Does absolute truth exist or not? There are clearly some subjective things in the world, such as what’s the best movie, who’s the hottest girl, and whether or not Fox is a good network. But, are there any truly objective truths? Yes, yes there are. In fact, there are more than you may realize.
A common mistake is to assume that since we don’t know the answer then there must not be an answer. For example, how did the universe begin? I have no idea. I personally think that the “Big Bang” theory is decent, but plenty of other people think God created the world. There’s no consensus on the issue, so is this an “objective” or “subjective” matter? Perhaps surprisingly, it is completely objective and there is an absolute truth. The universe began one way or another, and if we somehow were able to go back in time and see how it began, we would know the answer.
Let’s take a less obvious example: was it a good idea to drop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima? Some people say it was a good idea because it ended the war sooner and saved lives. Other people say that it was a bad idea because the war would have ended anyway and we ended up killing lots of innocent civilians. Surely, this must be a subjective matter because there is no way to know what would have happened. Again, no, it is objective and there is an absolute truth. Theoretically, with a time machine that could create parallel universes, we could go back in time and not drop the bomb and then compare casualties. Even though it never happened, if it did happen it surely wouldn’t have happened both ways, either the casualties would have been higher, or they would have been lower. There is no gray area.
Absolute truth even extends into personal decisions. Should I take this job? Should I move to this new apartment? Should I marry this person? With a time machine, lots of absolute truths become evident.
Okay, but so what? Even if these absolute truths do exist, we will never know them, so what difference does it make? For one thing, it’s best not to try to predict what science will or will not discover one day. We’ve been to the moon, we have the Internet, we can see across the universe, we can cure polio, and who knows what we’ll be able to do 100 years from now. Maybe a time machine will be invented, or maybe we will meet God, or maybe we really are living in the Matrix. The point is, we shouldn’t give up on trying to find the truth just because it seems impossible, or because it’s more convenient to believe whatever we feel like.
I also want to touch upon logic, the foundation of mathematics. Logic is special because it has the property of being absolutely true. It’s why mathematics is so successful, and why we can build bridges that don’t fall down. If you’re looking for absolute truth, there are two roads you can go down: logic (mathematics), and observation (science). It’s hard to go wrong with either of them, but logic has the added bonus of being fully forward-looking. What I mean is, we think that water is required for life, but that doesn’t mean we might not find aliens on a waterless planet, but on the other hand I am 100% positive that every triangle I ever come across until the end of time will have angles that sum up to 180°.
One of my favorite things to do is to apply logic in non-mathematical situations, such as in everyday philosophical conversations. Abortion is a great one. See if you can follow the logic:
- If murderers should get life in prison, and
- If abortion is murder, then
- Women who get abortions should be sent to prison for life.
See? I love how logic can really put things into perspective. If you don’t believe women should go to jail for getting abortions, then you absolutely cannot believe that abortion is murder.
Tags: abortion, logic, time travel, truth
If I may engage you as a gentleman on this topic, your logic has made an unfounded assumption. It is in the statement that people believe murderers should get life in prison. That assumes that all cases of murder regardless of circumstance should get life in prison. Our society does not uphold that type of justice; rather circumstances are of great importance is determining guilt and sentencing. Those killing in self-defense or killing without insight into their actions are found to be innocent.
Thus special circumstances apply to the crime of abortion. When the society as a whole, including our laws, embrace immorality then we cannot as a society punish those that engage in it. The same held true for slavery. Only after slavery was outlawed were people then prosecuted for slavery even though we as a society now understand that to be a thoroughly immoral act.
Beyond logic are things like compassion, mercy, and love; these things Jesus Christ historically taught us about, and with which “abortion abolitionists” like myself view women that have had abortions.
Science is also a poor example absolute truth. Many scientific _truths_ have been proven false as our ability to measure improves, for one thing, and as more observations take place over time. By definition, any scientific _truth_ is disproven in light of contradicting evidence, and then good scientists construct a better _truth_. Science is really only truth to the best of our understanding at the moment, and not absolute.
Hmmm, that applies to the morality of slavery and abortion as well.
You are absolutely right: if you don’t believe murderers should get life in prison, then my argument doesn’t work. This is true for all logic. If one doesn’t accept the premises, one doesn’t have to accept the conclusion either.
For example, if I don’t accept the premise that a fetus is a living human being, then I also don’t have to accept the conclusion that abortion is murder.
In math, if I don’t accept the axioms of Euclidean geometry, such as parallel lines don’t intersect and all right angles are the same, then I don’t have to accept the theorems such as the angles of a triangle add up to 180° or that the area is one half the base times the height.
