Recently I had a debate on Facebook with a militant pro-abortionist. As we interacted, this person expressed the standard pro abortion arguments that men had no right to control a woman’s body, that a fetus is not human life but only a parasitic piece of tissue, and other common arguments. Of course, anyone who has done any reading on this topic can easily overcome such fallacies, which I proceeded to do. In the end, the truth will win because the truth represents what is actually real.
But people who promote these kind of falsehoods do not generally give up easily because they actually believe their beliefs are true. But since they can’t bring facts to bear to back up their assumptions, they must take another tack. There are a couple of choices at this point: they can either just go ballistic and resort to insults and other verbal attacks, or they can begin to lie.
It turned out that the person I was interacting with decided to take the lying route. This militant pro-abortionist had no problem lying about all sorts of things. The first was to insult the level of intelligence of people who are pro-life. Another line of lies had to do with the nature of the various state laws that govern abortion. Another was to lie about the nature of preborn life.
Of course, this is not the only topic or venue where lying must be dealt with. We see it all the time on television news shows where people debate their opponents. It is also very common among politicians as they simply make up “facts” to try to defeat their political enemies. We see it in businesses as company executives attempt to defeat their competitors. Honestly, we see it everywhere.
Of course, ultimately, all falsehoods can be defeated by simply expressing the truth – though it can take some time to do that as the falsehoods must each be addressed one by one. But the real issue at hand is not about the ability of a person to overcome the lies of those who go down that road – that can be done. The real issue emerges as we ponder the question: Why do people lie in the first place?
In modern American society, there is a whole segment of the population that lives by a set of worldview beliefs that sees the issue of lying through a relativistic lens. The difficult thing to deal with, though, is that most of these people will still agree that lying is wrong, even though the worldview beliefs they live by do not support that conclusion as a general principle.
What is the Issue?
The underlying issue involved in dealing with the topic of truthfulness has to do with determining whether or not there is such a thing as “objective truth.” If objective truth is a real thing, there has to be a place of origin for that truth. Christian Theists fully affirm that there is an objectively real personal God who has revealed an objectively real moral standard that is based upon his own unchanging character. Naturalists, on the other hand, have a different perspective. They do believe that objective truth exists when it comes to the laws of the natural universe – though they don’t have any way of explaining how those laws came into existence. When it comes to morality, however, since they don’t believe in an objectively real moral law giver, there can be no such thing an objectively true morality. Based on naturalistic philosophy, human beings have to make up morality for themselves.
The Presuppositions of Conflicting Notions of Truthfulness
As regards every other moral issue, the presuppositions of biblical Theism and Naturalism, regarding truth telling, conflict to such a high degree that it is impossible for the two to coexist. If biblical Theism is right, Naturalism is wrong, and vice versa. Let’s look at an explanation of the two.
Biblical Theism
A biblical worldview is based on the belief that God is an objectively real person who interacts personally with mankind. One of the ways he has historically done that is by revealing himself in the Bible. Thus, we are able to go to the Bible to discover what God has to say about various topics.
When it comes to the topic of truthfulness, the Bible is very clear; truth telling is important – it is God’s will. To illustrate that principle here are a few verses of Scripture that deal with that topic. These are all taken from the ESV.
Exodus 20:16
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Leviticus 19:11
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.
Proverbs 12:22
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
Ephesians 4:25
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Colossians 3:9
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.
And in 1 Peter 3:10-12, the apostle quotes from Psalm 34:12-13: For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
One of the things God has revealed is his character – and his character expresses truthfulness.
Naturalism
Whereas biblical Theism begins with the assumption that an objectively real God exists who has revealed moral truth to mankind, Naturalism begins with the belief that only the natural universe exists. That being the case, there is no transcendent God, and no such thing as objective moral truth. As such, the principles of morality must come from somewhere else.
That “somewhere else” is from the reasoning of human beings. However, even with that as a starting point, there must be some kind of determination as to what moral principles are reasonable so that specific moral judgments can be established. The “somewhere else” is generally the belief that the ultimate good is the survival of the species (the collective). Even with that though, decisions still must be made as to what will best accomplish that survival goal, and someone must make that determination.
As Naturalists acknowledge no transcendent authority source, the various human actors who are interested in determining the outcome must compete in order to promote their favorite result. The one, then, who is able to accumulate enough power to come out on top is able to win that battle. In other words, the ultimate principle is the law of the jungle – the one who is able to defeat all opposition gets to determine what is considered moral and immoral, right and wrong.
When it comes to truth telling, then, even that cannot be acknowledged to be an objectively real absolute necessity – as there exists no transcendent moral law that can determine what is morally right. The end result is that telling falsehoods is only wrong if it creates problems for society. Based on the power broker’s beliefs, there may be cases where lying is morally wrong, but equally, there may be cases where that is no problem with that at all.
Is the Secularist View of Truthfulness True?
The biggest problem regarding truthfulness based on any form of Naturalism is that there is no objective reason for a person to be truthful. It can be deemed that truthfulness is helpful for maintaining order in society in a general sense, but there can always be exceptions. The exceptions, though, are also based on a relativistic foundation – that is, people have to determine for themselves when truthfulness is useful and when it is not.
This naturalistic philosophy, however, does not represent reality. There is such a thing as objective truth, and not following it leads to personal destruction (both temporal and eternal) and societal breakdown. Without an objective standard for truth, every conflicting desire that exists, either at the individual level or in society, can only be settled by a power struggle.
What is the Answer?
Interestingly, if asked, almost everyone would say truth telling is right and lying is wrong – even people who hold a naturalistic worldview. But based on naturalistic worldview beliefs, there is no objective reason one must tell the truth. In the end, truth is considered relative and lying is okay if it further’s one’s individual goals.
But real life doesn’t work that way. When lying is normalized, trust is thrown out the window. With that kind of moral foundation, individuals cannot trust one another, and society has no way to be sure it can get at truth, right, and justice. Eventually, this will lead to total breakdown.
There is such a thing as actual truth, and truth telling is the foundation of a stable society. That very fact is evidence that a naturalistic worldview is not true, and that a biblical worldview does reflect the actual nature of reality.
© 2019 Freddy Davis
One comment on “The Truthfulness Fallacy”