The Quest for Absolute Truth: Unraveling the Fabric of Reality
Why are these the four questions? Well, the first question is: does truth exist? Why is that important? Because you often hear people saying there’s no truth—“you’ve got your truth, I’ve got my truth, all truth is relative, live your truth,” right? People say that all the time. If there’s no truth, then Christianity cannot be true. Of course, if there’s no truth, then atheism cannot be true either. By the way, if there were no truth, why would you pay thirty or forty thousand dollars a year to attend college? Aren’t you there to learn truth? Isn’t that the point?
The second question: does God exist? Why is that important? Well, if there is no God, you cannot have a word from God, nor can you have a resurrection. I hope to demonstrate tonight that there truly is a theistic God—a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent Creator who brought all things into being and sustains them. We will look at three arguments for this Being. These arguments appear in the Bible, but you do not need the Bible to know them. In fact, we will attempt to establish point two without referencing any religious text.
The third question: are miracles possible? Obviously, Christianity cannot be true if miracles are impossible, but I hope to show that not only are miracles possible, the greatest miracle in the Bible has already happened—and even atheists are conceding facts about it.
Then we will address the key question: is the New Testament true? The New Testament has no chance if there is no truth, no God, or no miracles. However, if truth exists, if God exists, and if miracles are possible, then we want to see whether the New Testament documents are historically sound enough to inform us about one specific event from antiquity—the resurrection of Jesus. Because, look, if Jesus rose from the dead, that settles it: Christianity is true. Of course, if Jesus did not rise, then that also settles it: it is false. Even the Apostle Paul said that if Jesus has not risen from the dead, our faith is in vain. In fact, Christianity is a worldview you can examine using philosophical and historical evidence. And if Jesus did not rise, you can dismiss it. You may ask, “If He did rise, why does that show it is true?” Because it indicates that Jesus is God, and whatever God teaches must be true. Personally, if someone predicts and achieves His own resurrection from the dead, I trust whatever that individual says.
I have observed that when atheists argue against God, they essentially borrow features of reality that could only exist if God exists, and they use those features to claim He does not exist. In effect, they must sit in God’s lap in order to slap His face.
Right now, we will begin with point one: does truth exist? Are you ready?
Let us start at point one: does truth exist? Whenever you discuss truth, you might begin with Jack Nicholson’s iconic courtroom line. Many people appear unable to handle the truth, insisting, “You have your truth, I have mine; all truth is relative.” Suppose someone comes up to you and says, “There is no truth.” You should pose a question in response: “Is that true?” If it is true that there is no truth, the claim “there is no truth” would itself be untrue. Do you see the contradiction? It is a self-defeating statement that fails to meet its own standard. It is akin to declaring, “I cannot speak one word in English,” when you are clearly doing so. Or claiming, “My parents had no children who lived,” or “My brother is an only child.” These are all self-defeating statements, and recognizing them spares you considerable hardship. If you start living by false principles, eventually you collide with reality, and it hurts.
Here is the critical reasoning skill: turn the claim back on itself. If someone says, “There is no truth,” you simply reply, “Is that true?”
Let us run through a few more examples. If someone says, “All truth is relative,” you might respond, “Is that a relative truth?” Or, “Even that one?” Because that person is making an absolute truth claim to declare all truth is relative.
Sometimes people do not explicitly say there is no truth, nor that all truth is relative. These days, however, it is common to hear, “There isn’t the truth; there is only my truth.” That sort of statement sounds appealing—Oprah like. “Sure, you live your truth, I will live mine.” What is the problem here? If you turn it back on itself, you must ask, “Is that statement merely your truth, or is it the truth?” Because if it is only your private truth, why should anyone else accept it? And if you claim it to be universally true, you just contradicted yourself by saying there is no universal truth. Again, it is self-defeating.
