September 24, 2024 • 46 mins
- Steven Félix-Jäger & Yoon Shin, Renewing Christian Worldview
- Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread
- Paul M. Gould, Cultural Apologetics
- James Κ. A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues
- Dru Johnson, Biblical Knowing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome back to TikTok Theology. I'm Meagan.
(00:03):
I'm Steven.
Oh, you sound really good in ASMR.
There you go.
Have you ever done this before?
Never.
This is kind of exciting.
No, it's pretty awkward. I don't know.
Really?
Yeah.
I think I sound kind of good.
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
(00:24):
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Megan.
And I'm Stephen.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues. TikTok will give us the prompt and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hi friends, welcome back to episode four of season three.
(00:45):
Yay.
Yay.
So today we are titling this episode, finding truth in an era of misinformation.
And oh, are we in an era of misinformation?
Oh, an era indeed.
Mm-hmm.
This is the unspoken Taylor Swift, the 11th era, the era of misinformation.
I do not even know the reference.
That's okay. It's okay. I know people got it. I know enough of the girlies who's got it.
(01:11):
But as so much of this season has been shaped by, and we've mentioned it every episode,
or I'm going to mention it every episode is one of the most insane political seasons we've
ever had.
We've ever had ever, I think.
And so since this season is coming out, really sandwiching political season, the election,
all the things, everything is kind of drawing back in a lot of ways to politics,
(01:32):
in a sense that social media is where we pull our topics from.
And that is taken over the scene right now.
That's what they're talking about.
And as it should, I mean, these are conversations that we need to be having.
And so I think for Christians who vote, people who vote, all of us, especially when we're
someone who we have an ultimate allegiance to the Lord, before we have an allegiance to any
candidate or party, or we should at least, if we're doing it correctly, is that we're looking
(01:58):
for truth. And for us, truth, God's truth, we are looking for the Lord.
We are looking for truth for us as Christians and as believers in an era of misinformation.
I think we can all acknowledge that the media is not out to inform us.
They're not out to educate us.
They're not out to give us the full story.
I mean, we are surrounded by bias and narrative and AI and stuff has gotten nuts.
(02:19):
And like the internet is not a safe place to find truth.
And depending on what books you read, authors aren't necessarily a place to find truth.
Everything is just chaos right now.
And so how are we supposed to find truth as we make these important political decisions
or life decisions or job decisions?
And so we're going to tackle a topic today about how we find that truth in an era of such vast
(02:43):
misinformation.
So we invited my friend and co-author, philosopher named Yun Shin.
He wrote Renewing Christian World View with me.
Shameless self promo.
Yes. We invited him because I think what's really important is we're not going to just
talk about truth in kind of this like simple way that a lot of times you'll hear maybe at
(03:04):
church sometimes or just people talking like, well, how do you know that's true?
Blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And like we're going to talk about it in a philosophical way, like what it actually
can mean.
So we're going to spend some time defining these terms and what's going on because yeah,
like, I mean, we have an era where we're talking about fake news.
We're talking about CNN and ABC, MSNBC, Fox News.
(03:27):
And then some people are like, I just watched the British news shows, BBC.
I'm on the BBC because there is no political bias.
Yeah.
And so people will come to these different ways of thinking about it, but they are saying
a vastly different spin to things that have happened to us in our life politically.
Yes.
So there is no reporting of a story and then you decide what the story is.
(03:51):
They report the story with spin and everybody does that.
And so most of the news channels, because now they're 24 hours, they weren't always 24 hours,
but now they're 24 hours.
They have to make news all the time.
There's always got to be content.
And so it's not just news that's of this happened.
Let's talk about it.
It's speculative.
What would happen if this happened?
If this happened, what would happen here?
What's your opinion on this?
And people's opinions on a certain thing is not news.
(04:13):
Yeah.
And also it's one of those things where the media is so into scaring the fear mongering,
all of that, even that study that came out about how there's metals in tampons and stuff,
and everyone was reporting on that and being like, there's lead in tampons and everyone was freaking out.
And then it, because it's like, oh my gosh, we're putting metal in our bodies.
Ah.
And then other scientists came in and were like, okay, but that level of metal
(04:37):
is also found in rice.
I don't know about the story though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it's like, I mean, that makes sense.
I mean, me as a woman, I was like, oh my God.
But it was like, because it's like how you farm.
And so when you make it with cotton or whatever, that amount of like metals and whatever you put in the soil,
which is how you grow.
They're freaking out for no reason.
Yeah.
And so they're like, hey guys, just to put into perspective, this amount of trace metals are in a lot of things that you consume,
(05:00):
because that's how you fertilize soil that grows cotton or whatever.
And you're like, but for a second I'm like, but like that's the news, you know, like, and it's a story,
but it's not the full story where it's like, there's a spin to it or like they want you to freak out
and start boycotting all the brands that are putting metal in your body.
So it's like, it just shows you that even though that's the truth, that's not the full story.
(05:25):
So it's everything has so many layers to it.
How do we get through it?
How do we find anything?
Yeah, they will get you to go and because of ratings.
Yeah.
There's one channel talks about having news shows and then having opinion shows.
Yeah.
But the prime time shows are usually their opinion shows.
They look exactly the same.
They have the same desks, the same format, same everything, but one of them is a guy or girl just spewing opinions.
(05:50):
And the other one is actually reporting on the facts.
And it's a news show.
It's a news channel.
This is the kind of stuff that's super duper confusing and hurts public trust in information that comes across.
And like, well, how can you like you can't trust anything, you know, like just, but with that,
and if you are already not trusting the things that you were supposed to trust,
then this opens the door for conspiracy theories.
(06:12):
Yeah.
And then with social media going rampant.
Oh, yeah.
Now they'll just stoke the fire of conspiracy theories all over the place.
You get a bunch of crazy junk that's been reported that people will do and it will motivate people to do horrendous things.
Like, well, most of us don't even get our news from news channels anymore.
It's like, if I see it on social media, that's fact.
(06:33):
Unfortunately.
And so now we're, I don't even know what to believe half the time.
So which is problematic and difficult.
It is awful.
So how do we navigate a world that has become I can't trust nobody and nothing, but just remember friends.
Who can we trust?
Jesus.
Jesus.
But then we also can't trust a lot of people who who say they love Jesus, who say they love Jesus because they have
(06:54):
ulterior political motives or something like that.
So, you know, it's not easy.
It's not easy.
And that's why we're having this conversation today.
So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about some terms that we're going to use.
And again, we're going to take a philosophical approach here.
So truth in general, if we were to define it, most people would use kind of a general empirical definition.
(07:16):
So empirical meaning like something you can test like scientifically, like it's an empirical knowledge.
And so this general definition would be truth is the quality or state of being in accordance with fact or reality.
Okay.
The quality state of being in accordance with factor reality, which is basically a simple way of talking about the correspondence theory of truth.
(07:39):
So these are the various theories of truth.
