I am writing this on the eleventh day of Advent, so my thoughts this month have been especially drawn to the coming of True Light into this dark world. Why did He come? What eternal purposes were involved? To me, one of the most profound statements on this subject is found in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The incarnation speaks of the revelation of glory, grace, and truth. Each of those words merit deep meditation, but I want to reflect especially upon the third one: truth. God’s eternal purpose in sending His Son into the world was to express truth.
I suppose it should be obvious that we live in an ocean of lies. Our entire world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), who is the very father of lies; there is no truth in him. Yet, I find among even the strongest of believers (as well as in myself) a tendency to believe things which are patently false, such as finding identity and security in the accumulation of possessions. I am feeling more secure when I see the Dow rising, and I am finding my self-worth diminished because my Droid 3 is now over three years old and is slower than my friends’ IPhones. Lies, lies, lies!
One of Westlake’s core values, and in fact the one which heads the list, is truth: “eternally existing in God and revealed in His divine written revelation and in His glorious creation (Psalm 25:5; 119:160; John 14:6). All truth is God’s truth. His Word is the touchstone by which every thought is tried.” Christ’s advent, as an expression of truth, is profoundly this: God keeps His promises! From Genesis chapter three through the entire Old Testament, God’s consistent message was, “You are living in a broken, sin-cursed world among broken, sin-ruled people. But I am sending a Deliverer who will himself suffer to make everything right.” And so the Deliverer came, right on time, fulfilling every divine promise. That’s truth!
The Nature of Truth
Educational institutions by their nature are in the business of teaching, passing on to others knowledge, skills, and understanding. No educator intentionally teaches falsehood but believes that what he is conveying is true, at least as he understands it. That should cause teachers to think deeply about the nature of truth. At Westlake, one of the key portions of our educational philosophy is epistemology, the study of knowledge and truth.
When one accepts that God is the Creator of all that is real, he is then led to conclude that all that was created in the beginning was truth. “All reality-whether physical things, living organisms or spiritual and moral concepts-comes under the broad category of created truth and is proper material for inclusion in the educational enterprise” (Morris, 1977, pp. 24-25). Distortion of that which is real and therefore true becomes falsehood and serves Christian education only as examples, warnings, and reflections on the nature of man estranged from God. One may claim to “know” a falsehood, but such is not knowledge but rather a crude form of belief. For instance, a person may say he knows the earth is flat, but since that affirmation is patently false, it is not knowledge at all. The Christian studies such claims as contrasts to truth and to point up the vanity of natural man (Morris).
The keystone of Christian epistemology is that God has revealed Himself to man, and that revelation is the Bible. This a priori axiom is not only the bedrock of Christian education, but has historically offered man the only reliable reference point from which to measure the veracity of all perceptions and conceptions. The Scriptures stand as the filter through which all proposals are poured. That which passes can be accepted as pure truth. While the Bible is not the only source of truth, it serves as the only criterion “which enlightens our study of history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, literature, or whatever other subject might be considered. . . . The Christian accepts the Bible as the divinely inspired, infallible, and inerrant revelation of God on the authority of that Word itself” (De Jong, 1969, p. 69). As the sole reference point, it is fixed (Psalm 119:89), external, eternal (Matthew 5:18), objective, and absolute.
Of equal importance to the Christian is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in guiding man. “When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit is the Revealer of truth, and without His ministry the Scriptures become meaningless. The Spirit abides in every regenerate person and stands ready to open his eyes to understand and apply Biblical truth to all life situations. Thus, not only must every teacher who would impart truth but also every student who would receive truth be regenerate, availing himself of the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit (Morris, 1977, p. 28). This has broad implications concerning the nature of true Christian education and the qualifications of the participants.
Furthermore, it must be seen that, since all truth is unified around God and His revelation, there can be no distinction between spiritual truth and secular truth. He created all truth; all truth is His truth; He sustains all truth. “Therefore, we can learn any aspect of truth only in accordance with His will to reveal it. His written Word . . . is comprehensive and definitive truth in all areas of life and study. Those aspects of truth which appear superficially to be ‘non-religious’ are in reality fully under the authority of Biblical revelation and must be consciously and clearly taught as such in true Christian education” (Morris, pp. 28-29). That is why we so highly value truth at Westlake Christian Academy.
Admixture
What happens when one mixes error in with truth? Does truth cancel out the error or render it harmless? Hardly. Much ink has been spilled warning about the dangers of such admixtures. And yet, the subtle introduction of falsehood has been with us since Satan suggested to Eve that God didn’t really love her (without his actually saying so). We find ourselves so easily swayed and duped by twisted, distorted truth, especially when it sounds better to us than the pure truth. As Georg Christoph Lichtenberg put it, ““The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.”
So, what are some examples of distorted truth? Revisionist versions of history come to mind. It is has been suggested that the first case of revision in history was Adam’s reply to God: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” There we see three truthful statements put in a way which shifts blame, which is a distortion. If you were to enter any history class in any secular institution, you will no doubt hear truthful facts (dates, places, events, people), but those facts will be arranged so as to explain historical realities apart from a sovereign God. If we take Proverbs 1:7 as true (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge”), then history which eliminates God is untrue, regardless of the number of true statements made. It is not necessary to openly attack the existence of God (that one is easy to spot), but simply ignoring Him insidiously introduces dangerous error, and a daily diet of such subtlety will lead students to conclude that God does not really matter in the real world. Truth is conveyed only as students are confronted with the reality that the participants in historical events are broken people, incapable of attaining true, lasting peace, and that all of history is superintended by the sovereign God who works all things according to His eternal purposes.
Consider also the study of the English language. Any proficient, well-trained teacher can give students the tools of communication: reading, writing, speaking. In that process, various works of literature, the products of human communication, will necessarily be studied. For instance, the entertaining and well-written works of Jack London (White Fang, and The Call of the Wild) may be studied for their literary worth, but students should be introduced to the author’s personal atheism, socialism, and embrace of evolution to see the moral and ethical undertones in his writing. We should not avoid studying the works of London, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Locke, or Kant simply because they represent worldviews at odds with biblical truth. We study the products of human culture to reflect upon what they reveal of God, His image in man, and the consequences of the fall. If we merely give students polished tools for communication, we make them like Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “You taught me language,” he says to Prospero, “and my profit on’t is, I know how to curse.” Truth, God’s truth, must be brought to bear upon the works of man.
I suspect that readers of blogs have a limited attention span, and I have more to share on this topic, such as the worth of learning from an unbeliever, where truth is found, and the lies believers believe. Expect a second installment soon.
Resources
De Jong, Norman. Education in the Truth. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1969.
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph. The Waste Books (R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). New York: The New York Review Books Classics, 2000.
Morris, Henry M. Education for the Real World. San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1977.
Jeff Nieze says
Anxiously waiting for ‘Part 2’!
Phyllis Fabrie says
Thank you Thank you for your ‘Reflections’. It is so refreshing in this world of shared ignorance for the sake of text-talking and ‘my opinion MUST be heard’ , to read your insightful and encouraging words.
So much about WCA is encouraging to us and one of the many things is your coordination with Moody, Trinity, etc in bringing student teachers from these area colleges, knowing they have found & know the Source of Truth.