God is not a Rock, and He Cannot Die.

If the benefits and defects of objectivity as well as the benefits and defects of subjectivity are not properly discerned, what is actually at stake then is truth.

It is allright for Christians to ask what truth is. It is not alltogether abundantly clear. (What truth is) I wish to argue from here on in that epistemology must start with the presupposition that truth is a person, not merely personal, but a living real person, and that that person is God. In other words, truth is God. The inverse is also the case. God is truth. The phrases, "truth is God" and "God is truth" are both true, but mean different things but we will not explore that distinction here. Let us begin with ascertaining how God is who God is and what this means about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity.

We can study God as an object, although He is not an object. An object does not move. An object does not change. An object can be infinitely complicated, and impossiple to master, but it is less complicated than a subject because it is immoveable. And although an object can be infinitely complicated, the fact that it is dormant leaves God out as a possibility of being an object. Although, the dictum, "God does not change" is true, it cannot mean that he is an object simply because objects do not have life. And if God does not have life, what makes him worthy of the title of God? It is by God's providence that we can study him as an object, but because we can study him as an object does not mean that he is an object. He comes to us this way, because he cannot come to us as he is. His glory would consume us. What God wants us to know objectively about himself he has shown us, but that does not mean that he has revealed everything there is to know, or that there aren't things about God that we can never know, or that there aren't more things he wants to disclose. The things we can know about God objectively cannot be objectively determined to be any certain amount of things. It would seem reasonable to assume that there is no way of really being able to determine how much there is to know about God if he is indeed infinite. We must go back to the observation that what we know about God is what God wants us to know, and with this for now we shall be content.

If God relinquishes the title God by virtue of his being only an object, then he is necessarily not merely an object, and therefore can be studied as a subject being that he is a person. At this point it should be noted that if God is a subject, that he can be known subjectively, and if subjectivity is not to be trusted by virtue that it is subjective, then God cannot be known this way. This seems to be the position of the modern; who assumes that subjective knowledge of anything is not real knowledge. But we know that people are not mere objects, right? Or are they? And they can be known. But is it not a different kind of know?; a kind of know that is difficult to explain, but it doubtless a kind of knowledge? Simply put it is a subjective knowledge, and precisely because subjectivity is given to moving, shifting, and changing, is what makes it dependent upon the winds of change. But because this is true, does not make it necessary that subjective knowledge is untrustworthy as real knowledge. It is indeed untrustworthy as the only kind of knowledge. (so is objective knowledge). It is still a legitimate kind of knowledge. And without this being true, God cannot be known.

If God only revealed Himself as an object, (and maybe this is the case), we would not be able to have a personal relationship with him. I suppose this suffices for logical, but certainly not compelling. Because if I believed that God could only be known objectively, then I would not be a Christian, because at this point, it would not matter what that object was called. And is it not plausible that this very object is the god of the religion of modern man?. On what basis, should this god have compassion, or justice, love, or anger, or even a will? And on what basis should compassion, justice, or love be considered virtuous or anything at all? Why should anything be considered anything? The downfall of objectivity alone is that there is no objective reason to think that anything can be known objectively. It is a presupposition. And if one presupposition has the ability to be objectively more reasonable than another, then on what grounds is it a presupposition? May we call a presupposition what it is? May we call it faith? And if there be no objective ground for objectivity, then isn't objectivity alone a faith, and therefore hardly objective? The next question is the post modern paradox. How do we know what we believe is true?

There is a question that is often not asked that ought to precede the above question. It is: Why do we care if something is true? Plants, and animals, do not seem to care about truth. They seem to accept it. Why do we question it? It's because we're not objects, we're subjects, capable of change. The fact that there is no other answer to the question of why we care about truth, means that we must accept that we do, and that we must accept that without an answer we are incomplete, or at least we feel incomplete. If the answer cannot come objectively because the answer is God, because God is truth, then we must be okay with faith. And if our basis is not reason, but faith, what will make it compelling is not our ability to make sense of it, but our ability to complete the incompleteness. If the thing we believe ends up filling the void, then it is true, and it is God.

Some of you are asking: What separates this from postmodernism? To this legit question I say: Because postmodernism asserts that the subjective nature of knowledge means that no one can say that their belief, or their way of life is the only legitimate belief or way of life. I say that it can because it fills the void. I also to not affirm the postmodern assertion that knowledge is only or totally subjective. I only affirm their critique of objectivity, that it cannot lead to complete knowledge. But even with that said, incomplete knowledge does not equal insufficient knowledge. And I have stated this before, the fact that objective knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge that we can depend on, does not mean it does not exist at all or is useless. It is indeed real, and given, and revelatory. But objectivity is not the trunk or the foundation.