And you're going to find interesting these four different groupings and there's more and they overlap.
So this is not like super duper concise, but you'll see that these ways of understanding truth
can vastly determine how people view the world and even fields of study.
They use different types.
So like, let me explain.
(07:59):
So the first one that I just mentioned is the correspondence theory and it's the empirical one.
It basically says truth is what responds to reality effects.
That's science, right?
Like it is true if it is scientifically proven.
Yeah.
Like the laws of gravity or whatever, like that's true because you can prove it with whatever.
So there's that.
Then there's a coherence theory of truth.
(08:20):
Now again, most people would probably like mix and match and use multiple of these.
But the coherence theory basically says truth is what is consistent and coherent with a set of beliefs or propositions.
So this could be seen as relativist though, because that means the truth is only true relative to that thing.
So look at it in the sense of like theology.
(08:42):
If I were to say the Trinity is the most appropriate way to talk about God, this is a theological statement.
Now, is that an empirically true statement?
It's not really a testable empirical thing.
Right.
But in the realm of theology in Christian faith, that is something that is testable against itself.
Yes.
Right.
So I might say, well, no, the Trinity is not.
And then I can go point to a whole bunch of scriptures.
(09:04):
I can point to a whole bunch of stuff.
I can point to season two episode something where we talked about the Trinity.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I can, I can, I can point to different things that say like, no, this is,
you can see that this idea is coherent to our Christian faith claim.
But the thing is that that truth is relative to our Christian faith claim,
right?
Which is important to say that doesn't mean just relative as truth.
(09:26):
Like, like, oh, it's not really true.
It's just rather that just means like, if I were to say, what do you think is Taylor Swift's best song?
Oh, no.
I think Taylor Swift's best song is probably the all too well 10 minute version.
Okay. So if you said the all too well 10 minute version is one of the best Taylor Swift songs.
(09:46):
Yes.
You didn't even say the best and say one of the best.
Yeah.
You could say that's a true statement, right?
Yes.
But it's true only relative to her music, to that world, right?
And this also goes into kind of like this, what do most people agree with?
You know, and that's what made that true.
So if most Swifties believe that that's true, then that's what will make it true there.
(10:07):
But it is a relative truth because it is within the realm of swiftiness.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Again, not like it's false, but it's just a way to think about truth.
And we do this all the time and all sorts of things, you know, like all of our fields have
their own truths that exist within those fields.
Correct.
So that's a, that's a coherence theory.
There's a pragmatic theory.
This is where it says that truth is what works or has practical consequence.
(10:27):
So what is true is what works.
Now this could be used in an evil way, what's expedient, but it's also practical.
I mean, this is why it's a pragmatic thing.
We do this all the time.
So like a very clear example of something that is practically true would be how politics
actually uses truth.
So they would not necessarily say, oh, this is true because it's ethically right or because
(10:51):
of whatever, but they would say, no, it's practical.
It actually works.
This is the thing that will work.
Kind of like this is what practically works out.
It's a pragmatic thing.
Truth is what works or has practical consequences.
So like that sounds a little relative too.
Like if it doesn't work, then it's not true.
And then these are the things that we'll use in certain things.
So the last view is the constructivist theory.
(11:13):
Here, truth is constructed by social processes,
such as cultural and historical context.
And so this is something that's used a lot by post-colonial studies.
Have you ever heard of that term post-colonial studies?
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, it's just a post colonization.
So what are the people groups that were colonized?
What are their narratives?
(11:34):
What are their stories?
What are their histories?
Not the histories of the colonizers,
but the histories of the indigenous groups that were colonized.
That's kind of as post-colonial studies.
And so the constructivist theory talks about truth is constructed
by these social and cultural historical context.
So for instance, if in liberation,
like a Hispanic liberation theology
(11:54):
and like Gustavo Gutierrez and Lima Perú,
one of his points was how can what Carl Bart is saying,
have any relevance at all to the plight of the Peruvians
that are in my parish?
And so he wanted to theology from the margins
and specifically from the margins of Lima Perú.
And so this is kind of like a constructivist theory of truth.
It's like those things are true based on their social, cultural,
(12:15):
and historical context.
So they may not be true across board,
but they're true for this.
So you can't just say something and hoist it upon them.
This can go all sorts of different ways.
And I'm looking a little bit more theologically
on how it would work.
But you can see all of these things being used in theology,
being used in different realms of thought
and the way people would say stuff
(12:37):
between theology, politics, science, everything.
All of our public discourse is going to use
these various theories of truth in different ways.
It's kind of wanting to say that just to point that out.
What do you think about that?
Is that already like speaking a little helpfully
or something or does it muddy things up?
I think it helps in the sense of that when we use,
(12:58):
especially as Christians, where we're like,
well, we know the truth in the sense that the truth is Jesus
and the truth is God, which is true.
I would agree with that statement.
I think we would all agree with that statement.
But I think that these kinds of different theories of truth
should help all of us shape our understanding
of a broader perspective.
That it's like even necessarily,
even what we're talking here about,
(13:18):
like liberation theology is like Gustavo Gutierrez
didn't feel like the theology from a white man
had the same theological truths for him and his people
because they were oppressed.
So he's like, well, it doesn't matter
because you're speaking to a free people
and we're not a free people.
They do know what they're talking about,
but from a completely different cultural perimeter.
(13:39):
And so all of us saying,
like we have a lot of Christians in different places
that all have and come from, we would say,
and affirm a truth, but that truth is very nuanced
in a cultural reality, in a spiritual background,
in a denominational viewpoint.
So to say and make blanket statements,
(14:00):
like, oh, we're here for the truth.
I think what they're trying to say is this.
So imagine this.
Imagine somebody, we've already had this kind of conversation
a bunch of times with people, right?
So it'd be like, hey, God exists.
And then some atheists or somebody will be like,
well, how do you know?
Then the person will respond,
well, because the Bible says so,
and because I've experienced God in my own life.
Right.
Here's the thing.
(14:20):
The guy said, and this is the confusing part,
the guy said, God is true.
Now he said it as if it was an empirical statement,
as if it was a correspondence theory statement of the truth.
And that is how the atheists heard it.
And so what the atheists is looking for now
is naturalistic evidence to your claim,
(14:40):
empirical evidence to your claim.
But then how, what was his response?
His response was a coherence theory response.
Right.
It's true based on my own faith tradition,
which is also spoken about in scripture.
Yep.
And so guess what?
They spoke past each other.
Yep.
And so you didn't satisfy the query of the atheists
(15:01):
and you also didn't prove God.
Correct.
You didn't do either of these things.
It's important for us to understand that.
So let's talk a little bit about you.
So you, my homie, did not send me his biography.
So I'm going to tell you his biography from my own heart.
(15:22):
Okay.
And from what I can find on LinkedIn.
Look at you.
Yoon Shin is a real estate investor
and administrative professional.
That's what it says on his LinkedIn.
He has an Airbnb in Northern Florida.
