Trumping Truth

The 1966 cover of Time: IS GOD DEAD? sparked considerable controversy. Fifty years later Time will soon launch a similar cover which asks if TRUTH IS DEAD? The catalyst for the cover: President Trump.

Forget Trump for a moment. Did Time unwittingly connect the death of truth to the death of God? Does eliminating God eliminate any hope for objective truth? Observers have described the last several decades as postmodern. Postmodernism suggests that there is no absolute truth, that truth is relative. Before postmodernism, if I had a truth claim someone may challenge the truthfulness of my claim. In postmodern times, if I have a truth claim someone may challenge the fact that I have a claim to truth! This has been especially true in the realm of religion and morality.

Consider a metaphor from Kurt Vonnegut's postmodern novel, Cat's Cradle. The novel centers around a terrifying man-made substance called "ice-nine" which remains a solid at room temperature. When ice-nine comes into contact with water it turns the property of water into solid ice-nine. Place ice-nine on your tongue and all the liquid in your body freezes. Pour ice-nine into the ocean and all water connected to the ocean would soon become solid wiping out all life on earth.

Was eliminating God the ice-nine that began to erode truth? And why would the relativism of ice-nine end with religion and morality? Would it not eventually spread to any and all truth claims?

Several decades ago, Francis Schaeffer observed that faith, values and morals were sequestered and isolated into the irrational private sphere of non-truth while reason and science were allowed to remain in the rational public sphere of truth. Faith and religion were relegated to the world of relativism while reason and secularism remained in the world of facts and absolutes. Mainline Christian churches fell prey to this mindset as they bought into the idea that religion is subjective and personal, ignoring the fact that the Scriptures make a historical, objective claim to absolute truth.

Schaeffer argued that humans cannot live with a split between the secular and sacred. Humans cannot live like machines. In order to have meaning, humans must make a "leap of faith" from the rational world of secular facts to the irrational world of faith. Failure to make this leap results in a tension that can lead to nihilistic despair.

As humans leap from one sphere to the other the ice-nine of postmodernism infiltrates the secular sphere. Secular subjects like history, logic and science are falling prey to relativism. Secular truth, like sacred truth, is no longer objective but subjective. This means that I get to determine weather or not they are true for me. For example, if someone makes a scientific claim about gender differences and this claim does not fit my preferences then they are oppressing me. In today's postmodern world, claims to absolute truth are now viewed as oppressive power plays.  As Obi Wan Kenobi said, "Only Sith's deal with absolutes."

Are you absolutely sure about that Obi Wan?

Enter Sith Lord Trump. The Time article bemoans the fact that Trump doesn't seem concerned about the truth or that he is adjusting reality to fit his subjective and ideological views. Should this surprise anyone? The reason why progressives are so terrified of Trump is that they are now on the receiving end of  their own tactics. The ice-nine of postmodernism has boomeranged back on them. Trump has taken their tools and weapons and is effectively wielding them against the progressive mainstream. For example, after the election many progressives suggested that fake new sites helped Trump win the election. Rather than argue about the fakeness of news sites or their impact on the election Trump took the "fake news" grenade and hurled it back at his critics by calling the mainstream news fake.

Like it or not, we are in a new era where all truth is becoming subjective and as a result power determines truth. Trump is the new King Saul anointed by a reluctant and defeated religious right to wage war against the progressive Philistines. Unlike the religious right, Trump is not afraid to use the weapons of postmodernism.

The secular-progressive monopoly on truth is crumbling and I don't have much sympathy for them. They are the ones that unleashed the ice-nine postmodern  plague of relativism. They should look back at the March 1966 Time magazine cover and consider if that is when this all started.