The Problem with “That’s Your Truth”

I was staring at my phone, waiting for a message from my good friend. I felt pretty confident about the last text message I had sent him. I was proud of myself; it was so well thought out and full of truth.

Finally, my friend’s message came through. Upon reading it I was suddenly filled with frustration and anger.

“Well, Ryan,” it read. “We are both just on different paths, headed to the same destination.”

We have all probably heard something along those lines when trying to share our Christian faith with a family member or friend. We’re hoping this time will be different, this time we just know they will come to Christ.

But it doesn’t happen, and we are left with a stab of pain through the heart, a feeling of rejection and stupidity.

What do we do in a world that screams, “Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth”? How do we overcome the notion that truth is based on emotion? Or the belief that truth is based solely on the individual? How can we possibly get others to see the truth about, well, the truth?

The Law of Noncontradiction

We need to help our friends see that logic demands that there is only one truth. The law of noncontradiction states that opposite ideas cannot both be true at the same time in the same sense.

This law is woven into the very fabric of the universe. Human beings apply this law every day of their lives without even knowing it. For example, if my friend says, “this is a dog,” then that same animal cannot not be a dog. Or if he says, “it is raining,” then it cannot not be raining at the same time.

The law of noncontradiction destroys the claim that “Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth.” How so?

Because Jesus makes a bold claim to exclusivity.

Through the law of noncontradiction, we can see that He is either right or wrong. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He is making an objective claim that His truth is true for everyone.

Speaking a Different Language

Jesus’s words are very counter-cultural because the world wants us to believe what my friend so eagerly replied to me – that all paths lead to heaven.

But this is simply not true.

Non-believers have changed the very definition of truth to fit their individual worldview. Therefore, Christians and non-Christians are not even speaking the same language. Non-Christians do not use the word “truth” in the same way that Christians do.

Francis Schaeffer, a renowned Christian apologist, explains in his book The God Who Is There, that prior to the twentieth century most people assumed that truth was “absolute.” In other words, truth was true for everyone. People generally assumed “that if anything was true, the opposite was false.” Therefore, Christianity is either true, or not true, but it cannot be both.

Truth does not care what we believe. It does not care how we feel, or what we say about it, it does not even care if we believe it or not. It does not change, and it is never altered.

Truth is truth at all times, in all places, for all people.

Therefore, my friend’s belief that we are all on different paths arriving at the same destination, and the statement “that’s your truth and not mine,” cannot be true. Either Jesus’s claim is right, and my friend’s claim is wrong, or my friend’s claim is right, and Jesus’s claim is wrong. But both claims cannot be true at the same time.

Correct in Gentleness

When we are talking to our friends, we must be patient and understanding with them.

Paul tells us that we “must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting [our] opponents with gentleness. So that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

They do not understand the language that we speak, therefore, we must show them that the definition of truth has an objective meaning and we’re to do so gently.

We must remember that our purpose as Christians is to win souls to Christ, not just to win the argument, and winning souls takes time, patience, and persistence.

We must learn to diligently, carefully till the ground of their heart, plant seeds in their mind, and help their unbelieving heart and mind see the truth about the truth.