That's what I know about him.
And he is...
And that's what makes him a good component to talk about truth.
(15:43):
That is true that he does this.
Yoon is also the group's minister at Battle Creek Broken Arrow in Oklahoma.
And he previously lived in Florida.
He and I went to school together,
been to a million different conferences and things together.
And he's a brilliant guy.
He was a professor at Southeastern for many years
(16:04):
and recently had just a big life change.
And now he's over in Oklahoma,
pastoring and I guess still real stating, you know what I mean?
And doing his thing.
Bivocational realness.
Just an all-around good fella.
So I'm excited for you guys all to meet Yoon,
one of my favorite dudes.
And we're going to try to get him to speak
(16:25):
in a way that is understandable.
I don't know how successful we'll be.
We're going to try.
Because you know how philosophers be sometimes.
Philosophers do be philosophizing.
And he might just...
He might just do that.
All right, let's turn to that.
Yoon, get ready.
You're going to be grilled.
Here we go.
All right.
We're going to grill you.
All right. So first question we have,
(16:45):
because this is kind of a tough question,
philosophically rich.
It's kind of the bread and butter of your field, epistemology.
How would you define truth in the first place?
And is there a difference between a philosophical definition
of truth or a theological definition of truth?
(17:05):
Yeah. Great question.
Truth is just about the state of being, about the fact.
Right?
So we could say that that's the philosophical definition,
kind of fundamentally.
And the way I describe it there also has to do is,
it kind of aligns more with the correspondence theory of truth.
(17:27):
Yeah.
But theologically, I think we can go a little bit deeper
in a different way, because I would, of course,
as a Christian, I would tie truth to God.
God is truth.
God is the ultimate reality.
He's a creator, and everything else is creature.
(17:50):
My, I mean, that's true.
Yes, kind of bare bones.
But my issue with something like that is just like much
of theology and philosophy, it's just too mental.
The technical term being kind of no etiquette.
It's about the mind.
It's about cognition.
Right.
And then all the conversations just kind of rolls around,
(18:13):
revolves around what we know cognitively.
And all the debates and often because of our sinful nature,
it defines who is in the right tribe against those who are in,
who are outside the right tribe.
And unfortunately, as we know, and just in human history,
(18:35):
both Christian and not that type of very exclusivist,
cognitive posture has led to violence.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I really like how this biblical theologian
and biblical philosopher named Drew Johnson,
(18:56):
this amazing guy, he talks about how for the Hebrews
and kind of biblically speaking,
truth is not ultimately, I mean, I don't say ultimately,
but really primarily about knowing some objective fact.
But it's about being faithful to God.
(19:18):
But there's a performative aspect to truth.
Like you're living the truth.
Exactly.
Yes.
Right.
I mean, I've met some really smart jerks.
Yeah.
Who cares about that, right?
We, as Christians, we ought to care about truth in the fullest sense
(19:39):
in that it truth takes us and brings us to fidelity with ultimate reality.
Right.
It's God knowing God, knowing God, not merely with our cognition,
but with our hearts, our whole being, with our actions.
So I would say that that type of theological understanding of truth
(20:02):
is more meaningful to me.
Okay.
The deeper and more holistic way of knowing.
I think I make the distinction sometimes,
and I've talked to you about this a bunch of times,
and it's a little bit of wordplay,
but I think you can kind of get the point that's being made.
There's a difference between true facts,
we'll just say true facts, and then truth.
(20:23):
And that truth is that kind of holistic thing that,
that, you know, is that you live into.
It affects every aspect of your life,
whereas a true fact could be the thing that corresponds to reality in a real way.
Right.
Like, and so knowing facts, like you said,
you know, somebody who's a smart jerk, you know, that knows true facts,
(20:44):
is not necessarily the same thing as saying, I know the truth.
There's a sense of, there's wisdom involved in knowing the truth.
Right.
Oh yeah.
I mean, if truth is ultimately God,
God is not some abstract reality and abstract concept.
All right.
So this can lead to a question that is,
that we'll hear a lot of times, we'll hear in church all the time,
(21:04):
and then we'll hear pastors and different people kind of say very reductionistic ways,
like things about this, and just like kind of proclaim it like, oh, this is it.
But I think it's a deeper question,
and I'd like you to talk about a little bit.
Can we know things to be absolutely true?
So I know that's the big epistemological question.
(21:25):
So if you could define a little bit about what that might mean,
you know, the difference between knowledge and belief,
believing something to be absolutely true,
and knowing something to be absolutely true.
Like if you could talk a little bit, what might be the difference there?
Yeah.
One, I mean, yes, in certain circles, and I would say in your ordinary language
(21:46):
of the church, of certain church traditions,
like absolute truth is a common violence, common language.
This is absolutely true.
And I think what they mean is that certain facts, certain states,
certain proposition is objectively true, as in it's mind independently true.
(22:07):
Again, as someone who subscribes to correspondence degree of truth,
I would say, yes, true.
I accept that if we mean by objective truth.
But once again, that's bare minimum acknowledgement, right?
We need to go beyond that.
And so my problem with the language of absolute truth, rather than objective truth,
(22:34):
is that I think only God is absolute.
If we're going to kind of take absolute in its definition,
like Webster's type of definition,
something that has no exception or whatnot, it's contextless.
Things that are not very much finite, like human beings like creatures, right?
(22:57):
Well, to me, and perhaps this is my reformed heritage,
I did go to a reform seminar for a while, one of my favorite professors
who was just winsomely reformed is John Frang.
And he even borrowing from somebody like Cornelius Vantil would say
(23:17):
that only God is an absolute person, an absolute personality.
Everything else that's creature cannot be absolute.
So when we say that we know something that's to be absolutely true or absolute truth,
seems for me to violate the creator-creature distinction.
(23:38):
Yeah, we're saying we know things like God.
Yeah, yeah.
And in a univocal sense, not in a what's called an analogical sense,
univocal as in my mind has reached the level of the divine mind,
maybe not like quantitatively, like God, of course, knows more about a thing.
(24:00):
But of the same quality.
Yeah, exactly same quality.
But I follow Thomas Aquinas and his understanding of analogical knowledge that,
analogies deliver meaning and understanding, but more like a through a metaphor,
it doesn't deliver it directly.
But we can still have some semblance of knowledge.
(24:21):
So kind of like the famous examples are like, hey, if the way I say I love my wife is different than I love my dog or whatnot,
they're qualitatively different.
And so our knowledge of the divine mind, what God knows is via like an analogy,
rather than something that's direct one to one, what we call univocal knowledge.
(24:43):
And so when we say that we are, that we know something as absolute truth,
even if they mean objectively, I think the language can tend to shape the social understanding
and the social way in which we now live out what it means to know something as absolute truth becomes very rigid.
(25:08):
It becomes as if now we have the divine right to say, and the divine authority to say,
this is right, I know it.
And if you disagree with me, then you're out.
