Pilate said to Him, What is Truth? (John 18:38)

Introduction

The words faith an truth carry multiple connotations for many people. Similar to the word hope, faith can can run the gamut from that which one holds as a solid foundation to that which equates to nothing more that wishful and even fanciful thinking. With the advent of modernism, e.g. Enlightenment, faith came to be cast as antithetical to fact, most prevalent in the rise of scientism. Biblically, however, faith exhibits a more solid foundation. The Greek word pistis takes on the notion of relational trust counterposed to blind acceptance. Scripturally, faith entails a strong inner persuasion or belief in the truth of God, based on a firm reliance or dependence on God’s character and His gift for salvation through Jesus Christ. The message of salvation was based on the eyewitness accounts of the apostles regarding the life, teachings, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Consequently, although faith regards a strong inner persuasion, additionally its strength is based on historical eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life. Christianity, therefore, involves a worldview that holds that God is the ultimate reality (Sire, 2004). Hence, the ways Christians view ultimate reality, the universe in which we live, and how we come to understand right and wrong stand on a worldview that declares there is such a thing as truth (Sire, 2004). And that truth is absolute.

Defending One’s Faith in a Postmodern World 

How are Christians to address this postmodern age in which they live without compromising their worldview? I’m sure that most believers have heard rejoinders such as, well that’s your truth, not my truth. Or, you construct your reality your way, and I’ll construct mine my way. Or even the self-stultifying there is no absolute truth; everything is relative. How are we to engage postmodern thinking in a way that on the one hand draws definite lines in the sand, and on the other hand, shows the biblical  respect, care, and concern for those to whom we speak? 

To address this concern, I will draw upon the work of Douglas Groothuis (2000), Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. In that work he delineates several points that Christians should consider as we engage postmodernity in conversations regarding our faith.

What is Truth?

Douglas Groothuis, in his work, Truth Decay, delineates the importance of defending the gospel while engaging postmodernist by focusing dialogues on the nature of truth (Chapter 7). He urges Christian apologists not to compromise the truth of the gospel by taking on postmodern ways of thinking. An apologetic for the people of postmodernity must place the concept of truth at the center of all its endeavors (Groothuis, p. 163). Groothuis points out that in this day and age, the term truth is subject to abuse, dilution, and distortion . . . (p. 163). Hence, the Christian apologist must define from the outset what truth means biblically, thereby engaging postmodernism accordingly. Sire (2004) holds that those who hold to a Christian worldview believe that God is the ultimate reality. Francis Schaeffer (1972) proclaims that biblical truth is true to what is. Truth is that which matches reality. Those who hold to a Christian worldview believe that Christians are called to embrace God’s reality with all our being. Biblical truth is revealed, objective, absolute, universal, antithetical, systemic, momentous, and it has intrinsic value (Groothuis, p. 163). The biblical view of truth is antithetical to postmodern social constructionism and subjective relativism. 

Beware the Pull of Relevance

With this view of truth as foundational, Groothuis goes on to warn Christian apologists regarding the pull to be relevant. In this age of expressive individualism (Bellah et al., 1985), those defending biblical truth must not be captured by the desire to make the gospel relevant to the felt needs of non-Christians (Groothuis, p. 163). If we are to defend the gospel, then Christian apologists should emphasize spirituality as set within a framework of absolute truth (Groothuis, p. 164). Those under the sway of postmodern thought might well accept the gospel on their terms if they can simply view it as another pragmatic, relative, and subjective option. Because Christianity proclaims itself as a worldview that is antithetical to all other worldviews that deny its claims, postmodernists will see it as a metanarrative, and as such it is ipso facto intolerant and oppressive.

Negative and Positive Apologetics

Having presented the truth claims of Christianity as irreducible and nonnegotiable, Groothuis calls for Christians to engage in both negative and positive apologetics. The former entails defending the Christian worldview while also engaging in philosophical criticism of non-Christian worldviews. The latter involves providing evidence and arguments for core Christian claims (Groothuis, p. 167). This blog article highlights negative apologetics. 

Exposing Nihilism as Inherent in Postmodernism

Negative apologetics entails zeroing in on the defects on the postmodern way of thinking (Groothuis, p. 168). The structure of postmodern thinking drives those who proffer and embrace it to what G. K. Chesterton labels intellectual fanaticism (Groothuis, p. 168; Groothuis quoting Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, p. 42). With respect to meaning, purpose, values, and ethics, postmodernism offers nothing that provides any foundation. And they openly say so. The modus operandi of postmodernism is to deconstruct everything that smacks of a metanarrative, anything that posits an absolute truth external to the individual. Groothuis highlights Jean Baudrillard’s take on deconstruction. All metanarratives are to be deconstructed until nothing is left except what he calls the pieces. According to Baudrillard, postmodernism is playing with the pieces (p. 169; Groothuis quoting Baudrillard in an interview from On the Beach, winter 1984, p. 24). Such statements expose the lack of sincerity, the nonchalantness, inherent in postmodern thinking. The world is a playground because serious thought regarding truth has no ground on which to stand. All such thought must be deconstructed because it consists of a fabricated metanarrative that is intolerant and oppressive. But then what does playing with the pieces provide? It cannot offer meaning because meaning entails metanarrative. After all metanarratives have been deconstructed, all that remains is pointless play. There can be no talk of values, ethics, the good, or the beautiful. What postmodern thought proffers is a pointless life. Consistent to their ideology, some postmodernists would agree that life is pointless. But as such, even that claim is a truth claim. Quoting Dorothy Sayers, some decades before the emergence of postmodern thought, Groothuis points to the pointless end of postmodern ideology:

In the world it calls itself Tolerance; but in hell it is called Despair. It is the accomplice of other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin which believes nothing; cares for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would die for (p. 170; Groothuis quoting Sayers, Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, p. 135).