Yes, it is unpopular to say it today, but there is no such thing as “your” truth or “my” truth—there is only the truth. For example, suppose you hire someone to perform fifteen hours of labor at ten dollars an hour, and then this person demands fifteen thousand dollars. You object, “That is not correct,” but they respond, “Oh yes, it is, because I have my own math.” The notion of “my math” versus “your math” is absurd. There is no personal math; only the math. The same holds for truth.
Occasionally, someone phrases it as: “It is true for you, but not for me.” If you hear that, you might ask, “Is that true for everyone?” because if “true for you, but not for me” is universally true, then it cannot be limited to the person claiming it. It is self-defeating, much like saying, “I cannot speak a word in English.” Actually, there is a simpler way to challenge that claim: go to your teller and say, “I would like a hundred thousand dollars out of my account.” If the teller indicates you only have three dollars and sixty cents, you can reply, “That is true for you, but not for me. Give me the hundred grand.” Clearly, if it is true you only have three dollars, that is valid for everyone at every time and place, regarding that account.
Similarly, you cannot evade a speeding ticket by telling officer Spann, “That is your truth, not mine.” If you were indeed traveling at one hundred miles per hour, that is an objective fact.
Sometimes, I ask, “Do you think Christianity is true?” People say, “Yes,” and when asked why, the most frequent answer is, “Because I have faith.” But does faith change whether God exists or whether Jesus rose from the dead? No. Belief alone does not alter an objective fact. You do not need to believe in gravity to remain on Earth. Then why does the Bible talk about faith? Because there is belief that and belief in. “Belief that” gathers evidence that God exists or that Jesus rose from the dead—this realm is called “apologetics,” which means giving reasons for why something is true. Yet having “belief that” alone does not secure forgiveness of moral transgressions. You need to move from “belief that” to “belief in.” James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote that even the demons believe that God exists, but they do not trust Him. They oppose Him. One can accept a fact intellectually without embracing it. This is evident in personal relationships too.
When I first met my wife a little over ten years ago, I found plenty of evidence that she would be a wonderful partner. Yet evidence alone did not make her my wife; I had to take a step of trust, and in a brief lapse of judgment, she said yes. That is the difference between “belief that” and “belief in.” Most of the time, the Bible’s references to faith mean this kind of trust after you have established the truth of the claim. It is not blind faith; it is trusting in what you have good reason to believe is true. Every person, of any worldview, acts on trust in certain assumptions about how the world works. The vital question is: which assumptions are correct?
You may also hear, “Nothing is true except science.” The proper reply is, “Is that statement a scientific truth?” It is not—rather, it is a philosophical claim. In fact, you cannot even conduct science without philosophy, because all disciplines rest on philosophical principles. When you obtain a Ph.D., the “Ph” stands for “Philosophy.” Scientists must gather and interpret data. “Science” does not speak; scientists speak. That is why, for instance, you may get contradictory guidance on major public health matters. If data could speak for itself, there would be no disagreement, but data must be evaluated by people.
Another pervasive claim is: “You ought not judge.” The problem with that assertion is that it is itself a judgment. Simply reply, “Then why are you judging me for judging?” We all make judgments. Someone might object, “Didn’t Jesus say, ‘Don’t judge’?” Not in the sense people often assume. In Matthew 7:1, when Jesus said, “Judge not, lest you be judged,” He continued by explaining that we should remove the log from our own eye before addressing the speck in someone else’s. In other words, do not judge hypocritically. Make judgments, but do so righteously and humbly. Not judging at all is impossible; you made many judgments just getting where you are now. Atheists do the same: “There is no God,” “Jesus did not rise,” “Life has no ultimate meaning,” and so forth. These are all judgments. The real question is, are our judgments true?
Jesus indeed reserved strong condemnation for the self-righteous leaders of His day—the Pharisees and other religious or political rulers who abused their authority. He emphatically opposed them in passages like John 2, John 8, and Matthew 23, even driving money changers out of the Temple with a whip. If we imagine Jesus as perpetually mild and inoffensive, we have not read those chapters. He was eventually put to death, not for teaching universal niceness, but for proclaiming Himself to be God (blasphemy to the Jews, sedition to the Romans) and challenging corrupt authorities. So, do not assume we cannot judge. We all judge, and Jesus was not timid.
