What is Truth: The Hierarchy of Truth

Embark on a quest for truth with us! 🌟 From Pilate's response to Jesus in ancient times to our own modern-day questions and confusion, the concept of truth remains elusive. How do we navigate diverse truth claims, personal perspectives, and the denial of truth itself? 💭 In this episode, we strive to construct a hierarchy of truth, offering clarity amidst the chaos. 🔍 Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of "What is Truth?" on the Navigating An Ancient Faith podcast. 🕊️

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What Is Truth?

David: [00:00:00] Actually full disclosure. I do like Hawaiian pizza. I know that's a very divisive issue, but I do like pineapple pizza. I will have it if it's served to me.

J.R.: We're getting nowhere with this. I thought we're trying to drill down to fundamental truth. 

David: All right, look the hierarchy is collapsing here. 

 Hello. Welcome everyone to the Navigating an Ancient Faith podcast. It's cool. We're sitting in the same room right now. There we go, because we just got back from a fantastic conference. 

J.R.: Busy weekend. It was fun. 

David: It was, it was fun. We actually thought we might be able to record this whole series being together at the conference, but the conference, I think so overloaded both of our minds every evening that ...

J.R.: Yeah, instead of coming back to the hotel room and recording, we would go grab a bite and sit there for five hours and talk about what we'd had to go on.

David: And process everything, yeah. 

J.R.: So anyway, so we didn't have a chance to get to much of it, but here we are, so this is gonna work. 

David: Yeah, yeah. So, our heads might be filled with a [00:01:00] lot of different ideas as we record this next series. But that's okay. It's something I was processing about, well, let's face it, our culture today is very confused about what truth is.

J.R.: Oh yeah, sure, no kidding. 

David: And so I've seen these switches going on that we'll get into in this, first part today. Seen these switches going on versus the religious realm that says, nope, there's only one truth and here's how you know it. <Right.> And I was just, I don't know, I'm just processing this myself. I guess this is one of these truly just a result of me processing, writing things down. And then this is, of course, something that you and I have talked about. Because I think I wrote some of this down probably last year. You looked in and said, Man, I really like this. We should talk about this. 

J.R.: Yeah, no, definitely. And chimed in. I mean, it seems like I don't think we'd be having this conversation 20 years ago. I just don't, I don't, I think pretty much everybody agreed on generally what truth was. But yeah, we seem to have lost our way when it comes to establishing what fundamental truths [00:02:00] are out there. So, yeah, maybe it's sad that we have to revisit this. 

David: Yeah. Well, I guess I would say it represents a little bit of my own growth in thinking too. <Yeah.> And hopefully people will take it as growth. <Yeah.> So, you know, we're going to talk today about kind of this, what is truth and this idea of a hierarchy of truth. Now that right there, might freak some people out, right? <Right.> But let us explain; stick with us here. 

J.R.: No, it's good. It was very helpful when I read through it. I thought yeah, I think you're on to something.

David: Okay. Yeah, and then next episode we're going to really talk about more the way this is presented, I think, in the Bible, which is Paul's message at the Areopagus in Athens. So I think that'll be fun, too. You and I stood on that very hill and slipped off it like everyone else did. We'll get into that next episode.

J.R.: We almost died there. Yeah, we'll hold on to that one.

David: Yeah, let's not run down that rabbit trail this episode. I guess just to jump in, when we talk about what is truth, of course that's [00:03:00] Pilate's famous question to Jesus, right?

J.R.: Sure, what is truth anyway? <Yeah.> What are you even talking about? Yeah, what are you even talking about, you know? Right, we all know that there is, and it's interesting that in Pilate's time was sort of the golden era of philosophy. And so it actually doesn't surprise me that I just made the comment that we wouldn't be having this discussion 20 years ago, but it's actually an ancient discussion on a deeper level. You know, I just think average people 20, 25 years ago would say, look, I've got my opinions. I like this type of pizza and you like that type of pizza. That's an opinion. <Yeah.> Truth: you know, which way is north and is the sky blue? I mean, there's nothing to argue there. But anyway, this is, no, this goes way back. We started by saying it's a problem in our modern time, but it's certainly an ancient debate that's been going on for, Yeah, for centuries and centuries. 

David: No, that's right. So Pilate's question really comes out of the previous 400 years of maybe Greek philosophy where they wrote books on this, they would sit around and talk about this [00:04:00]idea, you know, of what is the highest level of thinking that can actually be established as maybe in Plato, especially Aristotle, you could see it as, as scientific fact. You know, how can we establish these things? <Right.> And so what is the proper way to think about these things? <Yeah. Yeah.> And so, yeah, you're right, this debate went back thousands of years. And so, when Pilate comes along, and we're going to read this in a minute, yeah, he's echoing the previous 400 years of what has been going around in philosophical circles.

J.R.: My theory is Pilate had just heard a podcast, and he's trying to flex on: Okay, dude, I just heard this crazy podcast. You know, what is truth? Anyway, that's all that's going on. 

David: Yeah. You think Pilate had that in his back pocket for a while and he said, oh yeah, he's been dying to drop it out, throw it out there. This is the perfect mic-drop moment here. Sure. 

J.R.: He'd been driving his wife crazy talking about Truth at home 'cause he had read a book and she's like, I don't care. You know, take out the garbage. 

David: Yeah, exactly. [00:05:00] Did you ever listen to that podcast I told you to listen to? No. No. The kids don't take care of themselves. 

J.R.: That's right. So yeah, we can run down that avenue a little bit philosophically. And Pilate was definitely probably a product of his time, and I'm sure he had these deep debates in the city square along with the other philosophers.

David: Yeah. So let's jump in and read this interaction between Jesus and Pilate. We're just going to catch the tail end of it, but it's in John 18, verses 36 through 38. So Jesus is standing before Pilate. Of course, Jesus has been arrested at this point. The leaders have dragged him before Pilate. And so Jesus has been talking. He's been, can't really say defending himself, because in some way Jesus actually doesn't offer a defense of himself, right? <Right.> So Jesus starts off by saying, "My kingdom is not of this world." Of course, that right there is a very threatening phrase to say to someone in the Roman Empire. 

J.R.: Well, to claim you have a kingdom at all. Yeah. Sure. 

David: Pilate would immediately think, okay, rival kingdom, right? [00:06:00] This has to be squashed. <Yeah, exactly.> So Jesus says "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place." So Pilate then says, "Oh, so you are a king then?" And Jesus answered, which I like how Jesus answers, "Well, you say that I am a king." Your words, not mine. Right? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. You said it, not me. 

David: In fact, "The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth." Okay, so there's that first word, right? That's why I came into this world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. And then Pilate's famous response, "What is truth?" What is truth anyway? 

J.R.: That's what I take it. What is truth anyway? What are you talking about?

David: So Jesus basically claims to testify to the truth, and then said, everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

J.R.: Yeah. Which is a pretty bold statement. But at the same time, it's like, I don't think my guess is Pilate kind of listened to it and just kind of rolled his eyes at that [00:07:00] statement. Yeah. You know, like, everybody who's right is on my side. Yeah. Like, okay. Yeah, that's the way that works. 

David: In some sense, you can almost see Jesus talking about a kingdom and a king and red flags for Pilate, right? <Right.> But then Jesus says, everyone who follows me is following the truth. And I come to proclaim the truth and he maybe thought, well, this guy's a little bit nuts, but harmless. 

J.R.: I was about to say, You haven't been in many kingdoms, you know, if that's what you think. That everyone in this kingdom is always right. <Yes.> Or always speaks the truth. It's like, yeah. You haven't run a kingdom very long, have you? 

David: And your kingdom's not of this world. Yeah. Okay. Right. I get what's going on here. Right. Type of thing. 