And because there's this divine authority behind it,
the actions can tend to be more than merely exclusive to say you're part of that tribe,
(25:31):
but to become vehement, not following the ways of the peaceable kingdom of Jesus.
And if anyone holds any belief, they are automatically saying no to a whole bunch of other contrary beliefs.
Like to hold anything to be true, you are saying there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's untrue,
like that you're already doing that.
And that's perfectly fine to do.
(25:53):
That's not actually the problem here.
I think one issue that people have is a matter of what some scholars would call epistemological humility,
or just the acknowledgement that we are all finite.
We believe things to be true and we can be wrong,
even though we're deep-seatedly understanding that this is what I think is true.
(26:15):
Some things I'm just very confident and convinced about.
And so I'm going to say, no, I genuinely think you are wrong and I am right.
And there's going to be some consequences on how I would communicate this and live out my life in relation to the person I disagree with.
(26:36):
However, how I utilize that knowledge claim from the perspective of Jesus' lordship, his authority and power should look different.
So with all of the understanding of what information is and what truth is and different theories and stuff,
I think what we want to do is put practicality to this,
(27:00):
where we kind of take the theoretical and kind of make it a wee bit practical,
especially as we head into a space where practicality and everything is going to be needed.
So how do we form beliefs in an age of misinformation?
We know that the world is chaotic, that the media is unreliable,
that how we're getting information, there's a bias and a spin always.
(27:21):
So how would you say is a way that we can really sift through and find truth in a time in the world
where people are trying to inform us and tell us what we need to believe?
Yeah, for a geriatric millennial like me, when I was younger, I lived in a more innocent world, I think.
(27:44):
In fact, even within the years since our book came out, the landscape has changed dramatically with AI.
So if there's ever a second edition, I think we would have to address that.
We're kind of at a place where in who knows, maybe in another year, just because of how
(28:07):
advanced and how fast this thing is progressing, that we might not be able to confidently believe
whatever we see on the internet or through the screen, right?
We might have to see with our own eyes to be able to truly believe something.
And with video, how AI can just really determine photos and even video and stuff like that,
(28:31):
like it's, I think we're in a way more difficult era than ever before to determine truth.
Since a year ago, I don't know how I can confidently answer this question,
just because how fast technology has gone and it has accelerated the age of misinformation.
So where I would go here then, and I don't know, again, I think it's probably going to be inadequate,
(28:57):
is an epistemology with Alvin Plintaga, who I am a big fan of.
When I studied his theory of knowledge, I quickly recognized that there needs to be
an element of virtue, like intellectual virtues, like open-mindedness and clarity and pursuit
of evidence and things like that. But virtues aren't solely individual.
(29:19):
Our communities play a huge role, a critical role in delivering truth to us.
From when we are babies to children, to being a student, to just being friends,
whatnot, we receive much of our knowledge of truth from other people.
If we are part of a virtuous community, there is probably a higher chance of our community
(29:48):
arriving at truth compared to one that practices intellectual vice.
As in they're more than willing to jump to conclusions easily and quickly.
Those who are apt to just believe whatever is seen on the internet or whatnot and will follow
every gossip, whatever. And so as Christians, as people who confess that we worship one who
(30:18):
is ultimately true, again, truth not in a mere cognitive sense, but one who is love and faithful
and whatnot, in order to participate, perform our fidelity, our faithfulness to God,
then we as individuals and communities must get on the road to learning and cultivating
(30:43):
our virtues, to grow in wisdom, grow in discernment, so that maybe when I'm lacking
in my ability to figure out whether something is AI generated or whatnot, but maybe there's
somebody who's Gen Z, right? Somebody who's like 19 years old, but is way much smarter than me in
(31:04):
this aspect and have studied it and honed his or her time and skills in looking at these things,
maybe able to contribute. So this is where maybe, yeah, the pursuit of virtues in partnership,
in reliance with the Holy Spirit, who we still believe will deliver us to truth,
(31:24):
will give us a better chance to navigating in this age of misinformation.
So it sounds a little bit like you're saying, and you're saying more than this, but part of what
you're saying sounds like it needs to be proven by action, by being lived in. So truth will reveal
itself in the actions of a person or individual of their pursuit of this certain life. Is that
(31:49):
part of it? You can't just rely on like, oh, I can fact check this, but you have to kind of feel
this experiential truth. You know what I mean? This is something that this person lives in.
Oh yeah, I mean, I'm huge on performative correspondence. Correspondence is just mere
idea proposition to some reality out there. We are always participating in truth, whether we
(32:12):
like it or not, or truth or falsity, right? And so there is definitely going to be an active
and also a emotive, affective side to it. Like, do I truly desire truth? Do I truly love truth?
Do I love people to want to know the truth to come as a community on our journey toward truth?
(32:34):
Truth in a misinformation age is going to require even a greater commitment, I think,
to living out the truth as a whole body, as an individual, and as a body of Christ. I know that
sounds more theoretical, right? But that's just kind of where I am. This is so new for me.
(32:57):
I think you're right. I mean, I would agree. I also think it's cool that these like, even in,
well, I think it's in Proverbs where it's like, there's a wisdom in the multitude of counsel,
which I feel like you're kind of articulating is like this community aspect is so important of
like, as there's a group of people who are virtuous, who are pursuing this aspect of truth.
And so I kind of love that that kind of like, I feel like the Bible really points us towards
(33:19):
how to pursue truth, because obviously we believe that the Bible is truth. So how it reflects on
that of like how to pursue it, I think that that's really special. But I think we can jump on down
and kind of hit our pastoral application that we like to kind of tack on in the end of all these
to not get too theoretical. But so what would you say, like, what does it mean when we, you know,
(33:42):
we all know this verse, we all know love this verse, right? What does it mean when Jesus says,
I am the way, the truth and the life, and that no one goes to the Father except through me?
Because in that verse, we have the truth term, which we've been trying to unpack this entire
episode. So what do you think, like, what does this verse tell the church about truth?
Truth is a person, not mere proposition, not not something impersonal, which again would lead to
(34:06):
the primacy of merely knowing with our minds and creating the, the unfortunate history that has
followed that type of presupposition and ideology. It has to start and end with Jesus. And of course,
if we start from Jesus, we always get to the Trinity because Jesus is Lord and he's a Savior
(34:26):
and he can't save us unless he's God. And as the Bible reveals to us, the spirit is Trinity.
So given that I'm not a biblical theologian, I'm afraid I'm going to butcher this. So I'm going
to kind of take it again, kind of as a philosopher, more devotionally speaking, Jesus is the way we
(34:48):
have to be on the way. We have to be an apprentice and follow the ways of Jesus by relying on the
Holy Spirit through one another because we are members of the body of Christ of Jesus. Right.
So if, if Jesus is the way, then to follow the way cannot come merely by me or through me. It has to
(35:10):
be in reliance with one another. And that's hard. We like to hurt each other and hate each other.
