A True Metanarrative: Part 2 Truth Is As Old As God
By Dr. Darrell Dooyema
In this series of articles, we are pursuing the question of the truth of the Christian metanarrative, which is the overarching story of the Scriptures. In part 1, I pointed out that the Christian faith claims to be objectively and historically true, not just a pleasant myth. Starting with this article, we will look at the philosophical and historical evidence that gives us reason to say the Christian metanarrative is in fact true.
So, perhaps we should begin at the beginning with the most fundamental of questions: Does God exist? Can we know the answer to that question? Is there any evidence to support the existence of God, or must we merely take a leap of faith?
How we answer this question is vital to how we will answer a host of other important questions about truth, the world, and our identity as persons. What we believe about God will influence our moral decisions, how we run our businesses, how we manage our families, and whether we look forward in hope to anything beyond this life.
God As the Reference Point for Truth
So, what is the evidence? Is it true that God exists?
Interestingly, one of the arguments for God’s existence comes from the nature and existence of truth itself. It is possible that without the existence of God, truth would be unknowable. Consider this short poem by Emily Dickenson written in 1864:
“Truth—is as old as God—
His twin identity
And will endure as long as He
A Co-eternity—
And will perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity.”
(Emily Dickenson, “Poem 836,” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, Edited by Thomas H Johnson, Little Brown & Co., 1961, p. 404.)
Why does she make such a claim? What is it about the nature of truth that requires God? Why did she think that truth would die if God died?
Without plumbing the depths of philosophical minutia on this point, suffice it to say that,
in a naturalistic world without God, our minds would be only material. In fact, you could say that we would only have brains, not minds. What this means is that every thought would merely be a chemical reaction to prior physical stimuli. What is more, these reactions would be selected for survival (our chief instinct). Thus, if it would be advantageous for us to believe something false—if a lie would help us to survive—our brains would select that falsehood. Whether the belief was true is a moot point.
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that, if there is no God and only natural processes, then the truth of one’s own beliefs cannot be trusted in any meaningful way. If there is only a material universe piloted by natural laws and unguided evolutionary natural selection, then we can’t be sure that our own thoughts are true. Ironically, this includes a person’s belief in naturalism. Thus, he says that we can only know truth if our beliefs can be referenced to something more than material processes. (For a full and challenging treatment of this argument, see: Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies, Oxford University Press, 2011).
In other words, for us to know truth we need a mind (a capacity of our soul) capable of comparing states of affairs and recognizing and pondering concepts (not merely objects). There must be a universal property of “being true,” of which we are aware. We must be concerned with whether our individual beliefs match reality, and we must understand the conceptual notion that a match of our beliefs with the corresponding reality is a true belief. Moreover, there must be an objective standpoint somewhere that “grounds” the notion of truth altogether.
Many have recognized this essential, unavoidable relationship between the existence of God and the existence of truth. Consider the following two covers of Time magazine, one from 1966 and one from 2017. The first refers to the popularized philosophy of Nietzsche, who claimed we no longer needed God in our modern society. Thus, he argued that we have “killed” God (or the idea of God).
Many know of Nietzsche’s famous claim, but few have read the larger context in which he mentions the implications of the claim. He wrote: “Where are we moving to? Away from all suns? Are we not continually falling? And backward, sidewards, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an up and a down? Aren't we straying as though through an infinite nothing?” (Fredrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science. Edited by Bernard Williams, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 119-120.)
Nietzsche recognized that the death of God meant there would be no objective truth or objective moral standard. Humanity would have no reference point by which to judge our direction. Bono also stated the problem well in his famous 2009 U2 song aptly titled “No Line on the Horizon.” Without a reference point for truth, we would indeed be falling through an “infinite nothing.” In that situation, we would be left to define our own truth, make our own rules, and invent our own meanings. Nietzsche even promoted the idea that we should seek to dominate others, which he believed was key to survival.
Fifty-one years after the first cover was released, Time, in 2017, published articles about the secular “post-truth” culture of “alternative facts” during the vicious political climate of that time. They used the same font and design as the cover from 1966 about the “death” of God to display our current dilemma over the loss of truth. The cover designers recognized what Emily Dickenson so eloquently summarized in her poem. In effect, they were making the connection between truth and God. If God is removed, the removal of truth will soon follow.
This issue is not just fodder for the philosophically curious. The question of God’s existence has everything to do with everything.
Recently I interacted with a young man struggling with complex moral issues and their impact on current affairs and political decisions. As we discussed the scientific and philosophical responses to his moral questions, I sensed that he was struggling with a much larger underlying question. I finally asked him whether he believed that God existed. He answered hesitantly, “I think so.” When I then asked him whether God had ever spoken, he said, “I’m not sure.” Without this underlying foundation in place, he was unable to move toward a decision about what to believe or how to face the complex and pressing issues of our times.
The main point to consider from this article is that without God, humans are left in the fog about the big questions of life, and about the meaning of our personal lives. Dickenson and Nietzsche saw this, as have many other philosophers and writers. The fact that truth becomes difficult, if not impossible, to discern without God should be acknowledged upfront.
But there is so much more. The case for the existence of God is exceedingly strong. In the next few articles, we will explore what philosophers call the “Cumulative Case” argument for the truth of the Christian metanarrative. Please feel free to interact with these articles using the comment area below. We will freely pursue the truth together and perhaps we will discover that, indeed, truth is as old as God.