J.R.: Yeah. But no, it does have the philosophical tones to it. He's kind of throwing it out there. What is truth anyway? <Yeah.> As a pretty quick retort and that opens up where we're going today. <Yeah.> Because what is truth? <Yeah.> That's I mean, that's the age old question.

David: Right? We're trying to and we will solve that problem in two episodes.

J.R.: Two episodes, yeah. 

David: That's ambitious No, so I thought it was [00:08:00] interesting because Pilate I think really represents what you hear a lot today, which is, well, the whole postmodern thing that's maybe coming full circle to an end. As it kind of teeters and looks like it might collapse in on itself. <Right.> But that's a little rabbit trail, yeah. <Yeah, yeah.> But yeah, you know, Pilate represents this whole, what is truth anyway? Okay, you have your truth, I have mine. What's the big deal? Who are you to tell me that my truth is wrong, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, it comes from that idea of, truth is nothing more than opinion. <Right.> At the, fundamental level. I guess, you know, the postmodernists would agree, Yeah, look, we all know that there's scientific truths that can be proven. But really anything as far as good, evil, love, that's just somebody's opinion, or maybe, just chemicals bouncing around. I don't know.

David: Yeah. And the postmodern narrative is that there is no meta-narrative. There is no grand story that explains what's going on in our world. Which the classic comeback then is that definition is itself a meta narrative.

J.R.: Right, so that's right. Well, yeah, the world is only what we [00:09:00] perceive. <Yeah Yeah.> You know, it's only your opinion on what you're perceiving.

David: Yes. And so then I think Jesus represents what we take as the religious view, which is, look, there is an objective truth. <Right.> It's, sometimes from a religious standpoint, we say, look, it's, pretty obvious. You believe this or you're wrong. 

J.R.: Sure. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

David: Right. Jesus said that. 

J.R.: Sure. maybe the religious view is there is an objective truth and we can know what that is. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 

J.R.: And postmodern says, look, you can never be sure about anything. If's all subjective. It's all processed through your own mind what's going on in the world. And so we can all for a time agree that these scientific quote unquote truths are accurate, but different time different place those things can change.

David: Right. Okay. Yeah So I think that represents the wide gulf between the two <Right, right.> Pilate and Jesus.

J.R.: Right, and those two are completely incompatible, right?

David: Well, yeah, yeah. What we're gonna talk about today though is that there might [00:10:00] be a way to bridge that gulf, because, look, what happens is to the extreme the postmodern basically renders everything meaningless, right? It's day out. It looks day out to me, but to a postmodern, well, that's your opinion. The problem is that doesn't work very well as you go about your life trying to function in the world. 

J.R.: Well, and that's what we're seeing. We're seeing the postmodern extremes kind of on the fringe claim things you know, I can just say whatever I want to <Yeah.> and embody that and everybody else has to play my game by my rules. That's the problem with it. If you believe you're something else then that's fine, that's your business. But it's when you start demanding that everybody play your game - that you have a multiplicity of opinions and games about what I view about myself. And therefore, we just devolve into chaos with that way, because it's just, you know, I have no idea what game I'm playing, how to treat you, how you view yourself. I can't read your mind. <Right.> You know, but yet there's all these offenses that are given, when you [00:11:00] refuse to play the other person's game.

David: Yeah, yeah. And so then the other side of this gulf is what we might say is religious truth. And people of faith, well meaning, kind of looked to what Jesus said, and said there's a completely objective truth. And part of the claim is that, you know, and we possess it, right? 

J.R.: Well, we were talking about that this morning. Yeah, that kind of denominational argument between denominations, certainly between different religions. But that, yeah, that fundamental, dogmatism that says, yeah, I agree with what you think about Jesus, but I don't agree with what you think about infant baptism or once saved, always saved, or ...

David: Yeah, once we start to get to the finer points of all this.

J.R.: But you're right, it all comes down - fundamentally all those disagreements come down to there is an objective truth, and there is a right way. Either you can baptize an infant and it be effective, or it doesn't do anything and you're just wasting your time, right? I mean, so it all comes down to this fundamental idea of objective [00:12:00] truth, and there is a right way to view it and a wrong way to view it. And that's where we disagree, even within the faith. <Yeah.> Sure. Okay.

David: So I think there's another modern problem here. Now, let's, spoiler alert, you and I believe that there is objective truth. 

J.R.: Well, you do. 

David: Okay, that's just, that's your, okay, that's my truth. 

J.R.: I'm just, I'm an antagonist, right, you know, so that's true about me, so. 

David: My truth is that I believe there is an objective truth, so let's go with that. <Sure.> So, we'll throw that out at the beginning here, because I think there's a modern problem that I've seen the way, actually, religious people, take this thing that we hold to, that there is objective truth. <Right.> And don't communicate it in a very, or let's say it this way, they communicate it in a very, rational, scientific way. And so what this comes out is, is that if there's an objective truth, then we should be able to prove it scientifically, it should be historically verifiable, and it should be factually correct. 

J.R.: Right, [00:13:00] yeah, and I think that's a mistake. 

David: Right, yeah. Okay, so why do you think that's a mistake? 

J.R.: Well, because you're basically playing the game of the postmodernists. You're playing the game by the postmodernist rules. That says, unless it's verifiable, unless it's material, unless we can test it,then it then it can'te true. It's only subjective. <Yeah, okay.> And when you play that game, then, I mean, look, if you're a person of faith, I mean, that word faith, what does that mean? It means you're not going to prove it. You're accepting something. So the definition of faith is the evidence of things unseen, right? So I mean, it's like, you can't, put your hands around it anyway, and so therefore. 

And so when you're playing by the rules of the postmodernists That's where I think we get messed up because, and I forget who we were we heard a podcast somebody mentioned this but me and you kind of got on a riff about it, is that when you see these debates - and I love them - the debates of a person of faith with an atheist, right at the beginning [00:14:00] you can see if the person of faith Insists on playing by the rules of the postmodernist or the atheist you already see this is about to be a train wreck. He's a you know, <Yeah, yeah.> it's about to go sideways. But when you see the people kind of approach these debates as saying look, let's establish what truth is. Let's establish that there are things that can't be seen but that everybody universally feels like love, or, you know. And once you start that, then you see the atheist foundation start to crumble. And so you kind of see this back and forth. 

So, yeah, to go back to your original question, the mistake that the, person of faith makes trying to play in the arena of only the scientific material provable world, <Yeah.> it undermines the definition of your faith. And so, yeah, there are some things and we'll get into some of this stuff. I mean, look, there's always these conflicting views when it comes to things like creationism or we talk about it in medical debates when it talks about, you know life saving procedures, [00:15:00] should a family be forced to give their child life saving procedures if their faith is against it? You know what I mean? we do have these scientific arenas that we debate in. But that can't be our foundation. That can't be where we start when it comes to objective truth. <Yeah.> And so that's that's why I think it's a difficult. 

David: Yeah. And I would say, just to clarify something, I think you're mentioning two different things, or I would put in two different categories because you mentioned the postmodern. You start from the postmodern perspective, which is different from the rational scientific enlightenment worldview of the last 500 years. But the issue you're talking about is we enter into debates and conversations almost automatically playing by their rules, <Right.> by the rules of the post modernist or by the rules of you might say the rational scientific, you know, atheist kind of person. Yeah.

J.R.: And we and when you're debating 7 24-hour-day creation, it's understood. Those are the rules that we're going to abide by. Yeah, you know, I'm not even trying to say this is just [00:16:00] my supernatural way I view this. It's you are trying. I mean, it is a scientific debate, so that's fine. <Yeah.> But I think the larger things of faith when it comes to is there a God or isn't there or is there a purpose to my life or is this all some accident? I think you have to step outside of that postmodern framework, postmodern foundation. You have to go to something higher than that to be able to start those conversations, which is why so many of those conversations devolve into this idea of, well, what is truth anyway?