And, you know, I've suffered from that, those things. Badly, I'm getting better. But still,
I'm not, I'm just merely in the beginning of my journey as well. He's good. Yeah. He's life.
(35:34):
And when we rely on that as a community, I'll just trust on the Holy Spirit and God's faith
fulness that again, knowing truth and pursuing truth is ultimately about faithfulness to God.
And given that he is life and he gives life abundantly and he promises that I will just have
to gladly trust, right? Have faith. And I know that I know that I won't be, I won't fail in that
(36:02):
because God does not fail. It's a, it's a, it's a very basically Christian answer. But like, we can't,
I mean, but like not in a bad way in the, in the kind of way that it's fundamental. It's fundamental
to our faith. Like we're, we're called to live by faith. Carl Bart in his billion pages starts
out his whole church dogmatics with a volume on faith before he gets into anything else.
(36:25):
I had a thought that I want to know what you think about, about this. So Megan and I were on a podcast
recently. It was a crossover podcast with our dear friends, Tim and Jen over at the How to
Church. And they were asking how to minister to Gen Z folks and me being a geriatric millennial as
well. It's more of like, um, I, I, my approach was like, I teach a lot of Gen Z. So like that
(36:50):
question. And then Megan of course, uh, spoke from her own personal experience, you know, like
obviously Gen Z need to be at the table making decisions and all this kind of stuff and don't
just like give them something. But then I did have a thought in it, a epistemological thought in it.
And I want to know what you think. Cause I think this is actually a good thing or an
interesting thing that Gen Z does. This is just observation, but Megan affirmed it. So
(37:14):
resident Gen Z affirm. Yeah. So, uh, in this age of misinformation, when everything is going on,
like, like you just have a billion different narratives about everything and you just can't
even find on the internet. You can't find it. I think one way Gen Z screens out a lot of stuff
is if the person actually believes what they say, if the statement is authentic to them,
(37:36):
because if it's, if they don't believe what they're saying, they won't even listen to the rest of it.
Or like, if they don't feel like they believe what they're saying, they won't listen to the rest,
because what are they doing? They're doing propaganda. They're just trying to sell you
something or something like that. But if they believe what they say, then I think Gen Z will
actually listen, which is when we were talking about in the podcast, that's an open door to ministry.
(37:57):
You know what I mean? Just like live in it. Don't just say these words, be a disciple of Christ
and strive to be like Christ more and more every single day and let that come through in every
aspect of your life. I mean, it is what it is to be, to walk in the Christian life. And then with
that authenticity becomes this discerner for, will I even give this ear? And I think that
(38:19):
actually screens out a whole lot of stuff that is misinformation. What do you think of that?
Yeah, I went as you were speaking, you said this word toward the end. I was thinking authenticity.
And I've always heard, and from my own experience with my students, my Gen Z students, that they
crave authenticity and that they had a very sensitive BS meter when it came to inauthenticity.
(38:45):
And yeah. So I think that is a virtue. I think where Gen Z should work on more is,
I mean, it's just everyone critical thinking skills, because I think critical thinking is also a
very important virtue and skill for developing discernment. Yes, there's that spirit led discernment.
(39:09):
And we play a role in how God has designed the world and how we are to respond to that.
And so, like I was, I was, I'm in a couple of small groups here in my church. And one of my
favorite is one where we do book studies and whatnot and got to know some really cool friends.
(39:33):
And about one person was saying how her son, who is I guess around Gen Z,
he just kind of believes everything that's on TikTok. Yeah. So you can be very authentic on
TikTok, right? I think, right. And so if authenticity is the primary or the only
(39:55):
criterion for accepting a belief or whatnot, that's not good. That's not enough. Yeah.
It's so much muddier for them to see because things that sound legitimate,
you know what I mean? That look of legitimate, like we didn't have that when we were, when we were,
you know what I'm saying? Like we had textbooks that just literally told us what it was. You know
(40:16):
what I'm saying? And we're like, all right, there it is. They got YouTube people that are complete
farces that sound legitimate in school and stuff. You're still top critical thinking.
Like Megan is still top critical thing. She's a very strong critical thinker.
But the difference is you have to cipher through so much, like separating the wheat from the chef
(40:37):
is such a bigger task nowadays than it was, I think, in our day. Kind of plays into what,
and we've used this word a couple of times, this aspect of discernment. And I think that
that spreads multi-generational. I think that all of us are in desperate and like intense need
of a discernment that is rooted in scripture, that is Holy Spirit led, that is something that we
(41:00):
need to lean into. And I think we need to be much less responsive and we need to be more
reflective. And I think we've been taught a lot to just kind of respond to things and be very quick
about it. And I think that we need, especially in an misinformation age, when we're quick to see
something and then post it as if it's gospel truth, we need to be really reflective and not just take
(41:23):
things at face value anymore, unfortunately. But I think that takes all of us, that's a bit to
learn because none of us have really lived this moment before. We've never lived this internet,
this AI, this misinformation space. And so hopefully it can only go up. Hopefully we all
can get better at this and we only go up from here. But as we wrap up, what advice do you think you
(41:46):
can give for Christians who are seeking the truth in such a difficult day? Wow. Yeah, I love,
love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. So we always kind of forget about that.
And if so, then we will love and desire truth and we will need each other in our pursuit of truth
(42:13):
because of the neighbor. Like we have to be in this together. And that's going to be messy.
There are going to be a lot of disputes, perhaps even vehement ones that desire to have to vehemently
disagree about truth claims. But that's just part of what it means to be human in this world.
(42:34):
And so going in with eyes open and relying on the Holy Spirit within the members of the body of
Christ. And also because God loves creation, being open to others were not Christian, because God
speaks of all truth is God's truth. Everyone is a conduit to truth. And so just being open,
(42:58):
critically open, will be important with neighborly love. That's a good, that's a word right there,
open, but critical, critically open. That's a, that is something that I think the church needs to
learn. Agreed. We get so closed off, we don't want to hear anyone else. But then we also can't be
(43:19):
just so open that we let our proclamations of Jesus Christ's Lord wash away. Being open,
critically open, I think is, is such a good, good term. But I have to say, my friend Yoon, you
demonstrate being critically open in a very great way. You're one of my close friends. And,
(43:43):
and, you know, I'm proud of being able to work alongside you and learning from you,
and chatting with you all the time. So thank you for, for joining us in this conversation. I think
there was a lot of stuff to chew on, a lot of stuff to think through. It's kind of scary, you know,
but I think you brought it back to this very, very important and simple key. Love God with
everything you got. And then your pursuit of truth is going to follow that. All right. Well,
(44:07):
thank you, Yoon. Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you. That was good. Yeah. I love picking a
philosopher brain every once in a while. Every once in a while. It's a good thing to do. Yeah,
you gotta, you gotta get around to it. But I think that what we really gotta take from that is that
we are in an age of discernment. Like we need to be so invested and intentional about our
(44:34):
relationship with the Lord and our discernment against and putting everything that we're being
told is truth up against scripture, up against prayer, up against the discernment of the Lord.