Groothuis points out that any reflective account of life requires that we praise the good and the beautiful, and that we condemn evil. The Christian worldview declares that human beings are meaning-seeking creatures because we were created to exist within the meaning of God’s universe (Groothuis, p. 172).

Postmodern Diversions

What do diversions do for people other than prohibiting them from seeking the truth in matters of ultimate significance (Groothuis, p. 172)? Blaise Pascal in Pensees argues that people engage diversions to deny their misery and need of God. In playing with the pieces, postmodernism does nothing more than distract people from confronting the plight in which they exist – mortality, finitude, and evil. Today, centuries post Pascal, there are a multitude of ways that human beings can distract themselves by playing with the pieces. The age of technology provides an ever ending bliss of diversion. And yet even technology has been created by the human mind and can be put to good and beautiful use. Quoting Pascal, Groothuis offers a truth regarding human thought. Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity, and his merit and his whole duty is to think as he ought (p. 148). Whether it’s the creation of beautiful art, the discovery of medicines that cure deadly illnesses, or the production of technologies that enable people to live more fulfilling lives, if such fetes are deconstructed as having no meaning and connection to truth, then nothing is left in fully living. The only thing that postmodernism offers is a diversion to the emptiness it proffers. 

Basics for a Christian Apologetic 

Foundationalism

In rejecting absolute truth, postmodernists thereby jettison the notion of foundationalism. Foundationalism is a theory of knowledge that holds some truths serve as a basis for other truths (Groothuis, p. 176), that human beings build their understanding of life on more certain fundamental truths, thereby structuring their knowledge. Postmodernism is also identified as poststructuralism. As pointed out above, postmodernists hold to a pragmatic notion of truth, if they would even use the word truth to describe their approach to understanding the world in which we live. They reject the claim of indubitable truths. In doing so they conflate foundationalism with Descartes’ project to discover the one indubitable fact on which to build all other thought. Yet foundationalism is not necessarily equated with Cartesian methodology. Christians need not hold that all beliefs can be deductively proven. To maintain such a belief would elevate human reason beyond that which it can obtain. But neither should the rejection of Cartesianism be conflated with the claim, everything is relative. What  is essential to foundationalism is that some core beliefs do serve as first principles (Groothuis, p. 176). Such beliefs are not derived from other beliefs in a Cartesian sense, nor are they relative to cultures or individuals.

Conclusion: The Christian Worldview as a Public Declaration

Hence, our work as believers in Christ is cut out for us. We live in a day where postmodern thought is antagonistic towards the idea of absolute truth, and that particularly applies to Christianity as witnessed by the vitriol towards Christian beliefs in many public settings. As a claim to universal truth, postmodernists see Christianity as a metanarrative that is inherently intolerant and oppressive. But as Groothuis explains in his work, Truth Decay, even far more reaching than its antagonism, the postmodern jettisoning of truth requires that we as believers engage postmodern advocates in a conversation regarding what truth entails. Groothuis points to Paul’s engaging both Jewish and Gentile unbelievers throughout the Book of Acts. As such Christianity is a public truth – truth for the market place that can be assessed according to universal criteria available to any thinking person who is willing to consider it openly, seriously and humbly (Groothuis, p. 178). Paul sets forth the claims of Christianity as a universal objective truth. These claims are made to those who hold different worldviews. Such public truth calls for universal access. Groothuis (p. 179) states that throughout the Book of Acts Paul engages in dialogue and dispute with unbelievers, both Jewish and Gentile. Never do we find him employing the strategies recommended by postmodernists of our day. . . The same is true for us today because God’s truth has not changed, and humans are still made in the image of God, corrupted by sin and redeemable through the work of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate (Groothuis, p. 179). Our faith is not a social construct. It stands on the chief cornerstone, the foundation, who is Jesus Christ.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1984). “Interview: Games with Vestiges,” On the Beach, 5 (winter 1984), p. 24.

Bellah, R. (1985). Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Chesterton, G. K. (1908). The Man Who Thought He Was Thursday. Bristol, UK: J. W Arrowsmith.

Groothuis, D. (2000). Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Pascal, B. (1966). Pensees. [trans. Alban Krailsheimer]. [First English ed. published, 1688] New York: Penguin.

Sayers, D. (1969). Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans.

Schaeffer, F. (1972). He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

Sire, J. (2020). The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. [originally published, 1976] Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

John V. Jones, Jr., Ph.D/September 14th, 2026

CHRISTIAN THOUGHT/Worldview