The trick, and it’s a very tricky one, is to pick premises that everyone can agree on.
In my example, I was simply trying to use terminology that most pro-lifers use: namely that abortion is considered “murder”. It would take LOT of of handwaving to convince me that people who murder adults should get life in prison, but poor women who murder babies deserve compassion. Talk about a double standard.
Also, I’m not talking about “killing”, I’m talking about “murder”. If you kill someone in self-defense, you are not a murderer. That’s the whole point, and the whole reason you don’t go to jail. If women who get abortions shouldn’t go to jail, then they must not be murderers, plain and simple.
I also want to touch upon science and truth. It actually sounds like you get it, but I’m going to elaborate just make sure. A lot of people like to take potshots at science by saying that things are “disproven” all the time. That simply isn’t true. Most (all) scientific theories are revised over time, but I really can’t think of any that were actually disproven. For example, at first we thought the atom was the smallest unit of matter, but we were wrong when we discovered electrons, and then we were wrong again when we discovered quarks and gluons. In all honesty, I wouldn’t really consider science “wrong” because we now have better microscopes.
Another example would be Newton’s laws of motion, which Einstein blew out of the water with relativity, and then quantum mechanics blew it out of the water all over again. Still, was Newton wrong? Absolutely not. He was, and still is, correct! His equations WORK, and they work perfectly, as long as you aren’t going the speed of light and you aren’t smaller than an electron. He wasn’t wrong, and he certainly wasn’t disproven, it’s just that we know now more than we did then. He never imagined things so small or speeds so fast.
One more example, just to drive the point home: we used to think the world was flat, now we know that it is round. Does that mean we were wrong back then? No! The world, for all intents and purposes, is flat. It is! Unless you’re in a space shuttle or flying around the world, you will never notice the miniscule curvature that the Earth has. Your straight edges and levels used to build your buildings still work just fine. The thing is, we didn’t have space shuttles back then, so we thought the earth was flat. Again, nothing was “disproven”, simply updated with even more information.
See if you can come up with a good example where science is actually dead wrong. It rarely, if ever, happens. And I’m not talking about burning witches at the stake, or alchemy, because those aren’t real scientists.
I agree with your examples up until the world being flat. It isn’t flat and it never was. Remember your post was about absolute truth, not perception. As for a disproved scientific theory, spontaneous combustion comes to mind, which Pasteur eloquently disproved. Galileo disproved that the sun moved around the earth as well. You see, that is my point about science. It is the “truth” to the best of our ability to measure, know, and understand it. God is far greater than what we perceive, but that now enters the realm of a philosophical discussion.
Speaking of philosophy, we may also quibble about the definition of murder. I see willful killing of a human life as murder; as to whether someone requires punishment for that is a function of justice. Your definition seems to require the act to be unjustifiable for it to be murder, which adds a layer of subjectiveness. What is it called, then, when someone willingly kills a human being but is not culpable? Just plain killing, is it? O.K. abortion is killing–we agree on that. ;0)
I also don’t follow your argument about different types of punishments. Someone who is a mass murderer, through terrorism or serial killing, should be locked up for life because they are a danger to society. A poor woman that is convinced by society to kill her child does not need to be imprisoned; she needs to understand the immorality of her actions and to ask for forgiveness, which is simply what Jesus asks of us. So, yes, I guess I do have a double standard in regards to how we treat people who kill people.
If I don’t accept that a slave is a human being then I don’t accept that slavery is immoral and unjust. That argument was used extensively by pro-slavery advocates. Yet then, as now, the Catholic Church proclaims the Absolute Truth. In 1537 Pope Paul III regarding Native Americans wrote, “…in these times have come to our knowledge, under the pretext that they were devoid of the Catholic faith, should, like brutes, be brought under servitude; and indeed they are enslaved and treated with such inhumanity that their masters would scarcely exercise similar cruelty upon the very brutes that serve them…” He goes on to point out that they are “true men” and writes, “Moreover, that those Indians and other nations are to be invited to aforesaid faith of Christ by the preaching of the word of God and by the example of a good life.” That is what Jesus taught, and what the Catholic Church continues to teach today.
How far do we go? Can we kill our children up to a year old if they are deformed? That is allowed under the law in Belgium. All those children that are less than perfect are not human beings in your eyes, either, I guess. In God’s eyes, however, every human life, from conception to natural death, is loved.
BTW, alchemists historically were real scientists by modern standards earnestly seeking a scientific means to transform one element into another. Given what we know now about the Periodic Table, they weren’t so crazy!