Next question: If objectivity is useful, how, since it cannot be completly depended upon? It is important to acknowledge the existence of objectivity in the universe because it's denial would drive the one who denies it insane. Suppose that everything is subject to change. What then is language? What is God? What is life? What is anything? We communicate in objectives, without any objective knowledge of what those things are. Without objectivity how could we communicate? How could we live? We need to learn the skill of acceptance. To be able to say, I believe this but I can't prove it, and I am okay with it. But the question of truth is a bigger question than objectivity is able to handle. We communicate objectively, and to a certain level, truly, but only to a certain level. The refusual to question things on the other level, the level we cannot know is not to deny truth, but it is to affirm the truth that just because something is true does not mean it can be known or should be known. It also helps us understand that our objective communications are a shadow of the truth, not the truth itself, and leaves room for the truth to be revered as it should. As he should. All that we can know is what God allows us to know, and we should be thankful for every bit of it we get, because it all makes us more acquainted with reality, but if we think that we have the right to know everything, and that we are not fulfilled until we do, then we are horribly and miserably mistaken. For on some level, the acquisition of knowledge is unavoidable. We can learn without us even knowing it. But we do not learn so as to know. We learn so as to become more and more in awe of how big knowlege/truth/God really is. This is also known as becoming more and more acquainted with reality which is akin to becoming more and more real, which is akin to knowing God, which is akin to being complete, which is the proof of our faith.

What use has the Bible? To say that the Bible is where we should start in our knowledge of God is faulty and almost silly for numerous reasons. There is a simple observation to make in contest with that assertion. In order for that to be true, do you not have to presuppose the very thing that moderns attempt to presuppose which they cannot? That is, that one can have objective knowledge about objective knowledge. It is fine to have the presupposition that God has revealed wants he wants us to know in the Bible, and to also presuppose that that knowledge is irreversibly true, as opposed to general revelation. It is not fine to presuppose that all general revelation must fall in line with the special revelation of the Bible, because the Bible itself is not so objective as to be a measure of anything. If it were objective, would it not be more universally interpreted? This is not to say that there is no objective truth in it, it's just to say that the simple observation that there are many interpretations of the Biblical texts makes the Bible a hard case as a sufficient objective trunk or foundation. And maybe, it doesn't even want to reveal truth objectively. What if it simply wants to reveal truth, sometimes objectively and sometimes subjectiviely? What if some of the knowledge of the Bible is so precious and beyond, that it can only be known in a way that cannot be explained and legitimized only by a certain way of life? The uniqueness of the Bible is not found in it's being the trunk of philosophy, or the center of revelation, or truth. But the uniquness of the Bible is found in the distinctly Christian presuppostion that it is a recording from God/truth himself dedicated to expounding on the way that things really are, and as such can be completely trusted in this way. Since God/truth cannot lie, cannot be mistaken, and cannot have bad intentions. Every word in it is true as God sees truth, and no other book can bear such a description. But it's not stagnant. It's meant to be wrestled with. And a thing that must be wrestled with is a thing that cannot be used to bully, convince, or prove. Because the one who seeks will find. And the one who is lost wasn't seeking.

To some God has given a map, to others a compass, to others a GPS, and to some a blackberry. To some a cell phone. To some nothing, but the sun, and the stars. But it all leads to the same place. And it all goes throught the ultimate display of truth, Jesus. Somehow, someway, the path to God goes through Jesus. Anyone who is honestly seeking will find him. They will find the cross, the resurrection, and that He is coming again. Because if God is truth, and Jesus is God, and therefore Jesus is truth, and if people who seek find, then no one who is honestly seeking the way, whether he chooses to do it by compass, or by map, or by intuition, can fail to meet Jesus. This frees us as Christians from the self-made need to defend truth, or faith. These things are never at stake. What's at stake is humanity. Everyday human beings attempt in big and small ways to dehumanize humanity, for the sake of power, control, or security. Is it possible that by constantly defending what needs no defense we're helping in the dehumanization process? And maybe our efforts in defense need to turn to concentrating on defending the dehumanized, and rehumanzing them, setting them on the path towards truth, towards God, towards Jesus Christ.



Final question: How do we know God? Is it subjectively or objectively? It's funny, because God is neither a subject or an object. He is not a "logy". He is God. He is that which we know is, but cannot describe. Any description we use falls infinitely short of describing the real God, because any description of him is far too close stripping him of his infiniteness. We must speak of God this way. But we still speak of God. And so while our language about him affirms the existence of objectivity, as does language about anything, it does not say as much about God as it does about us. When it comes to describing the completely spiritual, (God) all language is metaphor. God is big. But "big" is as good a word as we can use to try to explain his, well bigness. As soon as you say God is... you've veered off the path of literalness and into the field of metaphor. It must suffice, but it must also be recognized as the case. We cannot know God as he is, subjectively or objectively, but we can know God subjectively and objectively. We will have no words to describe the reality of this knowledge, but this will not make that knowledge any less real. God is knowable through his Word, and subjectively through the Bible, and his Son Jesus. And God is knowable through what we see objectively through Creation. We experience the knowledge of God, and therefore God in his Son Jesus. We know him by obeying his Son. And the Bible is the Testament of the Son of God. But beyond that there are no blueprints to the knowledge of God, no roadmaps, no theology. It's through Jesus that we know God, and Jesus alone. This is our faith. If we seek truth we shall find truth, and we shall find Jesus everytime, regardless of the starting point, a sincere search leads to the Son of God.