26-0909wc Neighborly Apologetics

Del Tackett opens by thanking Marc Fey and greeting those who have joined the webinar. He apologizes for his appearance after recent nose surgery and hopes it will not distract anyone. He expresses excitement that the series on the resurrection has been completed and that the group is now moving into a new category within Neighborly Apologetics: truth. He shares his screen and begins slides titled around absolute truth and relativism, noting that the session is only an introduction because the subject of truth is enormous.

He reminds the audience why the series is called Neighborly Apologetics. The work rests on the “royal law,” the command that sums up the entire law: love of neighbor. Tackett believes this is the way forward for Christians in the present culture, just as it was from the beginning. God has entrusted the primary work of the kingdom to the common Christian family. That family belongs to the royal priesthood and therefore has a priestly role in its neighborhoods, with the neighbor’s name engraved on the jewel of the priestly ephod. The goal is not merely academic apologetics, though academic work supplies needed knowledge. The goal is to help ordinary Christian families, including their children, engage the people around them in their own “Jerusalem”—for example, how a family answers Mrs. Smith across the street.

Tackett reviews the thirteen categories the series will eventually cover, noting that the list will take a long time to complete. The first category was evil and suffering, which he calls the most common obstacle people raise against God, Jesus, or spiritual claims. The second category, the present session, is absolute truth and relativism. The remaining topics include the claim that there is only one way versus religious pluralism; faith and reason; free will and sovereignty; God’s existence and nature; the goodness of man, judgment, and hell; hypocrisy and Christian crimes of the past (sometimes reasonably raised, sometimes embellished); the claims of Jesus and the resurrection (just completed); miracles; science and evolution; the veracity of the Bible and alleged contradictions; and a “baker’s dozen” of newer burning issues arising from the present cultural moment. After a brief technical pause with Marc, the slides settle and the session proper begins under the heading “What is truth?”

Two great themes run through all of Scripture: truth and love. They are so intertwined that they cannot be isolated. The next session will treat their conjunction more fully; tonight’s introduction already insists that truth must be understood in the context of love, and love in the context of truth. Jesus is described as full of grace and truth. Tackett defines love as the steadfast, sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good of another, and grace as that same zeal directed toward an enemy. God extended grace to those who were His enemies. John 1 states that the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The theme of truth therefore runs through the whole Bible, as does the theme that fallen humanity rejects that truth. Even in the garden Eve rejected God’s word; Satan beguiled her into thinking God was not telling the truth and was oppressing her. The prophets lament the same pattern. Isaiah and Jeremiah cry that truth has stumbled in the streets, that truth has perished from the culture’s lips, that truth is nowhere to be found. Tackett is careful to distinguish: truth itself has not perished, because it exists in the nature and character of God; what perished was truth in the public life of the people. He notes that there is nothing new under the sun and that believers are not to fear as though something strange were happening, yet he also insists that the present cultural situation has changed in important ways.

The classical framing of absolute truth versus relativism remains valid. For a long period relativism meant “my truth, your truth,” with truth treated as relative to speaker or hearer. That form of relativism is no longer the whole picture. Tackett recalls seven cultural threats discussed in earlier webinars and notes that the ministry has moved from Engagement Project training conferences to a new conference on understanding the times and the biblical path forward. Two of those threats are especially important before any neighborly conversation about truth can begin.

The first threat is the rise of the scoffer and the depraved mind. Proverbs traces a downward regression from the simple-minded to the fool to the scoffer, the militant fool. Romans 1 traces God’s progressive judgment on a people who reject Him and cease to give thanks: first He gives them over to sexual impurity, then to shameful lusts, and finally to a depraved mind. Tackett believes the culture now stands under that third judgment. The Greek term adokimon means unqualified: the mind can no longer logically grasp spiritual truth, common sense is lost, and people cannot connect cause and effect. They suffer consequences of their own actions and cannot see the connection. Fallen humanity continually exchanges the truth of God for a lie, as Israel did when, after seeing miracle after miracle, they immediately fashioned golden calves. Combined with the scoffer, the situation is more dangerous than classical relativism. Scripture says the scoffer sets the city aflame and is violent. He no longer says “I’m okay and you’re okay”; he says “I’m okay and you’re not,” and he will force others to believe and affirm his “truth.” Relativism must still be addressed, but it now carries a new militancy.