And who we know Jesus to be, who we know Jesus to be, and who we know the character of God and
what love means and all of these conversations that we've brought up and had before. Because truth
(44:57):
is God and we need, we're going to need him in these processes. So I think that
as we wrap up this conversation, that's kind of a very key takeaway that we need to be having
with this. Yeah. And you know, we've been saying this throughout this season too, but be in prayer,
being constant prayer, pray for discernment, pray for wisdom, pray for truth, pray for knowing the
(45:21):
truth and seeing the truth. And then also when you do have the truth, not to be arrogant and a
jerk about it, but to be a loving presence, you know, as we are bearers of the truth. Yep. Even
in COVID when we were like, God didn't fall off the throne. So in this era of misinformation,
you know, God is still good. He is still reigning. He is still consistent. And then a lot of
(45:41):
misinformation, God is still the same yesterday, today and forever, yesterday, today and forever,
baby. So we are going to, that's what I'm going to be cleaning too. Sounds good. That's a great
way to end. We had a little motto from four square, by the way, life Pacific University is a four
square institution. Yeah. And this is brought to you by the School of Theology and Ministry.
(46:02):
We'll see you guys next time. See ya.
Hey guys, welcome back to TikTok Theology. I'm Meagan.
(00:03):
I'm Steven.
Oh, you sound really good in ASMR.
There you go.
Have you ever done this before?
Never.
This is kind of exciting.
No, it's pretty awkward. I don't know.
Really?
Yeah.
I think I sound kind of good.
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
(00:24):
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Megan.
And I'm Stephen.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues. TikTok will give us the prompt and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hi friends, welcome back to episode four of season three.
(00:45):
Yay.
Yay.
So today we are titling this episode, finding truth in an era of misinformation.
And oh, are we in an era of misinformation?
Oh, an era indeed.
Mm-hmm.
This is the unspoken Taylor Swift, the 11th era, the era of misinformation.
I do not even know the reference.
That's okay. It's okay. I know people got it. I know enough of the girlies who's got it.
(01:11):
But as so much of this season has been shaped by, and we've mentioned it every episode,
or I'm going to mention it every episode is one of the most insane political seasons we've
ever had.
We've ever had ever, I think.
And so since this season is coming out, really sandwiching political season, the election,
all the things, everything is kind of drawing back in a lot of ways to politics,
(01:32):
in a sense that social media is where we pull our topics from.
And that is taken over the scene right now.
That's what they're talking about.
And as it should, I mean, these are conversations that we need to be having.
And so I think for Christians who vote, people who vote, all of us, especially when we're
someone who we have an ultimate allegiance to the Lord, before we have an allegiance to any
candidate or party, or we should at least, if we're doing it correctly, is that we're looking
(01:58):
for truth. And for us, truth, God's truth, we are looking for the Lord.
We are looking for truth for us as Christians and as believers in an era of misinformation.
I think we can all acknowledge that the media is not out to inform us.
They're not out to educate us.
They're not out to give us the full story.
I mean, we are surrounded by bias and narrative and AI and stuff has gotten nuts.
(02:19):
And like the internet is not a safe place to find truth.
And depending on what books you read, authors aren't necessarily a place to find truth.
Everything is just chaos right now.
And so how are we supposed to find truth as we make these important political decisions
or life decisions or job decisions?
And so we're going to tackle a topic today about how we find that truth in an era of such vast
(02:43):
misinformation.
So we invited my friend and co-author, philosopher named Yun Shin.
He wrote Renewing Christian World View with me.
Shameless self promo.
Yes. We invited him because I think what's really important is we're not going to just
talk about truth in kind of this like simple way that a lot of times you'll hear maybe at
(03:04):
church sometimes or just people talking like, well, how do you know that's true?
Blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And like we're going to talk about it in a philosophical way, like what it actually
can mean.
So we're going to spend some time defining these terms and what's going on because yeah,
like, I mean, we have an era where we're talking about fake news.
We're talking about CNN and ABC, MSNBC, Fox News.
(03:27):
And then some people are like, I just watched the British news shows, BBC.
I'm on the BBC because there is no political bias.
Yeah.
And so people will come to these different ways of thinking about it, but they are saying
a vastly different spin to things that have happened to us in our life politically.
Yes.
So there is no reporting of a story and then you decide what the story is.
(03:51):
They report the story with spin and everybody does that.
And so most of the news channels, because now they're 24 hours, they weren't always 24 hours,
but now they're 24 hours.
They have to make news all the time.
There's always got to be content.
And so it's not just news that's of this happened.
Let's talk about it.
It's speculative.
What would happen if this happened?
If this happened, what would happen here?
What's your opinion on this?
And people's opinions on a certain thing is not news.
(04:13):
Yeah.
And also it's one of those things where the media is so into scaring the fear mongering,
all of that, even that study that came out about how there's metals in tampons and stuff,
and everyone was reporting on that and being like, there's lead in tampons and everyone was freaking out.
And then it, because it's like, oh my gosh, we're putting metal in our bodies.
Ah.
And then other scientists came in and were like, okay, but that level of metal
(04:37):
is also found in rice.
I don't know about the story though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it's like, I mean, that makes sense.
I mean, me as a woman, I was like, oh my God.
But it was like, because it's like how you farm.
And so when you make it with cotton or whatever, that amount of like metals and whatever you put in the soil,
which is how you grow.
They're freaking out for no reason.
Yeah.
And so they're like, hey guys, just to put into perspective, this amount of trace metals are in a lot of things that you consume,
(05:00):
because that's how you fertilize soil that grows cotton or whatever.
And you're like, but for a second I'm like, but like that's the news, you know, like, and it's a story,
but it's not the full story where it's like, there's a spin to it or like they want you to freak out
and start boycotting all the brands that are putting metal in your body.
So it's like, it just shows you that even though that's the truth, that's not the full story.
(05:25):
So it's everything has so many layers to it.
How do we get through it?
How do we find anything?
Yeah, they will get you to go and because of ratings.
Yeah.
There's one channel talks about having news shows and then having opinion shows.
Yeah.
But the prime time shows are usually their opinion shows.
They look exactly the same.
They have the same desks, the same format, same everything, but one of them is a guy or girl just spewing opinions.
(05:50):
And the other one is actually reporting on the facts.
And it's a news show.
It's a news channel.
This is the kind of stuff that's super duper confusing and hurts public trust in information that comes across.
And like, well, how can you like you can't trust anything, you know, like just, but with that,
and if you are already not trusting the things that you were supposed to trust,
then this opens the door for conspiracy theories.
(06:12):
Yeah.
And then with social media going rampant.
Oh, yeah.
Now they'll just stoke the fire of conspiracy theories all over the place.
You get a bunch of crazy junk that's been reported that people will do and it will motivate people to do horrendous things.
