One bit of the argument.

I am not convinced this is a testimony of faith.

Whatever one may think of Scripture or how it got written, this idea of separating its use from "unbelievers" as a matter of dialogue reduces everything to whether one is convinced of one set of propositions or by another. And if it is the "one" set that has your vote, you suddenly possess the decoder ring needed to hear the Gospel.

If God is truth - which God and how do we establish this god is true AND that you know what this god wants? — Tom Storm

He's already said the god in his story is Jesus. He has not said how Jesus can be god without Jehovah or how Jehovah can shed all his OT baggage.

He's already said the god in his story is Jesus. — Vera Mont

I realize this, but the question beyond his particularism remains; which god is true and how do we establish this? It's the salient question for any theist.

The traditional rockstar god who can do it all. All seeing, all knowing, all powerful.

God cannot be known so cannot be established, well for me anyway I don’t need to know all his attributes if I have faith in his existence.

which god is true and how do we establish this? It's the salient question for any theist. — Tom Storm

If this could be known there’d be no need for faith and even atheists would be believers.

Again, putting the word "absolute" in front of "truth" does nothing helpful. Verbal handwaving.

Like saying "god is truth".

It can't be made sense of in any of the usual ways we use such words.

It arguably has a place as a clarion call to other theists, or as "here be dragons" for non-theists.

The implication that the main, or perhaps even the only, alternative to a theistic morality is relativism ignores the history of Ethics back to Aristotle. It's just ignorant.

And we might add the obvious retort from Euthyphro, which so much as I am aware still lacks a satisfactory response.

In short,

That seems to be some pretty mediocre apologetics... — Tom Storm

Same old religious pap.

It's simple, if God is Truth, then anything of God is true. — Isaiasb

That's great once you know it's God but again how do you verify it's God? Which scriptures are acceptable to use for verification, and how do you verify that those scriptures are indeed from God? Is the Quran considered acceptable scripture for this purpose, or the Vedas, etc..? What about the Holy Ghost? How does the Holy Ghost help in determining this "truth"? what is the method? How do you verify that it is indeed the Holy Ghost?

I realize this, but the question beyond his particularism remains; which god is true and how do we establish this? It's the salient question for any theist. — Tom Storm

Yes, and I have asked it. The answer being 'Christ Jesus', Thor, Quetzalcoatl and Shiva are out of the running. Therefore, the next logical question is how the particularity Christ Jesus came by his divinity. A slight variation on How do we establish this? It seems to me that neither answer can avoid reference to that same problematic book.

Does Truth exist for Muslims & Hindus?

This had a lot going on here, but it seems at the end of the day you think that one needs to believe in a God for absolute truth. Perhaps people who don't have a grasp of what truth means do, but truth is fairly simple. Truth is what "is". Its what exists despite our beliefs and actions that would deny it. Eat rat poison, and it won't matter how much you believe its a miracle pill.

So in your words, what do you mean by "Absolute truth" then? Isn't truth just true? Truth isn't relative or much cares about us really. It is absolute in that sense, but it doesn't much care about having an adjective about it either.

It isn’t circular if you understand religion as a whole. Jesus is the only one who claims to be both God and Truth. Islam nor any other religion claim that, secondly the Holy Spirit is what tells us everything about God. General and Special revelation point to God. The Bible isn’t true because it says it’s true, it’s true because God, through the Holy Ghost and man, wrote the Bible over a few thousand years

Absolute Truth comes from Plato, in short there is a Truth out there that isn’t relative. He explains this in his dialogues.

From my understanding Hindus believe no one religion is true, and Islam believes the only Absolute Truth is the Quran

If Jesus is both God and Man he can’t “come by” his divinity. He is God, from beginning to end.

The implication that the main, or perhaps even the only, alternative to a theistic morality is relativism ignores the history of Ethics back to Aristotle. It's just ignorant. — Banno

The problem is that Plato and Aristotle fought for Truth by using the Gods. So they believing in a theistic morality. If Absolute Truth exists outside of God who determines it?

Problems with this argument for me - apart from being spectacularly unconvincing- is that I’ve heard Islamic apologists make the same argument. Also Mormons. Your understanding of Islamic apologists seems inadequate. They will tell you that Mohammad helped deliver the final and only true revelation.

Mormons are derived from Christianity so they would say that. And Mohammad claimed to deliver truth but he didn’t claim to be Truth. That’s the difference between Mohammad and Jesus.

Absolute Truth comes from Plato, in short there is a Truth out there that isn’t relative. He explains this in his dialogues. — Isaiasb

Right, my point was that regular truth isn't relative either. That's knowledge or beliefs. Truth is what reality is, whether we believe it or not.

Mormons are derived from Christianity so they would say that. — Isaiasb

As a Jewish friend once said - Christianity was derived from Judaism by a mad rabbi.

Such claims are not philosophy.

And Mohammad claimed to deliver truth but he didn’t claim to be Truth. That’s the difference between Mohammad and Jesus. — Isaiasb

Word games. If all you have to hold this argument is a claim that someone said a thing about themselves in a book, then you're in big trouble. And here again the book is being used to establish the truth of the book.

Are you a fundamentalist, perhaps? Do you think every word in The Bible is inerrant, the way many Muslims think every word of the Koran contains the unaltered and direct words of god?

If Absolute Truth exists outside of God who determines it? — Isaiasb

As I and several other folk have pointed out, the difference between truth and "absolute truth" remains obscure.

