Tough Questions in a Culture of Relativism - Volume 1 - What is Truth?

To kick off the PWM Blog, I want to start a series of questions for us to ponder together.  I have purposefully entitled it, "Tough Questions in a Culture of Relativism" because I believe that many of the questions have clear, authoritative answers; however, the answers to many of the questions have been muddied, diluted, confused, and muddled by the relativism and political correctedness that dominates our society.  To say that you have an answer or that you are "right" is equated with arrogance and intolerance.  That being said, many of the questions' answers are greatly influenced by culture, individual circumstances, and other factors. Sorry, I won't tell you which questions fall into each category : ).  Importantly, the purpose of these discussions is not to create division, but educated and mature dialogue.  I hope that this series reaches that goal.


To encourage dialogue, I will not provide any firm conclusions that I have developed on the specific questions, but will only pose the question and include a little commentary to get the conversation going.  Then, after discussion on the topic, I'll follow up with my thoughts on the issue.  And if you care about what I think (through careful study and leading by the Holy Spirit, of course), you can read my thoughts : ).


Some of the questions I am working through, some of them I have benn pondering for my entire life, some of them I have answered in my heart and mind, some of them are clearly answered in Scripture, some of them are not addressed by Scripture, and some are questions that have surfaced in my research of orphan care and everything that goes with it.  As you might imagine, in the process of researching orphan care's multiple prongs, I have come up with many more questions than answers.  So guess what . . . you get to help me to process through them (if you choose to do so : )).


So here is the first question in the series: "What is Truth?"  Is there an absolute truth?  What is it?  Who or what defines it?  Does it change depending on the individual, culture, or time?  Pontius Pilate asked Jesus the overarching question, "What is truth," in John 18 after Jesus said that He came to testify to the truth, but Pilate unfortunately did not allow Jesus, who actually is an authority on the subject, to answer the question (likely because Pilate was mocking Jesus).  So now we get to discuss the question in our age of relativism.  Should make for a very interesting discussion.  Many scholars have said that it is the most important question for us to answer.  So let's get to it . . .