Like, well, most of us don't even get our news from news channels anymore.
It's like, if I see it on social media, that's fact.
(06:33):
Unfortunately.
And so now we're, I don't even know what to believe half the time.
So which is problematic and difficult.
It is awful.
So how do we navigate a world that has become I can't trust nobody and nothing, but just remember friends.
Who can we trust?
Jesus.
Jesus.
But then we also can't trust a lot of people who who say they love Jesus, who say they love Jesus because they have
(06:54):
ulterior political motives or something like that.
So, you know, it's not easy.
It's not easy.
And that's why we're having this conversation today.
So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about some terms that we're going to use.
And again, we're going to take a philosophical approach here.
So truth in general, if we were to define it, most people would use kind of a general empirical definition.
(07:16):
So empirical meaning like something you can test like scientifically, like it's an empirical knowledge.
And so this general definition would be truth is the quality or state of being in accordance with fact or reality.
Okay.
The quality state of being in accordance with factor reality, which is basically a simple way of talking about the correspondence theory of truth.
(07:39):
So these are the various theories of truth.
And you're going to find interesting these four different groupings and there's more and they overlap.
So this is not like super duper concise, but you'll see that these ways of understanding truth
can vastly determine how people view the world and even fields of study.
They use different types.
So like, let me explain.
(07:59):
So the first one that I just mentioned is the correspondence theory and it's the empirical one.
It basically says truth is what responds to reality effects.
That's science, right?
Like it is true if it is scientifically proven.
Yeah.
Like the laws of gravity or whatever, like that's true because you can prove it with whatever.
So there's that.
Then there's a coherence theory of truth.
(08:20):
Now again, most people would probably like mix and match and use multiple of these.
But the coherence theory basically says truth is what is consistent and coherent with a set of beliefs or propositions.
So this could be seen as relativist though, because that means the truth is only true relative to that thing.
So look at it in the sense of like theology.
(08:42):
If I were to say the Trinity is the most appropriate way to talk about God, this is a theological statement.
Now, is that an empirically true statement?
It's not really a testable empirical thing.
Right.
But in the realm of theology in Christian faith, that is something that is testable against itself.
Yes.
Right.
So I might say, well, no, the Trinity is not.
And then I can go point to a whole bunch of scriptures.
(09:04):
I can point to a whole bunch of stuff.
I can point to season two episode something where we talked about the Trinity.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I can, I can, I can point to different things that say like, no, this is,
you can see that this idea is coherent to our Christian faith claim.
But the thing is that that truth is relative to our Christian faith claim,
right?
Which is important to say that doesn't mean just relative as truth.
(09:26):
Like, like, oh, it's not really true.
It's just rather that just means like, if I were to say, what do you think is Taylor Swift's best song?
Oh, no.
I think Taylor Swift's best song is probably the all too well 10 minute version.
Okay. So if you said the all too well 10 minute version is one of the best Taylor Swift songs.
(09:46):
Yes.
You didn't even say the best and say one of the best.
Yeah.
You could say that's a true statement, right?
Yes.
But it's true only relative to her music, to that world, right?
And this also goes into kind of like this, what do most people agree with?
You know, and that's what made that true.
So if most Swifties believe that that's true, then that's what will make it true there.
(10:07):
But it is a relative truth because it is within the realm of swiftiness.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Again, not like it's false, but it's just a way to think about truth.
And we do this all the time and all sorts of things, you know, like all of our fields have
their own truths that exist within those fields.
Correct.
So that's a, that's a coherence theory.
There's a pragmatic theory.
This is where it says that truth is what works or has practical consequence.
(10:27):
So what is true is what works.
Now this could be used in an evil way, what's expedient, but it's also practical.
I mean, this is why it's a pragmatic thing.
We do this all the time.
So like a very clear example of something that is practically true would be how politics
actually uses truth.
So they would not necessarily say, oh, this is true because it's ethically right or because
(10:51):
of whatever, but they would say, no, it's practical.
It actually works.
This is the thing that will work.
Kind of like this is what practically works out.
It's a pragmatic thing.
Truth is what works or has practical consequences.
So like that sounds a little relative too.
Like if it doesn't work, then it's not true.
And then these are the things that we'll use in certain things.
So the last view is the constructivist theory.
(11:13):
Here, truth is constructed by social processes,
such as cultural and historical context.
And so this is something that's used a lot by post-colonial studies.
Have you ever heard of that term post-colonial studies?
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, it's just a post colonization.
So what are the people groups that were colonized?
What are their narratives?
(11:34):
What are their stories?
What are their histories?
Not the histories of the colonizers,
but the histories of the indigenous groups that were colonized.
That's kind of as post-colonial studies.
And so the constructivist theory talks about truth is constructed
by these social and cultural historical context.
So for instance, if in liberation,
like a Hispanic liberation theology
(11:54):
and like Gustavo Gutierrez and Lima Perú,
one of his points was how can what Carl Bart is saying,
have any relevance at all to the plight of the Peruvians
that are in my parish?
And so he wanted to theology from the margins
and specifically from the margins of Lima Perú.
And so this is kind of like a constructivist theory of truth.
It's like those things are true based on their social, cultural,
(12:15):
and historical context.
So they may not be true across board,
but they're true for this.
So you can't just say something and hoist it upon them.
This can go all sorts of different ways.
And I'm looking a little bit more theologically
on how it would work.
But you can see all of these things being used in theology,
being used in different realms of thought
and the way people would say stuff
(12:37):
between theology, politics, science, everything.
All of our public discourse is going to use
these various theories of truth in different ways.
It's kind of wanting to say that just to point that out.
What do you think about that?
Is that already like speaking a little helpfully
or something or does it muddy things up?
I think it helps in the sense of that when we use,
(12:58):
especially as Christians, where we're like,
well, we know the truth in the sense that the truth is Jesus
and the truth is God, which is true.
I would agree with that statement.
I think we would all agree with that statement.
But I think that these kinds of different theories of truth
should help all of us shape our understanding
of a broader perspective.
That it's like even necessarily,
even what we're talking here about,
(13:18):
like liberation theology is like Gustavo Gutierrez
didn't feel like the theology from a white man
had the same theological truths for him and his people
because they were oppressed.
So he's like, well, it doesn't matter
because you're speaking to a free people
and we're not a free people.
They do know what they're talking about,
but from a completely different cultural perimeter.
(13:39):
And so all of us saying,
like we have a lot of Christians in different places
that all have and come from, we would say,
and affirm a truth, but that truth is very nuanced
in a cultural reality, in a spiritual background,
in a denominational viewpoint.
So to say and make blanket statements,
(14:00):
like, oh, we're here for the truth.
I think what they're trying to say is this.
So imagine this.
Imagine somebody, we've already had this kind of conversation
a bunch of times with people, right?
So it'd be like, hey, God exists.
And then some atheists or somebody will be like,
well, how do you know?
Then the person will respond,
well, because the Bible says so,
and because I've experienced God in my own life.
