Truth. Most claim to espouse it, and even more declare that they own it.
Still, for many it appears to elude the masses in a postmodern society. Most of the strife in society is attributed to either conflicting perspectives of truth or efforts to manipulate it. This is where perceptions are considered “truth,” irrespective if they are rooted in facts or not, and personal (human) sentiment from subscribed ideologies, substitutes for truth. How did we get to a point where humanism can define truth? Moreover, how can indisputable truth be considered controversial, or misinformation?
At face value, one should argue that truth is binary, either true or false. However, society has recognized that it is in the defining of truth, or in the capacity to control its perception, that power is wielded. There is little philosophical agreement on the theories of truth, outside the ‘enlightened’ position that it is not binary. Some scholars and philosophers accept the four types of truth as, Objective (physically proven), Normative (agreed to within a group), Subjective (as perceived by an individual), and Complex (recognizes validity in all types). Others substitute Positive Truth for Complex Truth.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy presents truth in terms of 5 theories:
Correspondence Theory: truth corresponds to a fact.
Semantic Theory: developed from Correspondence theory, structured in the “if and only if” argument.
Deflationary Theory: offers sub-theories not subjected to the proposition of correspondence.
Coherence Theory: based on the relationships between societal preexistent beliefs.
Pragmatic Theory: holds truth that is useful to believe.
Consistently within the philosophies of truth, the condition from whence the truth is being perceived must first be considered, prior to surmising whether it is truth.
In the book, “The Truth About the Truth: De-confusing and Re-constructing the Postmodern World,” author Walter Truett Anderson compiles 30 postmodernist essays that examine the roles of multi-ethnic lifestyle, irony, pluralism, selective spirituality, and adaptive personalities. Collectively the essays embrace the notion that truth is defined from the eye of the beholder. It is less important for society to agree on truth, but for society to accept truth is relative.
Ironically, from numerous cultural perspectives, there is much credence attributed to “truth” in relativity. Not necessarily objective or absolute truth, but life-altering, personality-developing, cultural-defining, deeply held beliefs. Where large groups of people ascribe to collective beliefs, for in those normative truths, life can be rationalized, and earthly retribution pursued.
In August of 2022, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General issued a memo naming misinformation as a threat focus within their antiterrorist efforts. The memo references the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within DHS, defining three types of terrorism based on “untruths.”
Misinformation is false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm.
Disinformation is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.
Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.
The most alarming is the malinformation category. With the ever-growing examples of corrupt authorities’ intolerance for opposing thought, counter perspectives, and alternative narratives on data, this classification affords authoritarian totalitarianism. In this category, a terrorist may be classified as someone who presents truth that may cause distrust of authority.
Within that same year, President Biden’s administration attempted to establish within the Department of Homeland Security, a Disinformation Governance Board. Nina Jankowicz, the 33-year-old researcher and author proposed to run this newly created board, identified herself as a “Disinformation Fellow” and a Russian disinformation expert. However, her record on recognizing truth from fiction was less than stellar. She had called the Hunter Biden laptop a Trump campaign product. She maintained confidence in the mostly discredited Steele dossier, and that the Biden administration had successfully stemmed the illegal border crossing problems. She furthermore communicated that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was an effort to end free speech,
“I hope this means Twitter's important work on content moderation [emphasis added] and online abuse won't be scrapped… but I'm not optimistic” (Nina Jankowicz, Twitter post).
Ultimately, prevailing public sentiment and basic common sense (pragmatic truth?), proved the Biden administration’s political effort to “govern truth” was a mere attempt to manipulate the social narrative with the one best serving their political agenda.
What was frightening to many, was the lack of collective concern from former free speech advocates (newspapers, pundits, educators, civil rights leaders, etc.) for such an austere governmental overreach. Polarization of society had evolved to the point where too many Americans were comfortable with public and organized governmental censure of opposing voices. So much so that solace could be found in the maxim, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In witness to the hearts of “men” growing cold, what a chilling reminder of how sin clouds the mind and affords the rationalization of social narcissism—where devious influencers trigger and exploit narcissistic impulses in the people around them.
America is one of only two countries that allows direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs. It has been argued that the primary reason pharmaceutical companies advertise, is not for product recognition, but rather to create a financial dependency on their advertising dollars among media networks, especially news programs. Where truth may become inconvenient if it bites the hand that feeds you.
At the present time, when the end of all things earthly is rapidly approaching, Satan is putting forth desperate efforts to ensnare the world. He is devising many plans to occupy minds and to divert attention from the truths essential to salvation (AA 219.2).
Society has evolved to the point where trust can no longer be extended without first vetting the source. Arguments purporting “following the science” must be scrutinized for ideological objectives, where lies can be called truths and truths lies. Objective truth is no longer normative truth (general consensus). It may be substituted with subjective truth, or simply personal ideology.
How did humanity end up worshiping itself, love for one’s thinking, its version of right and wrong, good, and evil? Is it a coincidence that the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? How could the knowledge of Good and Evil be bad? Don’t we all seek doing good, and couldn’t knowledge aid in its success? Yet in eating of this tree, sin was ushered onto mankind. Evil, from its originator, Satan, existed prior, but mankind did not succumb to it until Adam and Eve partook of the fruit off the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
While many scholars address the moral virtue of placing a test for mankind within Eden, few address the name God assigned to it. According to Rashi, the historical commentator on Judaism, the tree represented the melding of Good and Evil. Some Christian authors further theorize that in eating the fruit, mankind lost their righteousness through God, and the tree gave them the knowledge that they would be responsible for their righteousness.
