Is there such a thing as absolute truth?

"Truth" I hold to be definite, unchangeable, and perfectly revealed in the Scriptures. These are, as regards man, the only fountain and depository of truth. As to its essence and living embodiment, it is found alone in Him who said, "I AM THE TRUTH" — happily for us, "the way and the life" also. If others hold not this, it is their loss. They have not the anchor that can be trusted in the storm. Truth, I deny not, may be matter of long and hesitating and anxious enquiry. Because truth, which is but the expression of the mind of God though perfectedly revealed, is not at once, and of necessity, perfectly understood — not even by those who are called "wisdom's children," and are "born of God." "We know in part, and we prophesy in part." But truth itself in the Scriptures, is perfect, absolute, and unchangeable. There is much in the apprehension of this. It removes doubt from the pathway, and is the hinge of all true enquiry. It lays open the well, and how its living waters may be drawn. It points to the oracle, and the temper in which it must be consulted.

But I do think, in spite of all that has been said, that in Christ we have a revelation of the Absolute, not in itself (for a revelation seems to me to deny this in its nature, for it is not being, but the revelation of being); but still that which is is revealed. Hence He is the truth. But He is, and so manifests Him who is; He emptied Himself to do it; Phil. 2. Now reason has nothing to do with the truth, because it has only ideas in the mind; and they must exist in the mind. It can only conclude what must be, never what is. This is in its very nature the nature and value of reasoning, such as it is. But truth is the declaration of what is; it is not what is, nor is it a conclusion of what must be, which is only a result in my mind; but it is the declaration of what is.

Reverting to Pilate's question, let us, as deeply interested in the reply, ask with him "What is Truth? Truth is the expression of what a person or thing is. Even in ordinary matters it is difficult, if not impossible, adequately to define or describe anything, and hence the subtleties and perplexities of metaphysics. If this is true when we attempt to express the relations of things to ourselves, how much more so when the relations of things to God are in question. It is evident that He only could express or manifest them. But as the Infinite and the Absolute, how could He do so suitably to the limited apprehension and capacity of the creature, the finite? To a certain extent God might he known to the creature by His attributes. That God is holy, good, wise, and mighty beyond all comparison or conception was, and is, clear to angels. That He was good, wise, and powerful beyond all conception, our first parents in a state of innocency must have perceived and experienced. That He was the Supreme Being, was perfectly seen and understood by all created intelligences; and if the pride of Satan so blinded him in this respect as to tempt him to put the matter to the test, he was quickly undeceived, and that to his everlasting ruin. Pride and ambition were vastly more the spring of action in the revolt of Satan, than they were the cause of Adam's disobedience. Moreover, Satan was the first and arch-rebel, but our first parents fell, tempted by him; or at least, such was the case with Eve. To know of God, however, by His attributes or qualities, is not to know God Himself, — God as to His very nature. Nor was it possible that God, as to His nature, could be revealed to the creature otherwise than in the person of a Mediator, — One who, "found in fashion as a man" ("made in the likeness of flesh of sin"), was yet truly, and in the most absolute sense, the eternal God. Combining in Himself Deity and manhood, and as the God-man possessing fully the holiness of God, so that it could be equally said of Him as of the Father or of the Spirit, and that whether in Incarnation or in Resurrection, "Holy! Holy! Holy Lord God Almighty;" He, this wondrous Mediator, revealed God to men, He was the truth, and the Light of the world, whether the world would receive Him or not, and He revealed God to men (to their conscious yet limited knowledge), by making those who believed in Him and received Him partakers of the Divine nature, so that there was that in them, above and beyond mere human nature, which had its fulness in Him, the community of a nature in itself altogether beyond the bounds of creature existence, though as to attribute finite in us, and always dependent on Him. Truth is thus both absolute and relative, inasmuch as the absolute implies the relative. It is God's expression of Himself, and of the relation of everything to Himself. Christ is the eternal Word: in Incarnation He became the expression to men as to angels (1 Tim. 3:16) of what God is. In what He was, in what He said, and in what He did, He was in every respect the manifestation of God; and everything has its character in relation to Him, and as He sees it to be. He is the truth, as to its totality and objective reality, and the truth as to any particular subject is what it is in relation to Him. The written word, given by Divine revelation and by means of Divine inspiration, is the recorded expression of His mind, but in a manner and form adapted to the human understanding; not, however, without the agency of the Holy Spirit to make it spiritually understood. For the attempt to deal with God's word without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit makes a man a rationalist, whilst the pretence to be taught or led by the Spirit apart from the written word makes a man a visionary or mere enthusiast. Hence the Spirit also is called "the truth" (1 John 5:6), being the living power of the written word.