The Bible is fairly scarce in truth claims about itself at any rate and it's unclear what they are to apply to within the context of the text. The Bible itself does not lay out the Scriptural canon which is why Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Ethiopian Coptics, Mormons, etc. each have slightly different Bibles.

I think claims about the Bible being a record of absolute truth fall into pretty immediate problems. There are consistency issues in the text itself, such as the chronological ordering of Saint Stephen's recap of Genesis varying from what is in Genesis. We have Jesus driving a demon into a herd of swine that then run into a body of water twice, once with one demon possessed man, once with two. We also have letters written by humans in the first person, e.g. Nehemiah, or the end half of the New Testament.

IMO, these make an argument for understanding fundemental elements of subjectivity. Why four differing records of Jesus' life? Perhaps to show how parallax allows us to approach more consistent descriptions of reality, while reminding us that consistency is not always equivalent with truth.

Maybe the set of all truths? Because certain truths are grounded in experience, which makes them inaccessible to others. The full truth of someone else's lived experience, both the substance and quality of their mental life, seems like an example of such a truth.

Absolute truth could be the abstract whole of these accurate descriptions. I think that is what is generally meant. It "misses nothing."

Or, in a holistic definition of truth, we might have it that absolute truth is similarly the sum of all truths, the total description, and partial truths are simply more or less true based on how much of this summation they contain. "Less true" need not entail "more false" in such a conception. "More false" would mean "containing more atomic propositions that are not contained in the set of all truths."

I don't know if most people would phrase it like that, but I think that's what they're getting at. In essence, the idea of absolute truth often seems to deny the bivalence of truth, which people do all the time in normal speech and I'd argue is actually more intuitive to us. We often admit "undecided," as a truth value, or "paradoxical." Whether or not this intuitiveness says something about the world that shaped our intuitions is another matter.

If Jesus is both God and Man he can’t “come by” his divinity. He is God, from beginning to end. — Isaiasb

IF. If he was Man, he was born of Woman, thus "coming by" his humanity. If he was also God, that Woman was inseminated by God, and that is how he would he would "come by" his divinity. So how do you know he's a god, if not from that same book, full of the dubious exploits of that same disreputable Jehovah - who, according to you

And the Old Testament wasn’t written for today it’s like saying Ancient Greece laws wouldn’t work today.

has already changed his Absolute Truth several times in the past 4000 or so years. And, as you allow him to do anything he wants, and as he seems to have done quite a few things (slaughtering Egyptian babies and stealing their parents dishes comes to mind) that modern law doesn't allow, the absolute is wearing off his truth pretty fast.

Jesus was fully human not because he was born from a women, it's different then Greek Mythology where Zeus impregnates people. The old testament law wasn't Absolute, it never claimed to be so.

It isn't obscure, it's Truth in the Platonic sense, which means that it is Truth that does not change, it just is. Since God is Truth, which implies it's tied to his nature. So it never changes.

Why are people engaging with this person? Remember the story/fable of the donkey and the tiger. I'm not sure whether that's one of Aesop's or someone else. But there's nothing to see here. I can be the lion, if you like.

Jesus was fully human — Isaiasb

He is God, from beginning to end. — Isaiasb

So... which?

it's different then Greek Mythology where Zeus impregnates people. — Isaiasb

Then I guess either God or John was lying. So... which?
Really?

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

If that didn't happen, how did Jesus get to be a god?

The old testament law wasn't Absolute, it never claimed to be so. — Isaiasb

God was not really God back then and his truth wasn't really True? Then it must have gotten truer over time, and now its Absolute? Or it sudden became Absolute when God begat Plato or Jesus or Muhammad or Billy Graham. So... which?

Just how many ways can you split and bend an incoherent claim?

Why are people engaging with this person? — Ciceronianus

Something to pass the time. Do tell about the lion! Does he eat Daniel this time?

Something to pass the time. Do tell about the lion! Does he eat Daniel this time? — Vera Mont

That was another lion, I think. Do you know the story? I'm quite fond of it.

The donkey told the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green.”

The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.

As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”

The lion replied: “If you believe it is true, the grass is blue.”

The donkey rushed forward and continued: ′′The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him.”

The king then declared: ′′The tiger will be punished with 3 days of silence.”

The donkey jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating ′′The grass is blue, the grass is blue…”

The tiger asked the lion, “Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?”

The lion replied, ′′You’ve known and seen the grass is green.”

The tiger asked, ′′So why do you punish me?”

The lion replied, “That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is degrading for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with an ass, and on top of that, you came and bothered me with that question just to validate something you already knew was true!”

So... which? — Vera Mont

both, he is fully God and Fully Man.

Then I guess either God or John was lying. So... which? — Vera Mont

John 3:16 doesn't say, God impregnated Mary and she gave birth to a son. Jesus was Begotten not Made.
God was Truth back in the Old Testament, but he gave the law for the jews, until the time of Jesus could come and fufill it. The Law is a curse which points out how sinful we are. God is Truth.

John 3:16 doesn't say, God impregnated Mary and she gave birth to a son. Jesus was Begotten not Made. — Isaiasb

Genesis 5:4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:”

How did Adam beget all those kids without impregnating a woman? Probably Eve, there having been a scarcity of women at the time.

God is Truth — Isaiasb

Right. So God is a Truth who lies to some people some of the time.

Yeah. I'm ready to serve my 3-day silence now.