Saying So Doesn't Make it So

Somehow in our postmodern epoch it has lurked into the collective conscious that it's okay to think whatever one wants about God or ultimate reality. Any kind of thoughts and worldviews are permissible, or so many would have us think. But this is a ridiculous assertion. Consider the following statement I encountered in a recent online discussion:

"I believe an absolute truth exists that is beyond our ability to understand."

Huh? How is thought suicide like this allowed to be thought at all? There are many problems with this statement. One: if there is an absolute truth that is unknowable, then how did the person saying this know that it's unknowable? Two: this very statement is a claim of absolute certainty. Third: this statement is also an assertion of absolute truth.

The person in this conversation told me that "to know something truly" is a rather vague concept. Pardon the pun, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am sitting in a chair right now. I am typing on a computer. My wife's name is Laura. All of these are true, absolutely. I know that.

Allow me to expand: if I didn't call this thing I was sitting on a chair, it would still be a chair. If I didn't recognize it's chairlike properties, it would still be a chair. If I refused to acknowledge the fact that something like a chair exists and that one could interact with it, I would still be sitting in a chair. But as it is, I am sitting in a chair, and I know this truly. How is that, even in the slightest, a vague notion?

No, what is vague is the previous phrase: "I believe an absolute truth exists that is beyond our ability to understand." This is obfuscation at the highest level of thought, because it doesn't distinguish between 2 unrelated ideas. I can know that this chair is comfortable and it adjusts to my level of height. But I do not know how this chair was engineered. I do not know how this chair uses its hydraulic functions. I don't even really know if it uses hydraulics- it just sounds right. What's the difference in my level of knowledge? I know the chair truly, but I do not know it exhaustively. This is a necessary distinction. The chair is comfortable, but I do not know everything about it's engineering. The same can be said of anything, especially matters of truth.

Saying that anything is "beyong our ability to understand," then, confuses the distinction. God is beyond our ability to understand exhaustively, but he is not beyond our ability to understand truly. Indeed, the very fact that I said the word "beyond" is even a little misleading as it relates to truth.

God evidences himself everywhere. He reveals himself in nature, in Jesus Christ's own person, in history, in visions, in dreams, and a myriad of other ways. To refuse this type of revelation is to refuse the knowledge of absolute truth. I do not think that one can, with any sense of internal consistency, believe the obfuscating phrase above and still have a relationship with God. And yet, many in our epoch are trying to their own self-misery.