MAN’S RELATION TO TRUTH

PSALM 8

What is man that You are mindful of him?

(Ps. 8:4a)

Once we understand that God is the source of truth, that He is the standard of truth, that He is, in fact, truth itself, we must ask the question, “I how does that truth relate to me?” To answer this question, we must realize that the truth about man cannot be known apart from truth about God. If we believe, for instance, that God does not exist, or that metaphysical considerations have no meaning, then man himself has no significance. Man cannot define himself in relationship to himself, for he, after all, is not the standard of existence. Man can only rightly understand himself in the context of God as the Creator of all things.

We must always remember Jesus’ words. He is the truth, and Satan is the father of lies. If you remove God from the equation of existence, or if you distort man’s conception of God’s nature, then you remove truth itself. All you have is a lie. And this has certainly been the sad consequence of humanistic philosophy. In their stringent effort to banish God from the universe, humanist thinkers assume they are doing man a favor. They seek to exalt man, but by refusing to acknowledge God and to see with a Christian worldview, they debase him.

It is God who gives man significance, purpose, and meaning. Outside of God, man is nothing. Francis Schaeffer once wrote that when the social sciences were made part of a “closed cause-and-effect system,” it was not only God who died, man died. “And within this framework love died.… Man becomes a zero. People and all they do become only a part of the machinery.”

Man is not an island unto himself. He is a creature made in the image of God. He is not a biological machine, devoid of an immortal soul. He is not a mere animal, the end of a long series of evolutionary leaps. Where is the dignity and nobility of man in such schemes? Only when we see man as made in the image of God, as subject to the will of God, do we see man as a noble creature, endowed with feelings, rational capabilities, and an immortal soul. And as a man he must consider his life not in the context of the moment, but of eternity where he will either dwell with his Maker or be cast from His life-giving presence forever.

CORAM DEO

Jeremiah 3–4

2 Thessalonians 3

What do drug addiction, alcoholism, and other forms of self-contempt reveal about man’s view of himself? What do you expect in our society as man continues to reject God and harden himself against the Gospel of Jesus Christ? What effects are you seeing today? Pray for God’s mercy on our land.

For further study: Gen. 1:26–27; 5:1; 9:6 • Job 32:8 • James 3:9–12

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