What is Truth?

Introduction

Get to know you type questions/stuff

Let students know that I appreciate them and that they matter!

Lesson:

What color is the best?

Wait for answers

You believe that the best color is _______ but I believe that the best color is red. Who is right, and who is wrong? Think for a minute, I didn’t ask what color is your favorite, I asked which color is the best. There’s a difference between those questions. We all can have different favorite colors, but is there 1 singular color that is better than all the other ones? Maybe in your mind, but what about in the mind of everyone else? No, there’s not.

We all have different experiences and preferences, this is part of being a human being! Let’s up the ante a little bit, though. Say that there’s a person who wins an award at your school and this person is your friend - you say that they deserve the award because they’re a good person. Whenever you use the word good, what do you usually mean by that?

They do nice things

They help others out

They’re friendly

They are dedicated to their sport/activity

They’re always there for you

These are good things - but someone else might have a different opinion of your friend, sadly.

Think of Jesus for a minute, we read the Bible and we read that Jesus is the Son of God (we’ll talk more specifically about Jesus later) and that He came to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus had a lot of followers, but what did Jesus also have a lot of? He had a lot of enemies. Jesus was kind, loving, gracious, and compassionate, yet there were lots of people who didn’t like Him. Why? Because people don’t always like other people for whatever reason - even if you think that person is “good”!

Have you ever heard someone say this, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is a statement that lots of people say and it’s a good question. Why are there bad things? Why does evil exist? Why do some people suffer and other people never seem to get in trouble for the wrong they’ve done? Think about this for a moment, though. Who gets to define “good” in life? Is it you or me? Is there a standard of good for our world that we can find from the government or a business out there?

Good for one person might be not breaking the law. Good for another person might be making a 95% on a test. Good for another person might be helping someone out. We have different definitions of good and this is true of all humans. It’s impossible to arrive at a universal definition of good based on what humans think. What do we need, then? We need a standard of good that we all submit to. We need a definition of good that comes from someone higher than ourselves.

Tonight I want to give you all several arguments that have been used in the past to help you defend your faith, answer questions that someone asks you, or simply help you as you try to figure out what you think for yourself! After this, we’ll have a few minutes for some questions.

The 3 arguments we’ll look at tonight are

Moral Argument

Where does our moral compass come from? Why do we know that some things are right and others are wrong? Who decides that?

Cosmological Argument

Cause and Effect - how did the Universe begin?

Fine Tuning Argument

How can life happen because of random chance?

Moral Argument

What are some things humans universally agree are right or wrong?

Right:

To help someone who has been hurt

To be honest

To look out for someone being picked on

Wrong:

To kill an innocent person in cold blood

To hit someone who is hurt

How many of you have a brother or sister? How do you know that they are older or younger than you?

Because you have a starting point. You know how old you are and you know how old they are.

What if you didn’t know how old you were, though? Would you know that your brother or sister is older than you? No.

We have to have a reference point. We have to have a standard that base something off of in these situations.

Think about these moral things for a moment, now. How do you know that it is good to help rescue an animal who is stuck or help a person who is struggling? How do you know that this is a morally right action to do?

Because other people think it is?

Because that’s the general consensus?

Remember that for centuries, the general consensus said that it was ok to treat other humans with no human rights

Because you think something is right?

Person A might say that it is acceptable to punch an innocent person in the face but person B says that that’s not acceptable. Who is right?

This is called subjective morality - truth changes based on who determines what truth really is… In this world, there is no objective morally right or wrong action. You can do whatever you want to do and never suffer a consequence because you determine what truth is… This sounds really good, doesn’t it? We like being in charge and writing the rules… What’s the problem?

All humans have some sort of moral compass that tells us that some actions are right and others are wrong. Where does this compass come from? How do we determine what’s wrong and right? The very existence of such a compass shares with us that there is an objective standard out there.

Say you have a friend who says that God doesn’t exist and the reason they say that is because there are lots of bad things that happen - you can ask them a simple question, “How do you know those things that happen are bad?” How do we know that sickness, death, and bullying are bad things? Because that truth is embedded in our brain. By what standard are things good or bad? It can’t be based on how we feel because someone else might disagree with our definition of good or bad. The only way that we can have a true definition of “good”, “bad”, or “truth” is if a higher standard exists.

Romans 2:15 CSB

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them

What does Paul mean here? Simply that we all know the law of the Lord in our heart and brain. We all know that some things are morally right and wrong - every human does! Whenever someone says that something isn’t fair, they are admitting that they believe in moral right and wrong. Whenever your friend who isn’t a Christian does this, they are then forced to either reject moral right and wrong or they are forced to believe in a God who created us with the moral compass that we all possess.