The question “What is truth?” is iconic because Pilate asked it when Jesus stood before him. Jesus, mostly silent through the trial, then declared that He was born and came into the world to testify to the truth, and that everyone on the side of truth listens to Him. Paul later called this Jesus’ good confession before Pontius Pilate. The statement implies that there are sides. Pilate’s reply, “What is truth?”, was not an honest question or even merely rhetorical; Tackett hears it as a scoffing dismissal, as if there were no truth. Had Pilate waited, he might have heard Jesus say what He had already said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Real truth is bound up in the person of Jesus Christ. Truth appears in truth-claims, but its essence is God Himself.

This leads to the second cultural threat: the rise of homo deus. The individual descends so deeply into selfishness and self-obsession that he begins to act as if he were God. Few people would say “I am God,” but many live as though their own heart speaks divine things. In this climate people believe they themselves are the truth, not Jesus. Tackett illustrates with a young woman on a plane who took a hundred selfies with varying expressions, then reviewed and took more. He is not singling her out; the whole culture is caught in self-obsession. At some point a person can come to believe that his or her inner proclamation is divine and that others must bow to it. That stance directly opposes the claim that truth comes from the nature and character of God, not from the human heart.

Before offering a positive definition, Tackett draws boundaries around what truth is not, because so many people now hold a wrong view of it. First, “I am not the truth.” No human being can declare what is true or false in an absolute sense or determine what is good and evil. In the garden Satan told Eve she would be like God; Tackett takes the Hebrew yadah to mean not merely knowing good and evil but determining them. Fallen people then call good whatever promotes the self and evil whatever does not.

Truth is therefore not what the heart says. The cultural mantra is “follow your heart.” It appears in science, on billboards, and in the idea that the highest goal is to discover and have others affirm the self—an intensification of Maslow’s self-actualization. Psalm 81 records God giving people over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels as a judgment, not a blessing. In Numbers God commanded tassels so that Israel would remember His commandments and not follow their own heart and eyes, which they were inclined to “whore after.” Jeremiah repeatedly describes an evil people who refuse God’s words and stubbornly follow their own heart. Proverbs 18 says a fool has no delight in understanding but in expressing his own heart. The culture is awash in people who want to express and have others affirm their hearts. Tackett applies this to the contemporary claim “I am a woman”: the speaker treats the statement as a divine proclamation that others must bow to, or be treated as blasphemers. The older relativist slogan “it’s true for me” has become “I am the truth.” “Be true to yourself” is a corollary of “follow your heart.”

Truth is not simply what a person believes. Tackett often heard students say, “Well, I just believe that,” as if sincere belief made a claim true, especially when they objected to difficult aspects of God’s nature. Belief can coincide with truth, but belief does not create truth; it must not trump Scripture. Related to this is the grip of conspiracy theories. People can believe a theory so deeply that it reshapes their whole life, relationships, and actions, often producing intense fear. Tackett points to Isaiah 8: do not call conspiracy everything this people calls conspiracy; do not fear what they fear. Honor the Lord of hosts as holy; let Him be your fear. Conspiracy thinking drives people into the fear of man rather than the fear of God.

Truth is also not what a person wants it to be. Confronted with God’s truth, people often let passions and desires rationalize a more convenient “truth” that supersedes God’s word. “I just think that…” or “If everyone just did this…” becomes a way of building a preferred reality. All of these errors fall under the heading “I am not the truth”: neither my heart, nor my belief, nor my desire makes something true.

Truth is not a democracy. In a culture that has increasingly rejected God’s truth, many treat the will of the people as truth. That is different from electing officials by majority vote. The notion that a large enough number of believers makes a claim true, or that a social construct or cultural movement determines truth, is false. “Everybody knows that” or “no one believes that anymore” are expressions of majority-opinion truth.

