What is absolute truth? Define it in your terms!

[Madeline]

What is absolute truth? and how would you define it according to your beliefs. To me absolute truth is revealed to me in the book called the bible. It is the standard on how we should live and what our purpose is here on earth.

Love,
Madeline

[McCulloch]

To me absolute truth is revealed to me in the book called the bible. It is the standard on how we should live and what our purpose is here on earth.

Why?
What I mean is, by what reasoning did you come to the conclusion that the Bible is true? Unless God himself came to you and delivered this book to you from a cloud, whatever process of reasoning you used to come to the conclusion that the Bible is true, must be, by definition, more absolute more fundamental than the Bible itself.

[Madeline]

Why?
What I mean is, by what reasoning did you come to the conclusion that the Bible is true? Unless God himself came to you and delivered this book to you from a cloud, whatever process of reasoning you used to come to the conclusion that the Bible is true, must be, by definition, more absolute more fundamental than the Bible itself.

Weeeellll, the bible is something which needs to be applied in order to come to the actualization of its truth. Just as a child doesn't know that a red hot stove is actually red hot until she applies her hand on the stove. Well the same principle can be applied to the bible. Just reading the bible from a story book perspective will not give you the spiritual insight you need to realize that it is actually Gods word. We need to apply the wisdom in the bible to reach this conclusion. God has given His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, however in order to know the truth you must first have the Holy Spirit. The question is, how bad do you want it? BTW, I love your sig!

Love,
Madeline

[McCulloch]

[T]he bible is something which needs to be applied in order to come to the actualization of its truth.

That sounds like circular logic to me. You must believe the bible before you can actualize its truth.

Just as a child doesn't know that a red hot stove is actually red hot until she applies her hand on the stove.

Is that how you came to the conclusion that the Bible is true?

Well the same principle can be applied to the bible. Just reading the bible from a story book perspective will not give you the spiritual insight you need to realize that it is actually Gods word. We need to apply the wisdom in the bible to reach this conclusion. God has given His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, however in order to know the truth you must first have the Holy Spirit.

So then, to answer your own question about ultimate truth, the Holy Spirit is your ultimate truth. The Holy Spirit led you to this other truth, the Bible.

The question is, how bad do you want it?

How bad do I want what? The truth? The Holy Spirit?

BTW, I love your sig!

Thanks, it is my favourite passage in the Bible. It is the most succinct description of the scientific method I have seen and the very reason I left Christianity.

[Madeline]

What do you mean that the Holy Spirit lead me to this 'other' truth? To me there is only one vital truth! And yes, how bad do you want to know the truth? I think if you wanted to know the absolute truth then you would seek it from all angles. Faith can be an avenue to truth, don't you think? You would also apply the words of the bible if you really wanted to test it to see if it is the truth, I think. So you adhere to the bible verse in your sig but can't for the rest of the majority of scripture? mmmm...hmmmm! Doesn't seem to make much sense!

Love,
Madeline

[McCulloch]

What do you mean that the Holy Spirit lead me to this 'other' truth?

You indicated a progression. You said, "in order to know the truth you must first have the Holy Spirit". I presume that once you had the Holy Spirit, you could then recognize the truth of the Bible and without the Holy Spirit, you could not recognize the truth of the Bible. This makes the truth of the Bible a derivative of the truth of the Holy Spirit. You asked about ultimate truth. It seems to me that your view of ultimate truth is the truth from the Holy Spirit. You cannot claim that the Bible, a written work, is the ultimate truth. You, and other believers, all have had to come to the conclusion that the Bible is true. Whatever that process is that lead you to believe that the Bible is true, must be more fundamental, more ultimate than the Bible itself.

To me there is only one vital truth!

Well, yes. True things cannot, by definition, contradict other true things. Truth must be consistent.

And yes, how bad do you want to know the truth? I think if you wanted to know the absolute truth then you would seek it from all angles.

Not necessarily. Should I seek truth by asking my cat? Should I seek truth in the magic 8 ball?

Faith can be an avenue to truth, don't you think?

No. Faith, the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Why would that be an avenue to truth? If I truly believe that the oceans are not salty by faith without evidence, does that desalinize the sea? So many people have so many different mutually conflicting faiths. I see no reason to believe that faith can be an avenue to truth.

You would also apply the words of the bible if you really wanted to test it to see if it is the truth, I think.

I have. It failed the test.

So you adhere to the bible verse in your sig but can't for the rest of the majority of scripture? Doesn't seem to make much sense!

I adhere to the passage because I recognize the truth in it. That is not an indication that I believe or endorse anything else in the collection of sixty-six writings called the Bible. I try recognize and value truth where ever I find it, even in the Bible.

[Madeline]

WOW! you sure are a hard nut to crack! As I said before, unless you have the Holy Spirit you cannot possibly make the supposition that the bible isn't from God. The bible is God-breathed, men indeed wrote the bible but under the inspiration of God himself. When a person has a pre-committed view on what truth is, it would be extremely difficult for them to go outside the box they confine themselves in.

Love,
Madeline

[McCulloch]

As I said before, unless you have the Holy Spirit you cannot possibly make the supposition that the bible isn't from God.

Way too many double negatives for me. However, I think I understand you. You need to have the Holy Spirit before you can believe that the Bible is true. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be the source of the ultimate truth. Without the Holy Spirit, you cannot believe the message of the Bible. Therefore it must be God the Holy Spirit's fault that I don't believe.

The bible is God-breathed, men indeed wrote the bible but under the inspiration of God himself.

Because the Bible says so? I do not reject the inspiration of the Bible out-of-hand but neither will I accept it without strong evidence. If, as you claim, the Bible itself is the ultimate truth, then there is and never will be the need for any evidence to prove it. It is axiomatic, self-evident.

To me, ultimate truth has to be the axioms of logic.

When a person has a pre-committed view on what truth is, it would be extremely difficult for them to go outside the box they confine themselves in.

Yes, even when that box has leather bindings, gilt edged pages and a handy concordance and set of maps between the testaments.

[Madeline]

LOL! I'm sweating here! someone want to give me a hand, any christians, please? LOL!!!

Love,.
Madeline

[QED]

Madeline, don't sweat it It's just that some people find that they can't set aside great chunks of information they've gathered about the human process that leads to great faith and conviction of the sort you're displaying. Consider this for a moment: Do you think it's unlikely that something like the Bible would be written by men if God didn't actually exist? You see, for you the Truth might be that God exists because his inspiration lets you see that in the writings. But I would say those same writings would inevitably surface even if God remained absent or non-existent. It's an inevitable hunch for people who know of no other explanation for existence. But we're just so far out of our depth on this question that our hunches are not being informed anything like as well as they usually are.

As to absolute truth, you probably won't like this but ironically mathematics has shown that there cannot be such a thing. In particular Turing's halting problem was one of the first problems to be proved to be "undecidable". As an upshot of this it has been joked (but with serious underpinnings) that maths is the only belief system that can prove itself to be a religion. The world seems to be built upon many irresolvable ambiguities. We may not be comfortable with this situation but it simply has to be accepted.