Exactly what Pilate said. <Yeah.> You know, and we've seen debates where it's kind of like you're pumped up. You're like, Oh, let's see how this goes. And then you listen to it and you're like, well, all they did was argue for two hours about what is truth anyway, right? <Yeah.> You know, so yeah, you go, they need to listen to this podcast, is what needs to happen. 

David: And so when that happens and we've seen this play itself out probably the last 50, 100 years is that's where you get into this whole conflict between [00:17:00] religion and science, right? And I think what we're saying, part of what we're saying is because religion is almost conceded to play by the rules of the rational scientific mindset. And so that's where just, I mean we can come up with a lot of examples of this, but for example, you know, if you say there was a global flood. All a scientist has to do is prove, however dubious that might be, that there isn't. 

Or, or a better way to say that is, if the scientist says, well, the evidence doesn't suggest that, right? <Right.> Right. And there's a thousand examples of this, then all of a sudden you're attacking my faith, because my faith is now in conflict with science. And I guess what I'm processing through is, is there a way around that, or is that a result, and I think it is, of playing by the rules of the rational scientific enlightenment mindset.

J.R.: Right. And we've all kind of had these crisis of faith. <Yeah.> crises of truth. <Yeah.> You know the evidence seems to undermine [00:18:00] what I thought about this and it can be something as simple as I thought we get to the store by going left. You thought we go right. And we go right and daggum it you were right. So that's a minor adjustment, where I really thought that it was left, but man, I was just wrong, as you know adjustment. But when you talk about foundational beliefs and things like that, it can really kind of be jarring and kind of be a little bit, it can be disorienting, you know. Because you have to readjust what you fundamentally thought was true or you become dogmatic and you just say I don't care what the evidence says I'm holding on to what I fundamentally believe this. 

David: Yeah. Yeah, and that's a typical reaction I think of a lot of people. 

J.R.: Right, okay. So how do we navigate through this then? 

David: Yeah, so what's the way forward then? How do we get out of that? Because I dunno about you. Well, I do know about you 'cause we've had these conversations. I've just grown tired of these debates, I'll be honest. <Yeah.> The whole, well, science says this and that disproves what the Bible says here. Well, now do I have to reevaluate my faith? No. There's gonna be more evidence just you wait. Or kind of [00:19:00] retreat back into my, you know, plug my ears la la la. I don't care what you're saying. <Right.> I just think there's a better way forward. And so, I think there's a way to think of truth as a hierarchy. <Okay.> Now, it does not mean everything is mutually exclusive or relative. I'll say that at the outset. <Yeah.> But I think there's a hierarchy. And in fact, a good way to introduce this might be something we just heard at this conference - I'll do props - which is this idea of objective truth. <Right.> And that was a really good talk that we heard, but.

J.R.: Well, we heard a talk on objective history. Yes, but it applies to this thinking that there's such thing as objective history. And so we started out that and it does apply to truth. But one of the quote that I loved is you can't look at something from nowhere. You're always looking from a point. You're always looking from an angle. You're always looking from wherever, you know, you can't record something from nowhere. You have the camera set up somewhere. 

When you talk about history, the idea of, let's get history right. What really happened? What's truth? Well, everything [00:20:00] is coming from a particular angle, and it becomes, history is written because it's functional, because it, explains my story, or my people's story. <Yes.> And so, it's always written from that, even today. And so this idea of well, we need more objective journalism. Well, I agree with the statement, but if you think that you can actually get to objective truth or objective history, you can have two people look at the exact same video evidence of something and have two different opinions. We know that. <Yeah, yeah.> And so, yeah, the idea of objective history is a little bit dubious to begin with because it' s always going to be processed the way I process it through my experience is what I've gone through.

David: Yeah, we hold that there used to be this idea of objective news and the reality is there really was no such thing as objective news because it all comes from a certain angle. <Right.> Now that doesn't mean to say that people They can try to be as objective as possible. 

J.R.: Sure, you can be more objective <Yeah.> with the [00:21:00] idea of absolute objectivism. 

David: Right. You can eliminate a lot of subjectivity. You can eliminate propaganda. You can eliminate going, I'm going to tell this because I have this agenda in mind. <Yeah.> But ultimately, it's still coming from your subjective viewpoint.

J.R.: Right. CNN isn't objective? I always thought CNN was objective. 

David: Well, I don't I want to shatter an illusion you hold here. 

J.R.: Don't do it. I'll have to reevaluate. 

David: They may not be objective. I also have a newsflash and maybe this this might send your world crumbling. Fox News is not objective either.

J.R.: Don't go there. Sacrilege. All right, we're done. 

David: Now PBS, I think, says their objective, so the jury's still out there. 

J.R.: Right. But we're kind of kidding around here, but we're getting to that point about, yeah, this idea that even in the news we watch, people's opinions are, hey, this is what I watch because this is the truth. They don't cover up the truth. And I think we're all, hopefully, we're all mature enough to realize that there is no objective [00:22:00] in modern news. But it is that idea of we need to get back to objective truth. Well, we can be more objective. Yeah, but it's all gonna be coming from somewhere. So I don't think you can reach that pinnacle.

David: Right. And what do you mean by it's coming from somewhere? So what we mean by that is that, look, we are saying that there is such thing as an objective truth. However, it will always be interpreted by human beings. Which brings a level of subjectivity.

J.R.: Yes, that's, that's what I was trying to say. No, that's, the way to say it. <Yeah.> There is objective truth. It just won't be understood subjectively by us, by the individual, right? 

David: In the same way that there, you could say there is objective history. But as soon as I stand anywhere to try and interpret it, it becomes subjective.

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. I could say that. And it's processed through your experience and the understanding of what you think this person was trying to do. <Yeah.> You know, because we can't be in other people's heads either. So we can have the facts of a war or a battle, but I don't know what Nero was thinking. I don't know [00:23:00] what so you can't have that layer either. All you can do is look at the material evidence of it, and you might get that right, but it's still not going to point to any absolute truth. It's always going to be seen subjectively. <Right. Okay.> So I like that. No, that makes sense. 

David: Okay, so that's kind of a good framework for what I want to talk about here, is this idea of a hierarchy of truth. <Okay.> Okay. I think that's a good framework because as soon as you say a hierarchy of truth you go, well, okay now I thought there was one truth. Yeah, right.

Well, okay. So the hierarchy is attempt to maybe - let's think about this - maybe to prioritize the subjectivity that we necessarily bring into it in a way to kind of order what we're seeing in the world. <Right, okay.> Maybe that's a way to talk about it, right? <Right.> So what would be at the bottom of the hierarchy and we're moving up, right?

J.R.: So, right. So Mazlow's hierarchy of needs. <Okay.> Absolute what you need is food, water, and air, right? And, if you don't get that, then there's no need of talking about self actualization and greater purpose, right? You have to handle the first [00:24:00] things first. 

David: And that's, yeah. So that's necessary, but it's not the most important.

J.R.: It's not the highest. 

David: It's not the highest. Okay. So yeah. 

J.R.: Well, let me move on to that because I don't think we're saying the exact same thing. <Okay.> But I do think at the bottom of I would say the hierarchy of truth It's probably my personal, what my personal experience, my personal opinion.

David: Yeah, I will put that at the bottom and let's, so to go back to your idea of Maslow is that is fundamental to everyone, right? It doesn't do any good to say, I don't have a personal experience of anything, right? So maybe that's fundamental. It sits at the bottom. 

J.R.: How everything has to be processed.