One other observation about judging: people never complain about praise, even though it is a judgment. If I compliment a friend, he will not retort, “Who are you to judge?” People only balk when they dislike a particular judgment. “We love the truth when it enlightens us; we hate the truth when it convicts us,” said Augustine. If you speak uncomfortable truth to someone, you often face anger because your words struck at something the individual wishes to hide. This is why Jesus said people love darkness rather than light.
Returning to self-contradicting statements such as “There is no truth”—this is a contradiction. So, if our reasoning so far is valid, relativism and postmodernism must be false, because they insist, “It’s true that there is no truth.” That alone would be enough reason to reject them. You would not attend an institution of learning if no truth existed. Of course truth exists; the debate is over what is true. You can suppress truth if you do not want to face it, but it remains truth. In fact, when I speak publicly, I may ask nonbelievers, “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” More than once, I have heard, “No.” That suggests their objection is not intellectual but emotional or volitional. They do not want a God to exist; they prefer to be their own. Conversely, it is fair for them to ask us, “If Christianity were proven false, would you give it up?” We should be equally honest about our commitment to evidence.
Does God Exist?
We come to the next question: is it true that God exists? I mentioned three arguments for God’s existence. The first is the argument from the beginning of the universe, or the cosmological argument. (“Cosmos” is Greek for “world” or “universe.”) It states that if the universe had a beginning, then the universe must have had a Beginner. The second is the teleological argument, from the Greek “telos” meaning “design” or “purpose.” If there is design in the universe and in life, it points to a Designer. Both of these have scientific support. The third argument is more philosophical: the moral argument, which is familiar to children who sense inherently that certain actions, such as torturing an innocent individual for fun, are actually wrong. If even one objectively wrong act exists, there must be an objective standard of rightness that transcends humanity.
We start with the cosmological argument, famously linked to the Big Bang. I accept the Big Bang but also ask who banged it. Evidence for the Big Bang is so strong that even skeptics like Stephen Hawking acknowledged that space, time, and matter emerged from nothing. Agnostic cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin likewise concluded there is no escape from a cosmic beginning. If space-time and matter truly began, then their cause must lie outside space-time and matter—it must be something non-physical, timeless, and immaterial. The only question is what caused that beginning. At the bottom line, it is either “no one created something out of nothing” or “someone created something out of nothing.” Which makes more sense?
The law of causality says everything that begins to exist has a cause. Since the universe cannot create itself, an Uncaused First Cause must exist beyond it. One cannot say chance caused the universe, because chance is merely a term denoting probability, not an entity with power to create. If we see no evidence that things pop into existence uncaused in our daily lives, then it is not logical to claim it happened for the entire cosmos.
Why is there something rather than nothing? That was Leibniz’s famous question. If something came from nothing, that implies a cause beyond nature. Space, time, and matter had a beginning, so the cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, extremely powerful, personal (able to choose), and intelligent. That points strongly to God—though this argument by itself does not confirm whether it is the Christian God or some other theistic conception. Later arguments narrow it further.
The Teleological Argument
Next is the teleological argument, highlighting design. It appears in two aspects: design in the universe at large and design in life. Scientists, in recent decades, have uncovered extraordinary fine-tuning that supports life on Earth. Even Stephen Hawking recognized that if the expansion rate of the universe were minutely different—even by one part in a thousand million million right after the Big Bang—no galaxies or stars would have formed. Other features, like the gravitational constant, the solar system’s arrangement, Jupiter’s protective role against asteroids, and so forth, also suggest intelligent calibration. The likelihood of these constants simply landing in perfect formation by happenstance is incredibly low. Scientists may call this “chance,” but that is basically “we do not know.” A more plausible explanation is a Designer.
