** Yes. Just as we should use the word ‘literally’ to indicate that a statement should NOT be taken as a metaphor instead of a reinforcer or emphasizer of that metaphor.
If it weren’t, we’d have no reason to distinguish between “fact” and “truth”. The dictionary defintion referenced earlier shows that I’m correct.
ImNotMad2
No, we believe it as a truth. We can never prove it as fact. Which is the whole point of this thread.
See, now this really gets my knickers in a bunch. Do you have any idea what the word subjective means? Of course our belief is subjective opinion, because there is no way we can objectively prove what we believe.
Is this really that difficult?
TVAA
I really have no idea what your point is, and frankly, I have no desire to attempt to read your mind.
Will you agree that, for most reasonable people, fact=true?
Would you also agree that, for most reasonable people, truth=one’s belief of what is true?
So then, would you also agree that: Fact always equal truth, but truth does not always equal fact (for a reasonable person)?
If not, why not?
In most people’s minds, a fact is a truth. I’m just pointing out that technically, this is incorrect.
For reasonable people, truth != one’s belief of what is true. This is part of what defines reasonable people in my view: the awareness that their beliefs and ideas do not necessarily correspond with reality.
All truths are facts, but not all facts are truths. No opinions are truths (or untruths). Opinions are nontruths: they exist outside the concepts of truth and objective reality.
Ok TVAA, fair enough.
What I really want to know is how previous posters can say that something which is based on faith can be an objective reality or “immutable facts of reality”, whatever that means.
*"It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence"* (W.K. Clifford)The ‘evidence of things unseen’ proves it beyond reasonable doubt. We believe it as fact. Why? Because the alternative is so unreasonable.
I think you have no idea how much objective evidence there is for our faith. If you haven’t already, you might consider checking into “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel, “No Doubt about It: The Case for Christianity” by Winfried Corduan, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell, or “The Third Day: The Reality of the Resurrection” by Hank Hanegraaff.
The “so-called” contradictions of the Bible are usually little more than misunderstandings dealing with context, translation, culture, etc. Check out “Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible” by John W. Haley, “When Critics Ask” by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, or “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties” by Gleason L. Archer.
I think I know the difference between objective and subjective. And some day (I am referring to Judgment Day here) it will all be proven out. For now I will exercise my faith. As the Bible says, “Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…”
I really don’t think you do know the difference, or at least I think you’re not admitting that “I believe X is objectively true” is not equivalent to “X is objectively true”.
Bwa-ha ha ha ha! Bwa-ha ha ha!
[wipes tear from eye]
What a wonderfully ironic screen name.
Of course, that depends on which flavor of Christianity you subscribe to.
Thank you. You’ve just proven my point, to all rational and intellectualy honest people, that you have no clue what objective means.
There are many theories of truth, including Revision, Coherence, Identity, Correspondence, Deflationary, and so on. Here is a good introduction to the general notion of verisimilitude, or “truthlikeness”.
For the A statements in the Opening Post, I like Nesher’s treatment of truth, because I agree with him that truth must of necessity always pass through perception. He argues against Davidson and (more or less) in favor of Tarski, and defines truth as: “For all languages L, and all sentences s in L, s is true in L if and only if we prove s in L”. It is a wonderful definition that gives context to truth in a reflexive frame; that is, a frame of reference in which A -> A and wRw is a condition on the frame. They are synthetic statements.
None of the three B statements in the Opening Post is examinable within any particular frame. They are subject to “Plato’s Beard” (e.g., if we say that something does not exist, then something must exist since we have posited an “it” of some kind in order to declare its “nonexistence”). Quine and Davidson’s treatment of this problem is ultimately unsatisfactory owing to the fact that restating a non-examinable statement merely shifts the reference to the predicate. Asking whether God created the universe is epistemologically equivalent to asking whether George Washington was the first US president. Within a reflexive frame, it depends entirely on whether you trust the documentation. They are analytic questions that are known only by either intution or revelation. (Note that 2+2=4 is NOT intuitive — it cannot be deduced without Peano’s axioms.)
See Bergmann 's excellent essay about synthetic a priori and synthetic a posteriori truths. As a Christian, I believe that God’s frame of reference is absolute; thus His very essence is itself analytic truth.
Correction:
I should have said: They are analytic questions that are known ultimately only by either intution or revelation, rather than They are analytic questions that are known only by either intution or revelation.. Obviously, they can be known by synthesis if somehow you are able to transcend reflexivity.
Who was it who said. “There aren’t any versons of the truth”?
Are we discussing truth and fact or religion? Religion is about faith; when an atheist asks for proof or factual evidence, they are told ‘it is a matter of faith’.
The fact that so many people disagree about a definition of fact and truth would seem to suggest that this is a grey area; a definition affected by culture, religion, perspective and limited knowledge.
Once upon a time the earth was flat: fact?
Are we so arrogant that we cannot admit that there may be a limit to our knowledge? What we think is true now may change with experience. What we perceive as a fact may at some time be disproven.
Does it matter? We still have to get on with life. The point is being open to new experiences and willing to see things from another point of view.
How do people who believe in an omniscient god pretend to understand what is in their god’s mind? How do atheists think they have a complete understanding of the world?
We try to understand, to make sense of it all. It is likely we will fail. This is ok. The world is still wonderful, even if you were wrong about how it was put together.
That’s basically the Deflationary Theory to which I provided a link above. It would be Quine, Frege, Ramsey, Ayer, etc.
Umm, how would a quote of Scripture depend on which “flavor” of Christianity I adhere to? The Bible is the same no matter what.
I used to belong to an EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian) Church in Virginia before we moved. We have a saying over the entrance to the church. “In essentials - UNITY, in non-essentials - LIBERTY, in all things -CHARITY”
I wouldn’t pretend to understand everything about God. But I know a few things are true. And I know these things will be proven out in the end. Other things I’ll be fascinated to find out in the end. Like, will I get to hold the baby we lost? What will he/she be like? Still a tiny fetus? A grown person? Only God knows. I’ve had people give opinions about this, but they are only guesses. I won’t know til Heaven, when I see my Jesus personally. I can hold fast to the things I do know and wonder about the other things. Some things in Scripture are very clear, (The deity of Christ, the atonement, our adoption as sons and daughters of God), and others are not. In Isaiah it says that “His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts are higher than ours.” But there are truths we can cling to with absolute certainty.
Well, for starters, Apostolic sucession, true prescence in the Host, the fact that technically, by the faith in which I was raised, you are a heretic.
See? It’s not so easy, is it?
mama
What about the things in the Koran that are very clear? How can you hold to the so-called “truths” of one holy book and ignore another? What is your basis for making your decision? Is there some objective evidence that you have available that we don’t? Can you share it with us?