David: But you can't stay there. Life is more than just sitting there. Life is more than just eating food and drinking water. <Right.> And breathing air. <Yeah.> Because you could say that's the most fundamental. Right. But, I mean, hey, we're here on this earth to do a lot more than that, right? <Right.> Okay, so that's, yeah, that's maybe a way [00:25:00] to reconcile that.

J.R.: Because we all have these opinions that feel innate. They feel obvious to us. But sometimes we have trouble explaining them or defending them or verbalizing exactly what's going on <Yeah.> with our feelings. Some people are better than others, but we all know that it's universal. We all know that that's how we process it. <Yeah.> And so that's why I think it's a good way of establishing the bottom layer of truth because it's something everybody experiences. But then you know right away you have this whole pushback of my truth. <Yeah.> well, this is my truth. And so you deal with it, right? <Yeah.> And, the person of faith has problem with that because they're saying, look, truth is not relative. It's objective. And when you start with your opinion all you're saying is your, your truth is your opinion. So therefore it's not truth. It's just your opinion, right? <Yeah.> 

But the good thing about that is it's so easily relatable. Everybody knows, the way you were raised affects the way you view things. If me and you were born in a third-world country as brothers, we would view the world radically different than the way we view it. [00:26:00] And I don't think anybody argues that at all. And so we do have to filter it through our personal experience. So I would say, yes, that's definitely the bottom. 

David: Yeah, so the bottom is personal experience. <Yeah.> And I think what's important to note is this hierarchy acknowledges that that's legit. And one of the things you have said several times is, when you say that phrase, well, that's my truth, there's, we'll use this word, that's legit. There's truth to that. Right. But sometimes we want to discount that because we go, no, no, no. That's just your opinion, but let's do an example. We were grabbing coffee this morning. It's like, I like pepperoni on my pizza, and you mentioned to me putting honey on pizza. 

J.R.: My daughter does that, yes. <Okay.> Has a honey pizza. 

David: I'm still trying to wrap my mind around. 

J.R.: No, it's a complete bastardization of pizza. <Okay.> That's, but, you know. <Yes.> That's what she likes, right. 

David: So, you could say, well, you would like honey on your pizza. And I would say, Man, I'm a pepperoni guy. That's my truth, right? <Right.> And we could argue you'd say well, that's your opinion. But look, it's true [00:27:00] to me. I might be able to even try honey on pizza and I don't like it. So it would be true right in a certain sense in this base level of personal experience, right? That my truth is I like pepperoni on my pizza, and I don't like honey. Apologies to your daughter. 

J.R.: Right, no, no, no apology needed. Because I've told her myself. Yeah, so the good thing is we've all experienced it. The bad thing is that it elevates our emotions to some sort of ultimate truth. <Right.> That's the mistake that we make. So it is part of the hierarchy. It's just at the fundamental bottom level. That's how we process anything. <Right.> Okay, yeah, no, that's making sense. 

David: And that's the important thing then about this hierarchy. So what we're saying is, that that's not an illegitimate way to think about things, is your personal truth. However, it is not the most important way to think about things. 

J.R.: Right, it's not the ultimate thing. 

David: And let's kind of summarize this and be honest. Look, this is the postmodern problem. Is that everything is your personal [00:28:00] truth, and that's the highest thing on the hierarchy. 

J.R.: Yeah, right. It puts it at the top.

David: It puts it at the top. 

J.R.: Right, which is the problem, that's the problem that we run into. I demand you view truth through my filter, right? And that's obviously ridiculous non-functional at every level, right? 

David: And that's where you get into the preference on what you like on your pizza versus whether it's day or night time outside right now, right? It is on the same level. 

J.R.: Yeah, and it's interesting. It's a silly analogy, but in a way, it's not. It's saying that I prefer pepperoni pizza. Therefore, there should be no other pizza. <Right.> When that hierarchy is flipped, that pepperoni is the best pizza, and it is, by the way, that, that when I demand that and say that, therefore, everybody has to play by my rules. Isn't it a way of saying there should be no olives on pizza and there shouldn't, by the way?

David: Well, I think what it actually does is it pulls higher level things down to the level of pizza preference. Yeah, it's [00:29:00] maybe a better way to think about that, right? Okay, because true postmodern would say no put whatever you want, you know, put god forbid pineapple on your pizza. Actually full disclosure. I do like Hawaiian pizza. I know that's a very divisive issue, but I do like pineapple pizza. I will have it if it's served to me.

J.R.: We're getting nowhere with this. I thought we're trying to drill down to fundamental truth. 

David: All right, look the hierarchy is collapsing here. 

J.R.: Ok, we can agree that, yes, at the bottom of the hierarchy is personal preference, or I shouldn't say personal preference, personal truth. Yeah, preference is a wrong word. Personal truth. Because, if you grew up in a home with an abusive father and a drug addict mother, and, witnessed drug use, things like that, in and out of the house , it will change your truth. It doesn't change your opinion. Well, it changes that as well. <Yeah. Yeah.> But yeah, you really are coming from a completely different world view understanding than someone who's not raised in that element. And so it really does affect your fundamental truth. And so there is your truth and we're [00:30:00] okay with that, even though I think, like we've said before, I think the faith community pushes back at that. Yeah, there is no such thing as my truth. <Yeah.> But I think there is. But as long as it's understood is in the hierarchy. So that's at the bottom. 

David: Yeah. Okay, that's at the bottom and a way to wrap this up, I guess, and we'll move on to the next one. But looking at some of my notes that I made, but I think Plato has a interesting illustration just to show again that this conversation goes back 2500 years, right? <Right.> So Plato has this illustration of a chariot driver. He would say that's the the mind. And he has two horses, right? And one is kind of wild and untamed. And the other he's tamed. And the idea is that the one horse is your emotion and the other horse is your reason. 

J.R.: Okay, that's Jonathan Haidt, the rider and the elephant.

David: Yeah, that's just a modern version of that. <Right, okay.> And the idea ...

J.R.: Did he rip that off from Plato? See, I thought that was, I thought that was original.

David: I think, I think there's a lot that's ripped off from Plato when you [00:31:00] actually start ...

J.R.: That's probably true. 

David: reading Plato. Yeah. 

J.R.: Right, yeah. That there's a rider, the logical thinking part, and then there's the wild elephant. And I like Haidt's because the rider in some regard is no match for the power of the elephant, right? So our emotions are extremely powerful. <Yes.> But a proper rider positioned in the right way can control the elephant <Yes> and decide where to go. Here's where we're going. So yeah, Plato's two horses. I like that. 

David: But yeah, so it's the acknowledgement I guess what we're saying is that our emotions play a very powerful role in the moment. And if our emotions are what define truth, what I feel in the moment right now, then you're in for a wild ride, right? That elephant's gonna go wherever it wants. Or, to Plato's example, that wild horse is gonna take the lead and who knows where that thing's gonna drag you. 

J.R.: Which is why every grandmother in our lives say don't let your emotions get the best of you, right? Don't be controlled by your [00:32:00] emotions. It has its place, but don't let that be the fundamental way that you view and operate and navigate the world.

David: Yeah. That's no way to navigate the world. But someone who sits at the bottom of this hierarchy and says, My truth is all there is. That's what they're doing. Basically, right? <Okay.> They're at the whim of the elephant stampeding wherever the elephant wants to go, right? All right. So let's move up a hierarchy. That's what a hierarchy is. Let's move up the level. <Okay.> I would say that the next level up is universally observable scientific truth, right? <Okay, yeah.> And so I think everyone would say, yes, they're scientific truth. And some, in fact, some people might go, finally, they got there, right? 

J.R.: Right. They've got right. But it's not the top. We're not there yet. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the difference. 

