Illustrating Truth

As seen in the sidebar, I am currently reading Reclaiming the Center to "bone-up" on my philosophical training.

In his chapter entitled "Truth Defined and Defended," Doug Groothuis offered this helpful illustration of the correspondence view/theory of truth:

"Noted epistemologist Alvin Goldman likens the relationship of beliefs to truth to betting on a horse race. Whether we bet, or on what horse we bet, is up to us. Who wins the race is not up to us. 'Once you form a belief...its 'success' or 'failure' is not up to you; that is up to the world, which in general is independent of you' [Alvin Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World, 20]. In other words, 'only the world confers truth and falsity' [Goldman 21]. A true statement is a 'descriptive success,' which means that it is faithful to reality" [Goldman 60] (66).

When witnessing it would've been nice to have an illustration like this to help people understand that just because they chose their own religion / spirituality, and happen to really like it or get some good benefits from it, those realities alone do not make it true.

Christianity is true if Jesus rose from the dead (1 Cor 15:12-20), if that event actually happened to an actual person in an actual Judean tomb at an actual point in history. Whether I bet on / choose to believe the resurrection or like it or get something out of it makes no difference as to whether or not the event took place, and therefore, as to whether or not it is true.

Truth is determined by the world outside of us. In this sense, the truth or falsity of Jesus' resurrection has nothing at all to do with us. If our beliefs / statements about what is real do not match what is actually real, our beliefs / statements are false and do nothing to what is actually real, actually true. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of me.

Sadly, after much imbibing of postmodern epistemology, the correspondence view of truth is under serious attack in Christian circles by postevangelicals / emergent / postfundamentalist / postconservatives / younger evangelicals. Because of that, I'll end with this call to arms from Groothius:

"Whenever postconservative evangelicals depart from the correspondence view of truth--which is both logical and biblical--and thus sink into the postmodern swamps of subjectivism, pragmatism, or constructivism, they should be lovingly but firmly resisted. Nothing less than the integrity of our Christian witness is at stake" (79).