There can be no absolute knowledge in man by his own reason, but only relative. God only is absolute; all other existences can be only relative, because there is only God absolute.

Scherer reduces man to the lowest estimate of judgment of God and good. "Le vrai n'est plus vrai en soi" (the true is no more true in itself): a ridiculous sentence, because "le vrai" then cannot be. "Le vrai, le beau, le juste meme se font perpetueilement … ils ne sont autre chose que l'esprit humain." (The true, the beautiful, the just reproduce themselves perpetually: they are nothing but the mind of man). - (Revue des deux M., Feb. 15, 1861.) Now this is a statement that no nature can be, in apprehension or being, above man; or else "le vrai, le beau, le juste," may be "vrai, beau, juste en soi." Nor is this all. As to man they are relative, because he is so; yet, if there be a superior relation to One who is absolute, there is a fixed "vrai, beau, juste" morally in relation to Him, because He is the Absolute. It is simply a total denial of God or anything beyond the changing states or apprehensions of man; and makes man the end and beginning of himself; for if there be another thing or being to which he is in relation as end or beginning, there is as regards man a fixed measure of true, beautiful, just. So that this is merely the declaration that there is no relation beyond self; for if man is the measure and changes, it is simply self. This is philosophy.

19 Hence Renan and Scherer are perfectly right when they say, "all is relative"; and perhaps even when they say, "all [save the 'I'] is relation." Even what the "I" is, is entirely relative. But it is because they are wholly ignorant of God, who alone is absolute.

I have largely sought to shew elsewhere that knowledge is relative; that is, necessarily according to the form and measure of being which knows. I am so constituted as to conclude certain things; and they are true to me. I meet a closed door, and am such that I say, matter exists, and is extended, etc.; and two cannot be in the same place at once; and it is true for me. But a spiritual body could pass through a closed door. This, however, is not my manner of existence nor consequently of knowledge. I cannot know what is true for spiritual bodies, because it is not my mode of existence.

293 I agree with rationalists, that all not God is relative - all else must be at least relative to Himself. But when they reason from this, they are altogether astray, because they can only reason in their present relationship, as far as objective ideas, formed in the mind, go. But that proves nothing as to any other than that I am in, and it is simple folly to pretend to assert there can be no other. I know that I cannot get through a wall, because as to my material nature I am, in that respect, what a wall is; but what has this to say as to a spirit going through a wall? If such began to reason, he might think me a very gross material being, who was stopped by being no better than the wall itself, nor, in this relation, am I.

Now, assuming that there is such a thing as truth (and there must be, or there is nothing; for if there is something, a true statement or knowledge of what it is, is the truth), either man is omniscient, or he wants the truth to be made known to him. If he does, he needs evidences, unless he be so absolutely proper for its reception, that to state it is sufficient for its reception (i.e., unless the truth be self-evident). If he be not so receptive of truth (and we are sure he is not), he needs evidences of it, because he has reluctance or difficulties.

H. We will come to the question itself. Of course I only notice it now, that you may never, with these rationalists, take common words to mean what is commonly meant by them. They deny nothing hardly. They shew that men have had all sorts of opinions; that the commonest subjects on which Christians are agreed have been spoken of under the influence of views prevalent at the time they lived; that men were under the influence of their times (all except themselves, of course); and hence, all is uncertain, everything that has been said doubtful. The Fathers were under the impressions of their age, the Reformers of theirs, Romanists of their system. Hence the truth itself is uncertain, because men are. Hence, doubting of every form of truth, truth itself is lost, because, everything being different, each is an opinion, a view of man. Now men do feel the influence of their age; they are poor weak creatures. But the argument from this to the uncertainty of truth is only a proof that they who use it have opinions, but no truth; the argument supposes God has never revealed any truth: otherwise we should say, there is a fund of absolute and sure truth. Men have varied, even those who have held it fundamentally; but, thank God, the truth remains the same. There would be an appeal from man's uncertainty to God's certainty; but they having only opinions — only man's mind — nothing from God: the effect is, that apostles and prophets, all the inspired writers, fall into the same class as these various interpreters: they underwent the influence of their day, and there is no truth at all. The only difference is, that they were at the childhood, Mr. Jowett and his friends are at the mature age of the world and human race, and the representatives of it, so that they, in the freedom it gives, judge it all. The whole matter is this, they see only the circumstances and opinions, never the truth. They have no revelation from God at all, for, if we have a revelation from God, it must be truth, the truth; and, when the revelation is fully made, must express His mind, though this may be partially revealed or fully, a light shining in a dark place, or the dawn of eternal day.