David: Spoiler alert. We're not at the top, right? <Yeah.> But I look outside right now and it looks, light out. It's daytime, right? And I don't care what you feel, right? I'm going to assert that it's daytime out, right?

J.R.: Right. There are observable facts. The earth is round, it's not flat. 

David: [00:33:00] We can prove these things. 

J.R.: There are weather patterns. <Yeah.> There's math, right? All these things are observable and provable. 

David: As a, yeah, I was gonna say 2 plus 2 equals 4, but in our crazy world right now ...

J.R.: that is your opinion. 

David: That's my opinion, right?

J.R.: Merely your opinion. 

David: But when it actually comes to navigating through the world - that's where I think it's cool - when it actually comes to navigating through the world, 2 plus 2 equals 4. And that's the best way to navigate the world. Even if you're sitting there going, well, my opinion is it's five. Well, try to pay for two two dollar items <Right.> Yeah, and thinking it's three. It's not gonna work, right? So ...

J.R.: And it's worth saying, you know, because we are Navigating an Ancient Faith, <Yeah> this is a new issue. So we have so much technology around us. It seems so obviously say yeah, duh, there's scientific truths, because how does the internet work without it. But, you know, you go back a thousand years, probably less than that, a couple of hundred years, and there's not [00:34:00] much science. You know, there are seasons, there are things that are observable that everybody universally understands. But just the rigorous science that absolutely this happens every time this happens, that didn't happen much in the world outside of the natural cycles of, weather and things like that.

So, back in Plato's time, this wasn't as obvious as we make it out now. It's so obvious in our world when you have vehicles driving down roads. Well, you couldn't do that without science and that's correct. But, 200 years ago, it was a little bit different world. the industrial revolution hadn't hit. And so it's a much less scientific world and it was much more subjective. They had to have another way of evaluating truth. They knew that this personal subjective wasn't right <Yeah> because there's just too many multiplicity of opinions on things. <Yeah.> But they didn't have that scientific rigor before people like Galileo and you know, the early scientists the scientific revolution.

David: Yeah, it was starting [00:35:00] so in fact when you read Plato it goes back to Pythagoras and that well known name is <Sure> the development of math and in some ways they actually saw everything as math.

J.R.: Right, you know because that was the ultimate science of their time.

David: Right, and so it's funny to even see developing you know, some of these early Greek philosophers trying to push everything to a math problem, right? <Right.> You falling in love. Well, I can make that into a math problem somehow, right? <Right.> Or, or music. That was the other thing. There was a correct way to do music because it followed a math formula, right? <Yeah.> So you see that, and then you see Aristotle starting to make scientific observations. And so they were starting to develop this, but I think what you're saying is, when the Enlightenment comes along, we finally get to a point where we say this is it. This is the highest truth. 

J.R.: Science wins. Yes. Right, this is the ultimate truth. <Yeah.> And the problem with science is, even though it's provided all this incredible technology, is that [00:36:00] it confines all reality to the provable and to the repeatable. <Yeah.> And even the ancient Greeks, before the scientific revolution, they knew that that wasn't the case <Yeah> completely. <Yeah.> And so yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

David: And I think you can see this kind of playing itself out again. Maybe this is my personal truth, but you see this running its course in this idea that we've heard in the last five years. You know, look, trust the science, trust the science. <Sure.> And people are starting to go, wait a minute. This can't be the highest thing, right? <Right.> Because science for all the good that it has done is subject to the same subjectivity. 

J.R.: If you don't think that it can be politically hijacked, just like everything else, then you're a fool.

David: If you don't think science is fallible. <Right.> Right? And look, this is so obvious in some ways, because we think we know science, and you can do this in any field. You know, we go, well, this scientific fact, until something comes along [00:37:00] ten years from now and says, no, actually, Pluto isn't a planet, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, sure. Well, okay. . So science suffers from the same thing that I'll just say extreme faith suffers from: the idea that, well, just wait. The facts will come along. <Yeah.> Like I, okay. So when you say trust the science and it's disproven, then it's like, well, we just didn't have all the facts. But don't worry, we will have complete and absolute scientific knowledge one day. Just like the asterisk that the person of faith can put into any argument is, I might not be able to prove this right now, but one day we will have the enlightenment with the understanding that what I believe as truth has been right all along.

<Yeah, yeah.> Yeah, so they both suffer from - it's interesting - they both suffer from this idea of one day we'll have better knowledge, we'll be more enlightened. <Yeah.> And that actually points to the fact that, well, okay, so your science is not absolute. Your science isn't completely [00:38:00]objective. It's not the highest order of truth, because you're constantly pointing to, one day we will have it. 

David: Yeah, one day I will be vindicated, shaking my fist, you know. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's actually a pretty strong argument, that you're not at the top of the hierarchy.

David: Right, yeah. <Okay.> Yeah, We're starting to build the hierarchy up now, and again, we're not arguing anti science, right? Science has, you know, provided so much. But the problem is, is when you think that's at the top of the hierarchy, what happens when the science starts to fail you? And look, we're more than just scientific creatures, right? We're more than just biological organisms in this scientifically provable material world, I guess, is <Right> a way to say it. We're more than that, right? <Yeah.> So let's keep going up the hierarchy. What's next, then? 

J.R.: Well, 1, 1 more thing I want to say about science. The more technologically advanced we get, the more you actually see that something like AI, AI is not fundamentally a good thing, right? We don't know. [00:39:00] We don't know how this is going to ... 

David: We don't know, yeah, exactly.

J.R.: Obviously, vehicles have completely transformed, the internal combustion engine has completely transformed how we move items and get from place to place. I flew down here in just a couple hours, right? But what you see is, it kills thousands people a year in car wrecks, right? <Yeah.> So the more technologically advanced we get the more we see this dichotomy between, well is this a good thing or a bad thing? We talked about this on our AI episode, is AI gonna be the great savior and, and enlightened, lift us all up to, you know, enlightened thinking? Or is it gonna be this awful thing that's gonna take over our world, right?

David: Yeah. And, well, just ask Google Gemini. 

J.R.: Oh, gosh. Yeah, there you go. Go there. 

David: It'll tell you. I didn't mean to derail your thought. 

J.R.: No, that's, no, it's proving my thought. <Okay.> The idea, if you think that science. Something as, cool and as innovative as AI is immune from political bias or <or human flaw.> [00:40:00] human flaw. Yeah, take a look at Google Gemini and Google George Washington. Tell me what you see, right? At that, I just want to point that out. <Yeah. Okay.> Actually, the more technology, the more science advances, the more we actually see the moral division between what this breakthrough technology can offer.

David: Yeah, okay, so that actually reinforces the need for something higher on the hierarchy. 

J.R.: Yes, absolutely. Yes, it points to something higher. 

David: Okay, and so I think we could say that the next rung on the hierarchy is, you might say, philosophical truth, or the discipline that describes the human condition. <Okay.> Right? Because I remember a friend of mine had a roommate he was totally grounded in the rational scientific truth. And he would even say, you know, there's no such thing as love. It's just chemical reactions to other chemical reactions in other people. 

J.R.: I bet his wife was just completely enamored.

David: Well, he was single. 

J.R.: Okay, yeah. He probably still is. 

David: Okay, yeah. Spoiler [00:41:00] alert, he was single. <Right, right.> What's interesting is, you know, now he's, I think last I heard, now he's married and has kids. And yeah, he's not such a big believer in just that everything's just biology, chemical reactions, and that's all there is, you know? He actually believes in something higher, something philosophical called love, right? That made him fall in love with his wife and makes him look at his kids now and goes, that's not just a bundle of cells that I'm having a chemical reaction to. I love this kid, you know.

