True for You, But Not for Me

Strong and Courageous

Feb. 2,2018

A Post-modern worldview that has permeated much of our society, has as one of its core beliefs that there is no such thing as objective truth. All truth claims are only relatively true. They also hold tightly to the idea that there isn’t any grand overarching metanarrative to the purpose and meaning of life. Rather that life is merely a long string of vignettes that you perceive and align to your own individual perspective in order to create meaning. So, the idea that something is true for you, but not for me, is woven into the subconscious. So much so, that a person holding this worldview will tend to instantly block out any other person’s alternate ideas or perspectives without even beginning to consider its validity.

 The posture held is that any grand truth claim is nothing more than an attempt to grab power in order to control or manipulate the masses. This nauseates them to the point of total rejection of any sort of material truth perogative. This appears to be quite ironic when looking from the perspective of tolerance. Because tolerance is another core belief to the post-modernist. The reality found is that there is only a sort of selective tolerance that fits the individual’s taste buds.

 Christianity is a grand overarching metanarrative truth-claim. The very thing that the postmodernist will reject as simply a power play with no sense of any objective truth associated with it. It is tragic that they are also intolerant about this, while claiming that we all need to be tolerant about everything. D.A. Carson describes this as the “intolerance of tolerance. “Alister McGrath states that “Postmodernism has endemic aversion to the questions of truth.”

Even the statement that there are no objective truth claims, is actually an attempt to make an objective truth declaration. This is logically self defeating.

The reality is that at some point we need to be able to make the distinction of what is really true. Even the post modernist must be able to make distinctions as to what is either true or preferable. Was Hitler just as righteous and benevolent as Mother Teresa? Was his idea of truth disparate from hers, but also holding equal validity? Was it OK for him to say about her, that it is true for you, but not for me? Or furthermore for her to say about him, that it is true for you, but not for me?

When Jesus was arrested and was to be crucified, he was brought to the Roman authority Pontius Pilate. Here is the dialogue between them which is found in John Chapter 18. Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸ Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”. How paradoxical is this question, particularly when he is standing with and looking at the person who embodies the truth. Jesus says that He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John Chapter 14:6.

 This is the most important truth claim found in the entire history of humanity. For the postmodernist, this is the true answer of discovery of the ultimate meaning in life. My hope is to help some of them see this light.

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For a more in-depth study on this topic, I would highly recommend the book True for You, But Not for me Written by Dr. Paul Copan