can
eat whatever you want to eat. Here. Hello by now. So you don't know
where it came from? Me either. Good choice.