J.R.: Right, right. And even if you believe it, you just can't live that way. <Yeah.> Yeah, it goes back to that idea of it's not helpful. 

David: The practicality of it. Yeah. 

J.R.: Right, there's it doesn't have a practical outworking and so you can't live that way. So it's something's got to be adjusted. 

David: Yeah, you can say you hold that view but you can't move through life that way. <Right.> Eventually or you're just gonna die some miserable old grumpy person, right?

J.R.: Yeah, you can deny love or you can deny beauty, but nobody [00:42:00] objectively looks at the world that way. There's just no way you can even, you can possibly say that, well, you know, what happened in World War II Germany, that was just their opinion and, you know what I mean? There are people out there that look at sunsets and are appalled and disgusted by it. And it's like, no, no, there's not. There is something universal about beauty, about music. Nobody listens to piano keys being mashed randomly and says, Oh my gosh, that's moving and stirring. And so there is something, again, just fundamentally obvious about this idea of beauty, of evil.

David: Well, just as you said that, I thought about that moment when we were in Meteora in Greece, and we were sitting there watching that sun go down. <Right.> In that moment, there was a hush, an awe. 

J.R.: Yeah, dozens and dozens probably 50, 100 people all around us. 

David: Yeah, and no one was sitting there going. That's just a ball of gas following its rotational course in the universe, right? That's all that is.

J.R.: Also nobody [00:43:00] was saying. Hey everybody be quiet. The Sun's about to go down. You just, it ... 

David: No one had to cue it people. 

J.R.: Yeah, right. It was a universal expression that we were all united with that, <Yeah> enamored by that sunset. <Yeah.> And that actually points to something, that points to some sort of truth. What is it that drives that? <Yeah.> You know, and I think you're right. I think we're on the, philosophical, I don't know if you'd call it, would you call it a moral level?

David: A little bit, yeah, because I think philosophical, the human condition, morality, virtue, I mean, these are all things , that the ancient Greeks tried to develop <Right> that was placed higher than the scientific truth, right? And I think there's an argument to be made. You might have people who might flip those two. But still I think for the ancient Greeks and I think it still holds today that people would say no, we're more than just this scientific rational creature. There's something more aesthetic to us that <right> experiences awe, that wants to understand how to move through the world. And so the ancient Greek philosophers [00:44:00] actually placed philosophy as the highest on the hierarchy. 

J.R.: Sure they would. 

David: Everything filtered down out of philosophy. <Yeah.> And the reason is, is because they were trying to go, what does it mean to be a virtuous person? <Right.> What does it mean to be a good person? - What is the best way to go through this life? 

J.R.: Right. 

David: And that's not scientific. <Sure.> That's philosophical. <Yeah.> That's virtues, right? <Right. Yeah.> Justice, love, things like that. 

J.R.: Right. Well, it sounds like, yeah, and here's another spoiler, it sounds like they're trying to establish something close to religion, except through the lens of philosophy, through the confines of philosophy, <Yeah.> philosophical thought. 

David: And we've talked about this because one reason for that, I think, is that, look, ancient religions did not teach you how to be a better person. It taught you how to not irritate the gods. <Right.> Or it taught you how to manipulate the gods. It was one of those two things, right? That was religion in ancient days. <Yeah.> Don't offend the god, and hey, you can kind of kiss up [00:45:00] to this one and you might get something out of them.

J.R.: Right, you can capture some of their power some of their favor.

David: Yeah but neither of those things made you a better person which I think is why people like the early philosophers and then Socrates and Plato and Aristotle come along and they're like no we need something more than this.

J.R.: Yeah, that's interesting yeah.

David: And it's almost why their philosophy starts to sound more what we would think of as religion <right> than ancient religion did.

J.R.: Right, it's almost like they saw the gap. <Yeah> They saw the <I think they're trying to> vacuum and they were trying to fill that in, <Yeah> which is why they would put that at the top of their hierarchy. 

David: Yeah, that would make sense.

J.R.: And so as philosophy goes, I mean the good is it obviously helps explain the universal patterns that we all naturally see. But the problem with it is it doesn't get to the fundamental reason that these things exist in the first place. Why is it that we all agree on the sunset? There's, there's, there's still that why, you know, the six year old constantly, infinitely regressing the why, right? Well, why is that? Why is that? [00:46:00]

David: Why, why, and you want to kill that. 

J.R.: Right, right, right. That's because the answer is ultimately shut up because I said so. <Yeah> Yeah, yeah. But no, yeah, it doesn't get to the fundamental reasons why those things exist in the first place. And so that's what gets to our final top level of our hierarchy, that at the top of philosophy, as great as it is, is this kind of spiritual truth, right? <Right.> The spiritual condition, why the world is the way it is. <Yes.> Okay. 

David: Yeah, because people like Plato and Aristotle, they actually moved from language to talking about the gods, plural, to God. <Mm hmm.> But it was just, they couldn't wrap their arms around it, right? And they basically said look there might be this singular God but we can't really know it or understand it. Which I think that's where you see Christianity come on the scene <Right.> and start, my opinion, it starts to fill that void that they were observing. <Yeah.> And Christianity comes along and says, no, we can know that [00:47:00] God that you are grasping for. 

J.R.: Paul rolls into Athens and says, this unknown God that you're praying to, you can know him, by the way. And so that's exactly what Paul's kind of saying is that this is a brilliantly educated philosophical society, but I've got one more layer to put on top. <Yeah.> This idea of the unknown God, it can be known. And there is spiritual truth, is what Paul was basically putting out there to him. 

David: Yeah, and we will not steal material for next episode because that's exactly what we're going to talk about. 

J.R.: Oh, that's right. Okay. There you go. Well, yeah We jumped the gun.

David: No, but that's exactly what we're getting to. So yeah, so we're saying the top of the hierarchy is spiritual truth, right religious truth you might say. 

J.R.: Yeah Okay, so the good of that is that it does it gives us a structure for purpose beyond ourselves, right? <Yeah.> But there is, I mean, with every good part there's a bad part, and the bad part about I'll say, maybe I won't say spiritual truth, but the problem with [00:48:00] religion is it's easily hijacked, it's easily manipulated, since it can't be proven scientifically, since it can't be proven, quote unquote, in the traditional sense. <Yeah, yeah.> It's easily hijacked, and so that's where weird cults come along, that's where, you know, these kind of bizarre beliefs. You know, because it's easily hijacked, because it's at the top of the hierarchy, it's not subject to scientific rigor to scientific testing, you know. <Right.> And so therefore, it kind of circles back or it can be hijacked to circle back to personal that bottom hierarchy. Well, this is just my opinion. I'm god. <Yeah. Yeah.> You know, I mean trust me I came from the heavens, right? I mean that type of thing. <Yeah.> And so it kind of goes full circle back to the bottom of the hierarchy, which is why it's easily hijacked and so that's the problem. 

David: Yeah, and along those same lines there are different religions that say yes, we possess the truth, right? <Right.> Well, what do you do with all these multiple truth claims? And again, I would say no, no, no, you're thinking about it on the hierarchy wrong. And [00:49:00] that's where faith comes in, right? It's not what can be proven. It's actually what corresponds closest to reality and that's something we're gonna get to because I I'm really embracing that definition of what truth is right? And this is not just pragmatic, but it's what religion, it's what the Christian faith, I would say, claims. <Mm hmm.> But then as you live it out, it actually is what corresponds closest to reality in this world. And that's not always a scientific thing. 

J.R.: That's actually a pretty good definition of truth. It'll be a little bit too squishy.

David: For some people, yeah. 

