Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

A response to a Reader

I was going to respond in the comments section to a poster 'Rugi' Who commented on my post on John Stott and why I didn't think he mattered so much in the discussion of Morals, Christianity and the wider issues of governance in America. The reader said:



"These "truthists' believed that blacks were not even capable of "salvation""

You seem to be trapped in a logical fallacy. The fact that some people who believe in absolute truth believed something wrong, does not prove that there is no absolute truth, anymore than people who believe in the scientific method and used it to justify racist beliefs (dare I mention Nazis) makes the scientific method wrong. It just proves that they had the wrong truth.

It is wrong to say that I or others do not belive in absolute truths. I do. For example:

1) The Sky is NOT blue. it appears blue because of light scattered by the atmosphere makes it appear to be blue. The sky really has no color.

2) The Earth is round but not a perfect circle.


These are examples of absolute truths. You can verify these things through the scientific process and get the same results time and again. There is no situational definition here. Let us apply this to religion. When one says that Jesus is God or the Son of God, where is your proof? a particular book that claims that is not proof. It is only proof as much as it is proven that it was written somewhere. it cannot be verified by anyone else. Same thing for any other religion. You're not dealing with 'absolute truth" but actually articles of faith or belief. Articles of faith or belief regardless of how strongly felt does not constitute "absolute truth." In line with the "Nazi" example of "truth" there is no such thing as "wrong truth" either something is true or it is not. "wrong truth" equals "false." "unpopular turth" equals truth. Furthermore, as any student of logic will tell you, a conclusion as as truthfull as it's premises. Thus the Nazis had false premises that made thier conclusions "false" regardless of how strongly they believed in them.

Now since the commentor chose to specify my example of "blacks were not capable of salvation" let me address this specifically. The reason that this was pointed out was because the very fact that the Bible, which forms the foundation for said "Truths" was able to be interpreted in such a manner, means that said foundation is in fact flawed. If the Book is "Gods" unalterable truth yet that truth changes then it cannot be "God's unalterable truth." In which case it is man's truth and we all know what that means. We recall that this same "truth" forbids women from being leaders in the Christian religion not to mention the God warranted genocide of many people in the Middle East, while proclaiming that Killing is a sin.

This leads back to the readers further issue with my comment on Stott. He feeels that I didn't address Stott. Indeed I didn't. The title of the post was "It doesn't matter." The reason it doesn't matter is because for all his apparent differences with Falwell et.al he still ascribes to:

. In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ."

Which means he is not for "absolute truth" he is for Biblical truth,. Biblical truth is not absolute truth. It's just what it says it is "biblical truth" nothing more and nothing less and of no less truthful nature than the I-Chin or the Odu Ifa.