If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist

Objective moral values and duties do exist

Therefore, God exists

Cosmological Argument

Maybe that argument helps you think a little bit because of moral actions and things like that, but maybe you have a friend who is really smart and they like science. Do any of you like studying science? Science can be interesting but it can also be a little over our heads at times. Think for a moment about how you got here - not the birds and the bee’s, but think about how you as a human are here. One day, you were born. Did you just randomly appear? No. There was a cause to your birth. Take that same line of thinking on a much larger scale: Take the universe. The universe exists and, therefore, had a cause. What could possibly be behind the cause of the universe?

What do some scientists believe about the cause of the universe?

Big Bang

Whatever began to exist must have a cause

The universe began to exist

Therefore, the universe must have a cause

Premise 1 - is this true? Can you have something come out of nothing? Can you be walking down the street with your friend and a can of Dr. Pepper appear out of thin air right into your hand? That would be cool - but that’s not how things work. Effects have causes.

Premise 2 - Did the Universe begin to exist or has it always existed?

Atheists might argue that the Universe is eternal

2nd law of thermodynamics: Universe is running out of usable energy… If it has always existed, it would have run out of energy by now!

Modern science tells us that the universe is expanding… How can this be? Because it began at a single point in time / space. Even the multiverse theory!

There must be a cosmic beginning!

Premise 3 - Logically this must be true as well because premises 1-2 are true

The cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, uncaused, powerful, and immaterial. What could possibly be the cause of the universe? Simply, God.

It is reasonable to believe that God exists because of who God is in Scripture and based on what it would take to create the massive universe that we have

Fine Tuning Argument

Do you know how many miles away the earth is from the sun? On average, 93 million miles. That’s a long ways away! Did you know, though, that if the earth were more than say 5% further away from the sun that it would be too cold for life as we know it to exist? Likewise, if it were 5% closer to the sun, it would be far too hot for life to exist. We are located in the perfect location for life exactly where we are at!

How about the human eye ball? Do you know how complex your eye is? Our eyes contain 2 million working parts and we blink over 5 million times each year. We process over 100 pieces of information each second with our eye balls. Our eyes are so intricate and complex that many scientists have been baffled by our eyes formed. Even atheistic scientists question how the eye ball could have evolved because it is so complicated!

The fine tuning argument simply looks at the observable universe and says that the simplest explanation is that creation was intelligently designed - not the result of random chance and billions of years of time. The likelihood that life would have evolved given all of the constants in the world is mathematically impossible. Yet, here we are and here we live with billions of other people each and every day in a world that is perfectly located to have heat, oxygen, and water. Here we are with eye balls that process millions of pieces of information each month. How can that be? What are the odds of this being our experience in life?

How many of you have known someone who has been struck by lightning?

The odds of you getting struck by lightning 1 time during your life (80 years) is - 1 in 15,300. The population of Salem is about 5,000, so this means that chances are no one in Salem will get struck by lightning but in say Springfield, chances are 10 people will get struck by lightning in their lifetime.

How about the odds of

Yellowstone erupting: 1 in 730,000 in any given year, according to the USGS.

Being eaten by a shark: 1 in 3.7 million, according to CNBC. Whale Bone Mag adds that those numbers change to 1 in 7 million for Americans living in a landlocked state.

Being killed by a meteorite: 1 in 700,000, according to astronomer Alan Harris in Discover Magazine. Those odds are considerably lower for getting struck directly by a meteor, however, dropping to 1-in-1.9 million should a meteor hit Earth.

Death by vending machine: 1 in 112 million, according to "The Book of Odds" by Amram Shapiro. According to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, an average of four Americans died per year, between 2002 and 2015, due to vending machine mishaps.

Odds of winning the mega millions lottery is 1 in 302 million

These are bad odds! Do you know what the odds are that our universe has life? 1 in 100 with 60 zeroes after it! In the world of math, this is impossible… Yet it’s the world that we live in!

Romans 1 tells us this truth as God has displayed His existence and power in creation

Romans 1:20 CSB

20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

Recap:

We know some things are morally right or wrong and those morals come from God - they do not come from ourselves/society

There is evidence throughout our universe of things being finely tuned and detailed that random chance cannot explain

The Universe must have a cause and that cause must not itself have a cause. Genesis 1 shares that before there was a beginning, there was God! That God is eternal and uncreated - therefore even if you’re not a Christian, you have to admit that God could have created the world as Genesis says He did. There is no way to disprove what the Bible says about this!

Questions from students concerning this subject?

Next week:

How did we get our Bible?

How can we trust the Bible?

How do we know that Jesus actually existed and rose?

Other questions from students about Bible for next week?