J.R.: Well, for really hardcore extremes in any camp. But you can think that you can fly, but that doesn't correspond with reality. And when you try to fight against gravity, you will find that you in and of yourself are unable to do that, <Yeah.> to painful consequences. And so it's like we don't have to get into the whole why I wasn't able to jump and hold my arms out and fly. It's just [00:50:00] you can simply say what you believed was untrue because it didn't correspond with the reality that you thought it was going to carry out. 

David: Yeah. So, we've established a hierarchy, right? Personal truth, scientific truth, philosophical truth, and now we've said religious truth. <Right.> So, obviously, let's transition now into what we believe as people of faith as Christians. <Okay.> Okay. So, because I'm sure, that's the question. All right, so what are you guys saying, right? So, let's state what we believe, which is that we believe, as Christians, that there is an ultimate source of truth, and it is found in Yahweh of the Bible, and it is revealed through the incarnation of Jesus.

<Right.> So, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about spiritual truth. And the reason why we believe that, I would say, is because for two thousand years, that idea has held the closest we can come to what reality is. [00:51:00] <Yeah.> It's the best description of why the universe is here, why we're here, how we can connect to that higher power being God, Yahweh, right?

J.R.: And it does, it does seem to be the closest correspondence with actual reality. <Yeah.> And you can, well, we could just go 100 different ways with this. But basically the more you dig into the Bible - actually, there are people that have dug into the Bible to try to disprove it. To really get down into it and fundamentally disprove it and way come out and they find out No, this is actually more complex and more corresponding to reality than I ever imagined.

<Yeah.> And so it does. It seems to hold that mantle of truth better than anything else that we've come up with. And since we have this, we're limited to our physical minds, the way we view the world, our subjectivity and the way we filter objective truth through our subjectivity. So it's never going to be right. We've explained that earlier. <Yeah. Yeah.> It does seem to be the [00:52:00] best explanation that our subjective minds can come up with that corresponds with reality.

David: Yeah, and I'm glad you said that because I was going to bring us back to that idea of saying now look we're saying there's this objective truth that we hold. But let's be honest also, let's hold the tension of we're standing somewhere. We are not standing nowhere. <Right, exactly.> Which means it is still our subjective imperfect minds trying to describe this, trying to live it out, right? <Right.> And that's where kind of the tension comes in then. I think that's ultimately what we're saying. 

J.R.: Right. It's a roundabout way of saying when we say that God is all knowing, the easy answer to that is well God knows everything because he can fast forward and rewind through time and look at this and all this. But I think what we're fundamentally saying is God does have that objective truth. We're filtered through our subjectivity. We'll never be all knowing, <Yeah.> in obvious ways, because I can't be everywhere at once. But even in my own viewing [00:53:00] of truth, it's still filtered through my subjectivity. So even that cannot be all knowing. 

David: Yeah, God is all-knowing but I am not. 

J.R.: Right. Right. Yes, that's right. <Yeah.> and so the mistake that the religious people make is that there is an implication that we can, we may not be all knowing. I don't think anybody will say that. But you, but, but yeah, in this particular instance, we know this, we know this, the Bible says this. You know, to go back to the, things that divide us in the faith, you know? , I know that infant baptism works, or I know that, you know, all the things we argue about, right? And I even think on those individual levels, man, be very careful because we're always filtering through a subjective lens. There is objective truth, but it's going through a subjective lens. 

David: Yeah, the way to say that I would say is almost always hold that belief with some measure of humility, that we are still trying to figure it out as well. <Right.> Why is this hierarchy helpful? Why is thinking in terms of this hierarchy [00:54:00] helpful? I can share how it's been helpful for me and , what we've discussed, right? So again, we have the hierarchy here, right? Why is this helpful? Well, because it starts to allow you to see the ways that we get the hierarchy wrong. <Right.> Okay? Yeah. And so there's two ways that I wrote down. Two ways we get the hierarchy wrong. First, we don't acknowledge that there is a hierarchy of truth. <Right.> That's the first one. 

J.R.: Right. You hold the one category and you say, no, , this is what's truth. <Right.> And you don't acknowledge there's a hierarchy at all. <Right.> And people of faith and atheists both make this mistake. <Yeah, yeah.> You know, they don't acknowledge that there's a hierarchy at all.

David: And that's where you all of a sudden have religion versus science. <Right.> That's where you have philosophy versus, you know, maybe post modern experience, yeah, personal experience or something. Someone says that's my personal experience and you know psychologists want to tear their hair out and go, well, no, but 99 percent of the time, this is the way humans experience this or something. <Yeah, exactly.> That's where you get these conflicts, right? <Right.> And to me, it [00:55:00] actually helps me understand, okay, when I see this conflict happening, someone's pitting the hierarchies against each other, right? Or there's not acknowledgement that there is a hierarchy, 

J.R.: Right, well, when you pitted them against each other, it's, an implicit acknowledgement that the hierarchy doesn't exist. <Yeah.> Yeah, and I think the modern problem that we're seeing in our world today is a completely inverted hierarchy.

David: Okay, that's the second. 

J.R.: Well, oh, okay, so I stole that, but anyway. 

David: Yeah, well, let's go there. Yeah.

J.R.: Well that the pyramid is flipped upside down. <Yeah, exactly.> Your personal experience is all that matters. And if you want to believe in God or not, that's your business. But that's at the bottom of the hierarchy. <Yeah.> Don't try to push it on anybody else. There's not really anything you can do with that other than feel all warm and fuzzy inside and feel virtuous and righteous. But all that really matters, you know, science is definitely over that, philosophy is over that. And at the top of the hierarchy is my personal feelings. <Yeah.> My subjective truth. 

David: Yeah, so you see, yeah, so you see the hierarchy get [00:56:00] inverted where my personal feelings ultimately define the entire universe, right? <Yeah, absolutely.> Or, we've seen examples of where science gets at the top of the hierarchy, right? And now there is no such thing as religion and it's all just what can be factually proven, right? And that's the world we live in. And we also see this again, you know, go back to ancient Greece. We see where philosophy becomes the top of the hierarchy, right? And everything else is subject to that. 

J.R.: And the thing is, is that for a time for its golden age that does seem true. You know, you could the philosophers were continually climbing up that mountain forming this worldview. That they were really close to saying, I think this is going to explain it all. But you get to the top and it starts to fall apart. Yeah, you know when it comes to the fundamental reason why the beauty exists in the first place, right? <Yeah.> You see scientists do the same thing, like I think we're close. I think we're almost there. Give it another 10 [00:57:00] years, we're gonna have cancer whipped. We're gonna have truly unbiased artificial intelligence. <Yeah.> We're gonna have you know, and it's the whole flying car fallacy. You assume that this is gonna move forward, in a linear way. And man if we got these really efficient cars in the 70s and 80s, man, just wait till 2000. We'll be flying around. 

It's like, but it all seems to kind of fall apart at the end. And it's because you're putting all your energy and all your faith in one level of the hierarchy. And you're not moving up to the next level because at some point science stops and philosophy starts to take over. <Yeah.> And at some point philosophy stops, can't carry on the conversation anymore. And faith and spiritual truths have to take over. <Yeah.> Yeah. No, I like that. I like the way that's laid out. 

David: Yeah. And so I guess to get really personal and practical, I would say here's how it helps me. It helps me see some of these things that I would have been conflicted with in the past. <Yeah.> It helps me see them in their proper perspective. And look, [00:58:00] I think part of the mistake that religious people have made in the last four or five hundred years is we actually put our faith and we put the Bible at the level of the scientific hierarchy. <Right.> And so that's where we get into all these arguments. <Right.> Right? So was it seven day creation or was it not? Was there a global flood? Was there an actual King David? Was there an exodus or was it just this? 