Wait a minute, it was the CHURCH that said the earth was the center of the universe, and it took SCIENCE to reveal the truth.
Actually, Ptolemy, a second century SCIENTIST, put forth the theory that the universe was a set of nested spheres with the Earth at the center. The Church was defending the science of the time. By your logic regarding the world being flat as the truth, then so it is about the earth being at the center of the universe.
A short history lesson: Ptolemy was a scientist at the end of the Greco-Roman era, where theory alone is the basis of science. Rome falls, the Western world enters the Dark Ages. Science is advanced by Muslims, who translated Greek scrolls into Arabic. Experimentation to support theory becomes the basis of science.
Enter the medieval era. In the 12th century, Gerard of Cremona translates Ptolemy’s works, and many other ancient Greek works, from Arabic into Latin. This is where science and the Catholic Church become merged, the Church being the center of education, indeed the origin of the University. Next comes Roger Bacon, who adds Verification to Theory and Experimentation–and thus the scientific method is born. By Galileo’s time, science and the Church were so intertwined that they did not know where science stopped and philosophy began–remember, science was all philosophy to the ancient Greeks and modern science was only just coming into existence. The backdrop of The Reformation also clouded the events of the day. (BTW, the Protestants thoroughly rejected Galileo on a biblical basis, too, as did many scientists of the day.)
The Catholic Church learned a very important lesson from those times. The Bible is not a scientific account of the world; the Church does not promote Creation Science, for example. But it will speak loudly and clearly about the moral responsibility we have regarding scientific discoveries. Just because we can does not mean we should; the Church is essential in giving us a moral context.
Check out the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a society to which most preeminent world scientists belong regardless of their beliefs, to get an understanding of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the scientific community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....f_Sciences
Also, I erred in stating spontaneous combustion was debunked by Pasteur; it was spontaneous generation.
Allow me to interject… On abortion, I have an opinion I’d like to throw in the ring.
Abortion is wrong, plain and simple. Except for ONE particular set of circumstances — the birth would threaten the life of the mother, and possibly the life of the child to be born.
Just presenting another viewpoint.
Yadda, you should look at my post on abortion: http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=402
Wow, I find it surprising that you can reach the conclusion that absolute truth exists so easily. Take, for example, the origin of the universe. You believe in the Big Bang, but I believe in God and creation, so from my perspective, this truth is objective. However, the Big Bang theory is not solid, that is, you don’t put complete faith in it (from what it sounded like anyway) so your view is subjective. I recognize other theories, though, and it seems like whether the topic is subjective or objective depends on an individual’s perspective. So then can I even say anything is objective, if I’d recognize objectivity depends on the viewer?
And with Hiroshima there are so many factors to consider, that it’s impossible to say there would be no gray area even if we could watch both outcomes. Yes, we could determine which outcome (dropping the bomb or continuing the war) would result in the least casualties, but there are others factors as well. What about the after-effects of the bomb? Radiation and sickness affected civilians long after the war. At the same time, I’m sure the war itself caused its share of destruction after the war as well. Post-traumatic stress, broken families, depression, and changes in society are all additional aspects to consider. Psychological and emotional issues are arguably just as important as physical health, and how could we ever measure all these effects, from both the bomb, and the possibility of an extended war? To attempt even a simple comparison with all these factors seems extremely difficult.
Going back to the nuclear bomb, there’s also the non-physical effects and meaning behind this expression of power. This strays a little from ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ but consider the political implications caused. By dropping the bomb, America unleashed a terrifying power that surpassed any current military power at the time. Was that a wise decision? Maybe, and this is extremely hypothetical, if we hadn’t dropped the bomb in Hiroshima, other countries wouldn’t have developed nuclear technology until much later, and we wouldn’t be facing a struggle for nuclear power with Iran today. Of course, this is all speculation, but the possibility is still there.
I would also touch upon your abortion argument, but I suppose I should move to the abortion post for that. It’s actually been very entertaining to consider all this, so I’d actually like to thank you for this post. Now I’m awake enough to finish my theory of knowledge paper, haha.
\but on the other hand I am 100% positive that every triangle i ever come across until the end of time will have angles that sum up to 180 degrees\
This is a very bold statement considering the discoveries of Non-Euclidean geometries. After much research we have never actually found a triangle that adds up to 180 degrees in the real physical world. This is why Hyperbolic geometry was discovered and Euclidean geometry questioned. So then which geometry does mirror our real world and what is the absolute truth?