When emotion rules, then stands for truth – if they cut against someone’s emotions – are seen as attacks on them as persons. We conflate relational acceptance with moral affirmation. If I do not affirm something as true or moral, then it is seen as relational rejection. Or worse, bigotry and prejudice. Or hate.

Let me lay my cards out on the table:

I believe that truth exists.

I believe that the source of that truth is transcendent.

I believe that hate is real, and that real people can hate.

I believe that hate is wrong.

And one more:

I believe that I can stand for truth and not have it be hateful.

The dominant idea of truth throughout the history of Western thought has been deemed the “correspondence” idea of truth. The idea is simple: If I say, “It is raining,” then either it is raining or it is not. You simply walk outside your door and discover whether my statement corresponds with reality. Of course, its weakness is that not everything can be verified by walking out your door. I might say, “There is a God.” If you walk out your door, will my statement be proven?

However, the greater dynamic of the correspondence theory is, regardless of whether you can validate something, what is true is that which does indeed correspond with reality—regardless of one’s current ability to actually make that correspondence. So, while a Triune God may not be discernible through the empirical method of science, the “correspondence idea” is that the Triune God is true because there is, indeed, a Triune God who exists in reality.  

The larger idea is that truth exist, and that it stands above human experience. It judges human experience. Truth is, by its very nature, transcendent. It exists independent of our acknowledgment of it, much less our obedience to it. To deny this is to live in a “post-truth” world. That, of course, is precisely our reality. We deny the existence of objective truth itself and make emotion our authority.

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