Similarly, conditions in our solar system are remarkably precise. Earth’s distance from the Sun, its axial tilt, rotational period, and the Moon’s properties are all finely set for life. If any of these were significantly changed, we would not exist. The average distance between stars, the size of our galaxy, and numerous other cosmic factors reinforce this. Research by organizations like NASA shows that interstellar travel is essentially impossible for human beings. Even in our own galaxy, traveling at five miles per second would take two hundred thousand years just to reach the typical star. The sky’s vastness proclaims the majesty of its Creator.
Hence, “the heavens declare the glory of God,” as the Psalmist wrote. How do we know God? By His effects. If there is creation, there must be a Creator; if there is design, a Designer; if there is a moral law, a moral lawgiver; if there are rational minds, a greater mind behind them. The evidence compels us toward a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal, moral, intelligent cause.
Yet there is more. Aristotle noticed that nature consistently moves toward particular ends, as in an acorn reliably growing into an oak. This purposeful ordering, which he called the “Unmoved Mover,” gave Thomas Aquinas his “Fifth Way,” arguing that a mind directs everything toward its end. You do not see an acorn grow into a sea horse—it follows its “program,” which came from beyond itself.
God continuously sustains creation, the way a band sustains music. If the band stops playing, the music ceases. Likewise, if God ceased upholding the universe, it would cease. This is why Scripture says, “In Him we live and move and have our being,” and He “sustains all things by His powerful word.”
The Moral Argument
The final argument is moral: if there is no God, you cannot say anything is truly wrong—murder, assault, oppression, or genocide. Every statement of “This is unjust” presupposes a standard of justice beyond human opinion. Our Declaration of Independence acknowledges that true rights come from a Creator, not from a government. If there is no God, “love” is no better than “rape,” morally speaking, since there is no objective standard. Similarly, there can be no human rights. That is why Jefferson wrote that people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Without God, we lose a rational basis for human dignity.
Some may say, “What about the problem of evil?” but C.S. Lewis discovered that evil cannot disprove God, because you cannot know what is evil unless you know what is good, and you cannot have good without an absolute standard—God. Evil is a perversion of goodness, like rust in a car or cancer in a body, and cannot exist except in something originally good.
In short, if evil exists, then good exists, and if good exists, God must exist. We can complain about the presence of evil, but it does not abolish God; it may point to other challenges about suffering, but not to the non-existence of the ultimate Good.
“Submission” literally means placing one’s own mission under a higher mission. If there is a God, and we wish to be wise, we submit our finite missions to His ultimate mission, just like an athlete who subordinates ego for the sake of the team. It may feel counterintuitive, but it is a better strategy than pursuing self alone.
Drawing from these arguments, we have a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal, moral, intelligent, and powerful Creator, before we have even opened the Bible. To see why it is specifically the Christian God, we must investigate further lines of evidence, such as miracles and the identity of Jesus.
Are Miracles Possible?
We pause to note that miracles are not only possible, but the greatest miracle (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”) has already happened. If God can bring the universe into existence, lesser acts, like raising someone from the dead, are not farfetched. Some protest that miracles do not happen often, but that is precisely why they draw attention. If resurrections were routine, the resurrection of Jesus would be unremarkable. When an event is rare, it stands out, prompting people to ask why it occurred.
Is the New Testament True?
Our primary question now: are the New Testament documents historically credible enough to show that Jesus really did rise from the dead? We will walk through 3 lines of evidence: (1) early sources, (2) eyewitness details, and (3) embarrassing accounts—plus the related point of excruciating deaths. You can explore the others later, such as “undesigned coincidences,” Messianic prophecy, non-Christian corroborations, and the explosive growth of Christianity in Jerusalem itself.
Eyewitness Details
The New Testament is packed with historical crosshairs. For instance, Luke 3:1–2 says, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee…” and so forth. This is not “once upon a time.” Luke inserts specific figures and precise dating (29 A.D.), which people of that period could verify or dismiss. He would ruin his credibility if he invented these facts. In Acts (chapters 13 to 28), there are eighty-four verified historical details, which Roman historian Colin Hemer cataloged. Sir William Ramsay also investigated Luke’s accuracy and concluded that Luke references numerous leaders, locations, and cultural details with striking precision. The Gospel of John similarly contains dozens of historically probable details.