Truth is not what the law says. Might does not make right. Tackett recalls Samuel Rutherford’s Lex, Rex—the law is king, the king is not the law. If government or a court is treated as the source of right, then statutes become truth. He cites the long cultural aftermath of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling: many treated that ruling as de facto truth, and when the Court later said the Constitution did not contain such a right, outrage followed because “it was the law of the land.” Believers cannot live that way. A court ruling creates a law that citizens must generally obey unless it requires them to violate God; it does not create truth.

Truth is not simply “what makes sense.” Genuine truth will always make sense because God is a rational, logical being and His truth is sensible from a proper biblical worldview. It may not make sense to a depraved mind, to someone obsessed with self, or to anyone on a path of selfishness. Neighbors often say “it just seems to me” or “don’t you think that,” drawing on apparent common sense to justify a conclusion different from Scripture. Apparent sensibility is not the reason something is true.

Finally, truth is not sincerity or well-meaning. In an earlier webinar Tackett discussed “malevolent compassion,” which he regards as the leading ethic of the present culture: if an action is compassionate it is automatically right and good. Compassion that is not bound and bridled by truth can be evil. When compassion becomes the prime ethic, the culture embraces and affirms what is not good because it feels compassionate. Sincerity and good intentions do not make a claim true. The transcript of this first part ends as Tackett is still listing what truth is not.

Tackett turns from what truth is not to what truth is. In academic apologetics the classical statement is that truth corresponds with reality: a truth-claim matches what is real. He understands that formulation but has a reservation about it for neighborly work. When speaking with a neighbor, he prefers to say simply that truth is reality. True things are what is real. God is the ultimate reality, and His nature is ultimate reality. The pastoral aim is to help people distinguish what is really real from fantasy, rationalization, wishful thinking, or beliefs adopted to get one’s own way or to avoid persecution and shunning. Academic apologists treat truth as a proposition that corresponds to reality; Tackett’s difficulty with that language is that Jesus does not merely correspond to what is real—He is what is real. With that caveat he proceeds on the neighborly definition: truth is what is real.

Truth is absolute because God is true and His truth is true for everyone, everywhere, at all times. It is not relative to anyone’s will or whim, nor is it a social construct. It proceeds from God’s unchanging nature; He is the source of all truth. That claim, however, has a complexity that can sound puzzling. God’s truth is absolute, yet it is applied in ways that depend on who a person is and what that person believes. Paul’s teaching on meat sacrificed to idols is the example: eating such meat is not wrong in itself, but it becomes wrong if it causes a believer with a weak conscience to stumble. The act that was permissible is now wrong. The fuller statement of the truth is therefore: eating meat sacrificed to an idol is acceptable if it will not cause someone to stumble. Absoluteness does not mean simplicity; the truth must sometimes be expanded so that the whole relevant situation is included.

Truth is logical because God is a rational being who made human beings with rational, logical minds and who speaks in logical forms. When Israel entered the promised land, God stationed tribes on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and delivered an “if–then–else” covenant: if you obey, blessing; if you do not obey, curse. Paul’s letters are filled with the same kind of clean, rational logic. God invites His people, “Come, let us reason together.” When God gives a culture over to a depraved mind, that capacity to reason is damaged. In such a culture the first work is prayer that God would open and heal minds, and that, through deep relationship, neighbors would eventually begin to ask rational questions again.

Truth is solid. It is a rock, not a cork, on which a person can stand mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in the midst of storms. It does not change because God does not change. Truth is also non-contradictory. True truth-claims do not conflict with other true truth-claims. That feature is one of the beauties of truth and is the same principle used in a criminal trial: enough of the truth, consistently held together, exposes the lie. Tackett says the group will treat non-contradiction more deeply next time. Truth is bound up in a person. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Neighborly apologetics aims, in time, to help people see that truth is not produced by social construction or by human whim or power, but comes from an unchanging Person—God, the Creator of all things. That personal source is what gives comfort in the storm.

