The contemporary assumption that truth is relative is not primarily a philosophical position — it is a cultural convenience. It removes the discomfort of being wrong by removing the category of wrongness. But Scripture has always maintained that truth is not relative, and that the rejection of truth is not the same as its refutation.
The Mistaken Assumption
Truth is whatever people believe it to be. The person who insists that their truth is The Truth is arrogant. Intellectual humility requires holding your beliefs loosely and accepting that others may be equally right.
What Scripture Actually Shows
Scripture treats truth as objective and knowable, rooted in the character of God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Jesus does not say He is a truth among many — He says He is the truth (John 14:6). Paul’s description of those who suppress the truth in Romans 1:18 assumes that truth is real and that the problem is not its absence but its rejection. Pilate’s question — what is truth? — is not presented as sophisticated philosophy. It is the failure to recognize what was standing in front of him.
Why This Feels Hard
Claiming that truth is objective sounds arrogant in a culture that treats certainty as a social threat. But the alternative cannot sustain itself — it cannot critique injustice, ground moral obligation, or even make the claim that relativism is true without undermining itself.
What Faith Looks Like Here
Holding to objective truth does not require arrogance about your own access to it. It requires confidence that truth is real and worth pursuing — engaging honestly with what is real, being willing to be corrected, and refusing to let discomfort be a reason to abandon it.