Furthermore, the New Testament mentions at least thirty individuals (such as Caiaphas, Pilate, Annas, Herod, etc.) confirmed by archaeological finds or secular sources, underscoring the authors’ reliability. Findings like the “Pontius Pilate Stone,” the tomb of Caiaphas, and ossuaries from the first-century Jewish world further strengthen the credibility of these accounts.
Embarrassing Stories
Historians employ the principle of embarrassment: if an account contains details embarrassing to its authors, that tends to indicate authenticity. People might lie to elevate themselves, but seldom do they fabricate humiliating details. The Gospels depict the disciples as slow-witted, fearful, and disloyal. They admit the apostles misunderstood Jesus, that Peter was called “Satan,” and that men fled during the Crucifixion while women stayed. In that culture, female testimony was discounted, so if one were inventing a story, you would not choose women as first witnesses to the empty tomb. The writers also concede that Jesus’s own family thought He was out of His mind in Mark 3, and that certain people called Him a drunkard and demon-possessed. None of this is the stuff of legend if you are trying to create a perfect hero.
Excruciating Deaths
The key individuals behind the New Testament testimony, virtually all devout Jewish believers in one God, claimed Jesus was God and rose from the dead, upending their longstanding worldview. For these claims, they faced ostracism, beatings, torture, and death, with no worldly gain. People will die for a belief they think is true, but not for what they know is a lie. The apostles were in a position to know whether they had actually seen the risen Christ. They held firmly to this claim to the bitter end.
Some argue, “But what about other religions with martyrs?” The difference is that, for example, modern Muslim extremists have faith but did not witness anything firsthand. The New Testament apostles, on the other hand, reported a resurrection they personally saw, heard, and touched.
Occasionally, skeptics ask about non-Christian sources. There are indeed about ten such ancient sources confirming various events. The assumption that you cannot trust “religious” authors is misguided; the earliest Christians had every reason to disprove the resurrection if it were false, because their religious upbringing taught them a divine-human messiah was unthinkable. Instead, they insisted on it, paying with their lives.
Christianity is True Regardless of the Bible?
A statement that may sound shocking but is accurate: Christianity is not true simply because of a collection of documents bound into the Bible. Christianity would still be true if no New Testament writings existed. Why? Because it is grounded in an event, the resurrection. There were already thousands of Christians before a single New Testament text was written. The New Testament authors did not cause the resurrection; the resurrection caused them to write the New Testament. They lost everything for proclaiming it—hardly a strong motive to fabricate.
We are grateful that they recorded these truths, yet they would remain true even had they not done so. Gary Habermas, has studied the resurrection extensively. If someone tells him they found a minor Bible error, he replies, “So what?” That does not mean the entire Bible is invalid, nor that Jesus did not rise. While I believe in inerrancy, Christian faith centers on Christ’s resurrection. Once you establish the reality of the resurrection, everything else follows.
So, to review: does truth exist? Yes, it does. Does God exist? Three arguments—cosmological, teleological, moral—indicate a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent, moral Creator. Are miracles possible? If Genesis 1:1 is true, miracles logically follow. And is the New Testament telling the truth about the resurrection? We examined multiple lines of evidence pointing to “yes.”
So What?
Finally, if Christianity is true, so what? It means someone literally died for you, and that same person overcame death. By trusting in Him, you receive both forgiveness and His righteousness. Ultimately, you can get justice (what you deserve), mercy (not getting what you deserve), or grace (getting what you do not deserve). We should all crave grace. Forgiveness is vital, and only God can give true righteousness. Have you ever accepted that gift? Why would you not? It is free. Everyone is going to live forever somewhere. The only remaining question is: where? God will honor the choice you make.
