Truth Re-visited
What is Truth?
This seems to be the post modern question of this age. It should be the
church's responsibility to jump on this topic, with the "full armor of
God". Once people understand just what truth is and where is comes from,
a new foundation can be established. The truth does not come from the
horizontal wisdom of man, it has to come from outside our space-time
domain, or it is redeemed as "relative truth", which is not truth.
Without absolute truth, there can be no distinction between morals and
ethics.
Ethics and Morals.
In present word usage the term ethics is often used interchangeably with
the word morals or morality. That the two have become virtual synonyms is
a sign of the confusion that permeates the modern ethical scene.
Historically, the two words had quite distinctive meanings. Ethics comes
from the Greek ethos, which is derived from the root word meaning
"stall," a place for horses. It conveyed the sense of a dwelling place, a
place of stability and permanence. On the other hand, morality comes from
the word mores, which describes the behavioral patterns of a given
society. Ethics is a normative science, searching for the principal
foundations that prescribe obligations or "oughtness." It is concerned
primarily with the imperative and with the philosophical premises upon
which imperatives are based. Morality is a descriptive science, concerned
with "isness" and the indicative. Morals describe what people do; ethics
define what people ought to do. The difference between them is between
the normal and the normative.
Ethics normative imperative oughtness absolute
Morals descriptive indicative isness relative
When morality is identified with ethics, the normal becomes the normative
and the imperative is swallowed by the status quo. This creates a kind of
"statistical morality." In this schema the good is determined by the
normal and the normal is determined by the statistical average. The
"norm" is discovered by an analysis of the normal, or by counting noses.
Conformity to that norm then becomes the ethical obligation. It works
like this: When we lookup the two terms: ethics and morals in the
dictionary, we get the WRONG definitions, because the secular world
equates them as synonyms. Much of the "self help" systems are based on
morals as opposed to absolute ethics.
The Ultimate Truth.
The Ultimate Truth is a Person: the identity of Jesus Christ. He was the
most anti-religious person who has ever walked the Earth! It's not about
religion: it's about relationship. It is the most important discovery of
your life: your eternal destiny depends upon it!
(John 14:6 NASB)
6 Jesus said to him, "I am athe way, and bthe truth, and cthe life;
no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jesus said, "I am the way." He is not just a person who shows the way,
but He, personally, is the way. No church or ceremony can bring you to
God. Only Christ can bring you to God. He is the way. Either you have
Christ or you don't have Him; either you trust Him or you don't. Also
Jesus said that He is the truth. He isn't saying that He tells the truth,
although He does do that. He is the truth! He is the bureau of standards
for truth, the very touchstone of truth. And He is the life. He isn't
simply stating that He is alive. He is the source, the origin of life
from the lowest vegetable plane of life to the highest spiritual plane of
life.
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