Instead of imagining we are digging down to find supposed universal foundational truths that are untarnished by any bias, we need a new construct. Imagine a spider web. Or envision a braided-rope hammock. Each belief and value and philosophy we hold is a strand of …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 12
I would suggest that our biggest task to tackle is not uncovering bias in the media. It isn’t finding bias “out there.” Our biggest challenge is finding and naming bias in ourselves. It is figuring out how to be who we are, in all our …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 11
Again, the heart of the Christian faith is a rejection of Plato’s view of the world. The heart of our faith is Jesus. Jesus is the universal divine “form”—in fullness—taking on flesh, and matter, and humanity—in fullness. Jesus is what Universal Truth and Divinity look …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 10
Foundationalism in itself is not completely unhelpful. When we do truly find a universal foundation point, there is so much that can (and is) built upon that to better our lives. The geniuses who found principles of air lift and drag coefficients allow engineers to …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 9
Some look at all this, and see the death of anything that might be called universal. Everything is particular, everything is from a perspective, everything is relative. (This is what those who warned me were afraid of. If you look at all that’s out there, …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 8
But Modernism is on its last legs, and we can trace many of the death blows. Throughout the 20th century, here are a few that emerged: Science discovers that the reality described by Newton’s law of gravity and Cartesian dualism can’t account for the new …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 7
Modernism imagines the best place to be is in that “universal”, in that unbiased place of foundational truth. Cultural perspectives and biases must be removed and ignored. Justice must be “blind” to the particulars, in order to find the universal and build up from there. …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 6
In 1992, I took a class from the brilliant Dr. Nancey Murphy. She is a doctor two times over, with an earned Ph.D. in Philosophy and an earned Th.D. (Doctor of Theology). About 500 years ago, history watched a seismic shift from the Medieval world …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 5
How do we construct coherent views of reality in a world of biased perspectives? How do we “make” truth that can help us live and act according to our values? I’m 52 years old, and that puts me at sort of a pivot point for …
Read MoreConstructing Truth—Part 4
I had a sort of “a-ha” slowly emerge over the last few months, a realization that has prompted me to wrestle and share this long piece. The very people who are now saying truth is difficult to know, the very people yelling about “fake news”, …
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