Jesus said the truth will set you free. Many people have accepted the same inversion Satan offered Eve: that going against God’s truth would make them free, like God, able to determine good and evil and to escape an oppressive God who supposedly keeps them from self-actualizing, following their hearts, and becoming godlike. The reality is the opposite. Truth does not enslave; it sets free. That is hard for an unbeliever to grasp and must be spoken with gentleness, but it is a truth worth expressing. People often come to see that they are in bondage to the lies they have believed and to the lies of the surrounding world. The same truth that frees also produces contentment in trials, even when a person is pursued, punished, or facing death. In a practical sense, truth frees a person from the bondage of having to remember and maintain a house of lies. Tackett recalls a sign whose wording he cannot quote exactly but whose point was that truth is wonderful because one does not have to remember anything. A lie requires further lies to cover contradictions; truth does not.

Truth is critical because Scripture repeatedly says so. Tackett closes this portion with passages from Jeremiah, a book that puts Judah, Jerusalem, the priests, and the kings on notice of coming judgment through Babylon: the destruction of the city and temple and exile as captives. God sent Jeremiah to warn them. He is told to run through the streets and search the squares to see if he can find one person who does justice and seeks truth, so that the city might be pardoned. No such person was found. God declares that this is the nation that did not obey His voice or accept discipline; truth has perished and is cut off from their lips. They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood, not truth, has grown strong in the land. They proceed from evil to evil and do not know the Lord. Everyone deceives his neighbor; no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies and weary themselves committing iniquity. These texts show what happens when a people abandon God’s truth and follow their own hearts.

Tackett ends the teaching with the close of the Sermon on the Mount. The crowds were astonished because Jesus taught with authority, not like their scribes. Everyone who hears His words and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock; rain, floods, and wind slam against it, yet it does not fall. Everyone who hears and does not act is like a foolish man who built on sand; the same storm comes and the collapse is great. That contrast should produce sorrow in neighborly apologetics. Believers will meet people whose houses are on sand and who are already suffering the consequences of foolish choices—or the consequences of someone else’s foolish choices, since a falling house can take families and others with it. Alcoholism and a drunk driver who kills someone are examples of how one person’s collapse spreads. From Genesis to the end of Scripture, truth is shown to be critical.

Yet that truth is bound up with grace. If someone realizes that his or her own house is on sand, or that family members are in that condition, God’s grace is still present. Even while Jeremiah announced coming destruction, God was still offering a gracious resolution if the people would return. That offer still applies to the speaker, to the listeners, and to their neighbors. Jesus’ call is to deny oneself and follow Him. Tackett’s personal reading of the two gates is that the wide gate that leads to destruction has written on it “it’s all about me,” while the narrow gate that leads to life has written on it “it’s all about Him.” Denying oneself is tightly joined to refusing to let one’s own “truth” supersede God’s truth. Fallen, selfish desire always wants to do exactly that.

Tackett concludes the introduction. Next time the group will treat non-contradiction and related topics in more detail so that participants will be prepared. The purpose is that when a deep relationship with a neighbor develops and Mrs. Smith turns out to believe that truth begins in her own heart, the Christian family will be able, with both truth and grace, to help her see the foolishness and the non-logical character of that belief. He stops sharing his screen and turns the meeting back to Marc Fey.

Fey thanks Dr. Tackett and thanks those who took time to attend. The live stream has been recorded; the link will be emailed once the recording is uploaded, probably the next morning, and it may be shared with others. The same page will include a PDF of Tackett’s slides and, if one scrolls down, all previous recordings in the series. Questions can be sent by replying to that email. Fey then asks Tackett to close in prayer.

Tackett prays, thanking the Father for His word, His truth, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to give testimony to the truth and to Himself, and whose sacrifice and resurrection proclaim that He is the truth, the way, the life, and the resurrection. He asks that as participants build the relationships to which they have been called, God would open hearts, open minds, and heal depraved minds, so that they may express the truth and help neighbors see that following the heart leads not to good but to disaster. He asks for the privilege of obeying that command, that these words—not his words but God’s—would be fruitful, that obstacles would be removed, and that any needed healing would draw people closer to God, all for His glory, in Jesus’ name. Fey adds amen, thanks everyone, says they will see one another next month, and blesses them.