J.R.: The Earth is the center of the universe. It has to be. <Yeah, yeah.> Heliocentric versus the, what is it? What was the anyway, why they, why they lock Galileo up, right? <Yeah.> Anyway, yeah, but so it's not like any of this stuff is new, you know, that religious beliefs conflicted with scientific beliefs. <Yeah.> And because you can look back and you hear atheists do it all the time, they point back, well, they locked up Galileo over this. Because you guys thought you were right, and it turns out that your religious views were wrong. <Yeah.> And even that is a misunderstanding of there is a hierarchy, [00:59:00] and we were not in our lane. I don't think they used that language back there. That's what Galileo could have said. Stay in your lane, right? You've got a place in ancient, the what?

David: I'm sure ancient roads with horses had lanes, , otherwise it would've been chaos, right?

J.R.: Yeah, you're right. So yeah. So yes, the church ...

David: Stay in your rut, right? Stay in your rut that the stay in your rut. Maybe that was it, that the carriage wheel would've formed on the brick.

J.R.: Everybody knows that. . Yeah. But that's what Galileo was basically saying to the church, stay in your lane. There's a place for religious truth, but you're trying to push your spiritual truth down, force it down into the realm of science. And it's like, no, you know, remember the hierarchy.

David: Yeah, yeah, I think that's hierarchical confusion. Is that maybe a word? But I think what you're getting at and where it's helped me is so, you know, first I don't bring the Bible down to the level of science. Now it's not to say that [01:00:00] there's a lot of history, there's a lot of things that archaeology has actually affirmed and said, yep, this actually plays out.

But what we're saying is there's something higher. So here's a personal example. Whether or not there was a global flood is not on the same level on the hierarchy to me as whether Jesus rose from the grave. <Right.> I can have my opinions on how to read Genesis, right? Right. And sometimes they've changed, sometimes they're always growing. Science chimes in sometimes, archaeology chimes in. But look, that used to shake me up. But I'm not equating any of that with the fact that ultimately at the top of the hierarchy, <Mm hmm.> I believe that Jesus is God's Son and he rose from the grave <Right> and conquered death. And I don't confuse the two anymore, right? That's how it's helped me personally.

J.R.: Right, you're right. To go back to that idea of truth when somebody provides evidence contrary to what you believe it's a little bit [01:01:00] jarring. Yeah, but once you see the hierarchy, the reason it's jarring is because you're trying to pull it down to the personal, right? And you see this in the church all the time. My goodness, that well, you know, I don't think Jesus would be this type of person. You know, this doesn't feel right. I want a Jesus that feels good to me. <Yeah.> And so all you're doing is shrinking him down and yanking.

David: Again. Yeah, you're pulling the personal, pulling him down the hierarchy.

J.R.: Right, yeah, so we do, <Exactly, yeah.> we do this all the time. And so you're right it doesn't have to be jarring. <Right.> And you know, look it can be problematic You got to work these things out kind of you feel like you got to fix the foundation a little bit. <Yeah.> At the same time those fundamental things can be adjusted and I don't know if there were Podcast done about the heliocentric view and fighting against it back back in Galileo's day. But I'm sure that there are people that were fundamentally jarred spiritually the more that science quote unquote proved that the earth revolves around the Sun and that the [01:02:00] Sun and all the other planets don't revolve around the earth. 

David: Yeah, and when science proves something like that, it doesn't have to jar your faith.

J.R.: Right. , it just exposes how, yeah, whoops, I had the hierarchy wrong. Yeah. I was trying to pull the scientific down or trying to pull the spiritual truth down to the personal level. Because it, felt better. And it does. I mean, I'm sure that's what it was. We never found anything in the Bible that stated that. It just felt better that if man's is the highest creation, of course, everything revolves around the earth. That wasn't actually right. It just felt that way. 

David: And it also allows parts of the Bible to be what they were supposed to be. It doesn't make the whole bible a scientific textbook. <Right.> It allows it to be what it is. 

J.R.: Right. And that's a lot of what we're doing on this podcast is when you kind of strip away a lot of the opinions and maybe the way you were raised in church and actually get to what the Bible is saying, I think that you can read the Bible several different ways, through several different lenses that are actually helpful. And so we bring in mythology sometimes, we bring in [01:03:00] philosophy, psychology. 

David: Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. 

J.R.: Right, and so that's what we're trying to do is trying to kind of strip away a lot of these opinion things that maybe we were raised with and to try to say, well, what is it really trying to say? You know, and having this hierarchy of truth actually helps see that. <Yeah.> And so to kind of summarized. Yeah, you have that hierarchy of truth. There are levels to it. There are proper places for those levels. All of them have their proper existence because yeah, there is a personal truth that I experience. <Yeah.> But it has to have its proper place also in the hierarchy and a lot of what we're trying to do is simply work out what truth is through the existence of that hierarchy. So that helps. 

And then the other thing that we mentioned that really helps me in this particular episode is the idea that there is objective truth out there. And I say out there for a certain reason. <Okay. Yeah.> But it can only be processed subjectively. So once it goes through [01:04:00] my filter, my mind, my fallible corrupted flesh, <Yeah.> that it's not going to be perfect. And it doesn't mean I can't be more right or more wrong about an opinion, but it's going to be subjective. And so the idea that there's objective truth? Yes, absolutely. But can I grasp that objective truth? I think the answer is it's always going to be processed through my subjectivity. Maybe I'll say it that way. 

David: Yeah. I like that phrase: You're standing somewhere, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, there's no way to look at something from nowhere. <Yeah.> And I think that's the people that think they can see objective truth philosophically, they're creating that fallacy. You can't see something from nowhere. Alright, I like that. 

David: Yeah, so my big takeaway is that Socrates was the original podcaster. Only his innovation was he did it live. Which we used to call a conversation with actual people. 

J.R.: Right, yeah, well, you know. 

David: But, it got him killed, so. 

J.R.: There were, yeah, there was the woke mob back [01:05:00] then too, man. They're trying to shut down free speech. <Exactly. Yeah.> So it's not a new problem. So when you look at the world and say, man, this whole thing's messed up and upside down, the more we talk about it, the more it's like, well, they kind of had this problem back in Jesus's day or Plato's day or, you know, the Roman times. Sure. 

David: Yeah. no in all seriousness my takeaway I think is kind of what you just alluded to is that viewing truth this way actually keeps me seeking truth. It never allows me to stay in one place and say, Yep, that's it. 

J.R.: Oh, that's a great point I didn't think about that. 

David: And so it keeps me as a continual learner, a seeker. And look if I'm on the right path I'm just going to go further down the path, right? It's not like I'm going to get derailed and go another way. 

J.R.: It's going to correspond to reality. 

David: Yeah. But it keeps me seeking. And it helps me not get bogged down in some of these arguments. But it keeps me hungry and seeking. And I, think that's helpful for me. 

J.R.: And ultimately humble, you know. <Yeah.> That is probably a pretty strong sign that if you're absolutely certain about [01:06:00] this, you you know, let that be a red flag. It's subjective. You're still <Yeah.> processing it subjectively. <Yeah.> So you're not gonna get it absolutely perfectly correct. 

David: Yeah. And again, there's a reason we call it faith. <Yeah.> Not fact. 

J.R.: And it's why faith has to come in.

David: Yeah. Yeah. Right. So hopefully that was helpful. We're gonna continue this next episode by talking about Paul's message to the Areopagus. Yeah, so that should be cool too. 

J.R.: Yep. Well, I got to catch a plane so we can't do it now.

David: We do so we got to wrap up real quick here. If you enjoyed this give us likes. We'll put links in the show notes, Facebook page, Fanlist, anything like that and we will talk to you next episode.

J.R.: Yep. Great talking to you Good to be here live. We'll see you.