In Eden, prior to eating the forbidden fruit, God’s order reigned perfectly. As in heaven before the war that was waged, God’s government was just, His law absolute. Truth was not so much understood, even in celestial terms, but accepted. Lucifer’s lying charges accused God of requiring submission and obedience from His creatures (GC 498.1) not for the benefit of the celestial inhabitants but for His self-exaltation. The enticement that Lucifer placed before the soon-to-be fallen angels was to subject their own rationale, understanding, and knowledge of good and evil in place of God’s construct. To be knowledgeable, one must first be awakened to one’s own rationale.
The parallels between Adam & Eve, partaking of the forbidden fruit, and fallen members of the angelic host, giving credence to the words of Lucifer are significant. The fallen angels made a conscious decision to reject God’s order, hierarchy, and law for their version of truth, justice, and order. Adam and Eve showed a lack of faith in their intemperance; where their needs could extend beyond the confines of submission to God’s law. For both, the knowledge of good and evil, was a self-actualization, a substitution, and a rejection of God’s Law, His truth and order, for their own version. It is only when we surrender egocentric knowledge and enlightenment to God that peace and harmony are truly achieved.
From God, the fountain of wisdom, proceeds all the knowledge that is of value to man, all that the intellect can grasp or retain. The fruit of the tree representing good and evil is not to be eagerly plucked because it is recommended by one who was once a bright angel in glory… From the Holy Spirit proceeds divine knowledge. He knows what humanity needs to promote peace, happiness, and restfulness here in this world, and to secure eternal rest in the kingdom of God.—Special Testimonies On Education, 26-31; written from Cooranbong, N.S.W., Australia, June 12, 1896 (CT 357.2).
In a recent family gathering my brother and I reflected on our academic journey. We both fondly described the richness and cultural diversity we experienced in our primary and secondary education. We were immersed in a diverse multi-racial and multi-ethnic environment that found no discord or acrimony. Our social circles were never divided along racial lines nor were our conversations. The topic of race rarely entered our discourse and only for the enrichment of understanding, never in polarization or marginalization. Though we were pluralistic in our social makeup, we were homogenous in our social fabric.
However, when we transitioned to higher education, there was a stark contrast within the social construct. Individualism, often emphasizing race or gender identification, became paramount. Harmony gave ground to asperity, and congruence dissolved into dissonance. With the expansion of knowledge, responsibility, purpose, and opportunity, our social order evaporated. In its place was enlightened rhetoric on truth, meaning, race, class, and gender inequalities. It was as if, the passage from secondary to higher education traversed through a portal infusing impressionable minds with Knowledge of Good and Evil. Upon exiting on the other side, we were awakened, causes were defined, identities of contributors and detractors made clear, and our roles in shaping the new (and to be improved) world order were cast.
Where adolescence found peace and harmony in the lack of knowledge, higher education ushered in enlightenment through post-modernistic ideologies. It was a break from the confines of structure and prescribed order, where the individual mind defines the reality of truth. Once the intersectionality of ideology and empowerment was able to control the narrative, normative truth became the new objective truth, and likewise, morality was relative. To break away from a moral stranglehold, one had to first attack truth. If truth was self-definable, then so was morality and order.
Modern society had finally achieved the trifecta: truth had become relative, morality was definable, and God was viewed to be either extinguishable or amenable. Through self-worship, humans had finally capitalized on their Knowledge of Good and Evil.
What had failed to occur to the pre-fallen angels, pre-fallen Adam and Eve, and us as pre-indoctrinated youth, was just how “miserable” we were—being subjugated to an order, not of our choosing. And the perception of harmony that existed was clearly fictitious… for upon awakening and applying Truth from our Knowledge of Good and Evil, we became exceedingly successful at “changing the world.”
Man is responsible to God; and as finite, erring men take into their hands the jurisdiction of their fellowmen, as if the Lord commissioned them to lift up and cast down, all heaven is filled with indignation. There are strange principles being established in regard to the control of the minds and works of men, by human judges, as though these finite men were gods (TM 348.3).
From the onset of the fall in the garden, “knowledge” has driven humans to substitute their ideology of good and evil for truth. In Earth’s earliest hours, Cain chose to submit an alternative sacrifice to God’s command, versus following the prescribed mandate for sacrificial offerings. Surely God, would have set aside truth and accepted Cain’s interpretation of redemptive law? Wasn’t the truth open to some human version of understanding and interpretation? Isn’t there some wiggle room in objective truth? Some cultural conditioning that meets present-day cultures’ interpretation of equity?
Today, more than ever before, truth is under fire from secularist, humanistic, and demonic ideologies that challenge the order God placed in heaven and on earth. Postmodernism celebrates human sentiment and emotion as the guiding prescript of our decisions. When in search of our desired outcomes, laws, orthodoxy, and truth are malleable to facilitate our premeditated outcomes.
Whether it’s the act of Lucifer deceiving one-third of the angels, Adam and Eve succumbing to temptation, or the youthful mind transitioning to higher education, the pattern among the fallen is to only accept “truth” if it corroborates normalized truth. Where the promises of God must first be validated by our values, morals, and ideologies. And misery ultimately snatched from the jaws of joyfulness.
Some are prepared to accept that their finite minds will never comprehend the magnitude of God and that faith in a redeemed salvation also means faith in the Redeemer’s order and laws — where truth is not subjected to popularity. Where ecumenism does not magnify truth but conceals it, that truth can and does exist beyond our individual capacity to comprehend it. Surely by now, we must have learned that left to our own accord, truth becomes extinct.
There is work for all to do in order that the simple truths of the Word of God may be made known. The words of Scripture should be printed and published just as they read (EV 232.3).
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Daniel Bacchiocchi is an architect and builder. Today he operates an architectural and construction business in Michigan as well as a non-profit building mission organization, Master’s Builders, Inc., supporting SDA efforts in financially depressed communities around the world.