Right.
Here's the thing.
(14:20):
The guy said, and this is the confusing part,
the guy said, God is true.
Now he said it as if it was an empirical statement,
as if it was a correspondence theory statement of the truth.
And that is how the atheists heard it.
And so what the atheists is looking for now
is naturalistic evidence to your claim,
(14:40):
empirical evidence to your claim.
But then how, what was his response?
His response was a coherence theory response.
Right.
It's true based on my own faith tradition,
which is also spoken about in scripture.
Yep.
And so guess what?
They spoke past each other.
Yep.
And so you didn't satisfy the query of the atheists
(15:01):
and you also didn't prove God.
Correct.
You didn't do either of these things.
It's important for us to understand that.
So let's talk a little bit about you.
So you, my homie, did not send me his biography.
So I'm going to tell you his biography from my own heart.
(15:22):
Okay.
And from what I can find on LinkedIn.
Look at you.
Yoon Shin is a real estate investor
and administrative professional.
That's what it says on his LinkedIn.
He has an Airbnb in Northern Florida.
That's what I know about him.
And he is...
And that's what makes him a good component to talk about truth.
(15:43):
That is true that he does this.
Yoon is also the group's minister at Battle Creek Broken Arrow in Oklahoma.
And he previously lived in Florida.
He and I went to school together,
been to a million different conferences and things together.
And he's a brilliant guy.
He was a professor at Southeastern for many years
(16:04):
and recently had just a big life change.
And now he's over in Oklahoma,
pastoring and I guess still real stating, you know what I mean?
And doing his thing.
Bivocational realness.
Just an all-around good fella.
So I'm excited for you guys all to meet Yoon,
one of my favorite dudes.
And we're going to try to get him to speak
(16:25):
in a way that is understandable.
I don't know how successful we'll be.
We're going to try.
Because you know how philosophers be sometimes.
Philosophers do be philosophizing.
And he might just...
He might just do that.
All right, let's turn to that.
Yoon, get ready.
You're going to be grilled.
Here we go.
All right.
We're going to grill you.
All right. So first question we have,
(16:45):
because this is kind of a tough question,
philosophically rich.
It's kind of the bread and butter of your field, epistemology.
How would you define truth in the first place?
And is there a difference between a philosophical definition
of truth or a theological definition of truth?
(17:05):
Yeah. Great question.
Truth is just about the state of being, about the fact.
Right?
So we could say that that's the philosophical definition,
kind of fundamentally.
And the way I describe it there also has to do is,
it kind of aligns more with the correspondence theory of truth.
(17:27):
Yeah.
But theologically, I think we can go a little bit deeper
in a different way, because I would, of course,
as a Christian, I would tie truth to God.
God is truth.
God is the ultimate reality.
He's a creator, and everything else is creature.
(17:50):
My, I mean, that's true.
Yes, kind of bare bones.
But my issue with something like that is just like much
of theology and philosophy, it's just too mental.
The technical term being kind of no etiquette.
It's about the mind.
It's about cognition.
Right.
And then all the conversations just kind of rolls around,
(18:13):
revolves around what we know cognitively.
And all the debates and often because of our sinful nature,
it defines who is in the right tribe against those who are in,
who are outside the right tribe.
And unfortunately, as we know, and just in human history,
(18:35):
both Christian and not that type of very exclusivist,
cognitive posture has led to violence.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I really like how this biblical theologian
and biblical philosopher named Drew Johnson,
(18:56):
this amazing guy, he talks about how for the Hebrews
and kind of biblically speaking,
truth is not ultimately, I mean, I don't say ultimately,
but really primarily about knowing some objective fact.
But it's about being faithful to God.
(19:18):
But there's a performative aspect to truth.
Like you're living the truth.
Exactly.
Yes.
Right.
I mean, I've met some really smart jerks.
Yeah.
Who cares about that, right?
We, as Christians, we ought to care about truth in the fullest sense
(19:39):
in that it truth takes us and brings us to fidelity with ultimate reality.
Right.
It's God knowing God, knowing God, not merely with our cognition,
but with our hearts, our whole being, with our actions.
So I would say that that type of theological understanding of truth
(20:02):
is more meaningful to me.
Okay.
The deeper and more holistic way of knowing.
I think I make the distinction sometimes,
and I've talked to you about this a bunch of times,
and it's a little bit of wordplay,
but I think you can kind of get the point that's being made.
There's a difference between true facts,
we'll just say true facts, and then truth.
(20:23):
And that truth is that kind of holistic thing that,
that, you know, is that you live into.
It affects every aspect of your life,
whereas a true fact could be the thing that corresponds to reality in a real way.
Right.
Like, and so knowing facts, like you said,
you know, somebody who's a smart jerk, you know, that knows true facts,
(20:44):
is not necessarily the same thing as saying, I know the truth.
There's a sense of, there's wisdom involved in knowing the truth.
Right.
Oh yeah.
I mean, if truth is ultimately God,
God is not some abstract reality and abstract concept.
All right.
So this can lead to a question that is,
that we'll hear a lot of times, we'll hear in church all the time,
(21:04):
and then we'll hear pastors and different people kind of say very reductionistic ways,
like things about this, and just like kind of proclaim it like, oh, this is it.
But I think it's a deeper question,
and I'd like you to talk about a little bit.
Can we know things to be absolutely true?
So I know that's the big epistemological question.
(21:25):
So if you could define a little bit about what that might mean,
you know, the difference between knowledge and belief,
believing something to be absolutely true,
and knowing something to be absolutely true.
Like if you could talk a little bit, what might be the difference there?
Yeah.
One, I mean, yes, in certain circles, and I would say in your ordinary language
(21:46):
of the church, of certain church traditions,
like absolute truth is a common violence, common language.
This is absolutely true.
And I think what they mean is that certain facts, certain states,
certain proposition is objectively true, as in it's mind independently true.
(22:07):
Again, as someone who subscribes to correspondence degree of truth,
I would say, yes, true.
I accept that if we mean by objective truth.
But once again, that's bare minimum acknowledgement, right?
We need to go beyond that.
And so my problem with the language of absolute truth, rather than objective truth,
(22:34):
is that I think only God is absolute.
If we're going to kind of take absolute in its definition,
like Webster's type of definition,
something that has no exception or whatnot, it's contextless.
Things that are not very much finite, like human beings like creatures, right?
(22:57):
Well, to me, and perhaps this is my reformed heritage,
I did go to a reform seminar for a while, one of my favorite professors
who was just winsomely reformed is John Frang.
And he even borrowing from somebody like Cornelius Vantil would say
(23:17):
that only God is an absolute person, an absolute personality.
Everything else that's creature cannot be absolute.
So when we say that we know something that's to be absolutely true or absolute truth,
seems for me to violate the creator-creature distinction.
(23:38):
Yeah, we're saying we know things like God.
Yeah, yeah.
And in a univocal sense, not in a what's called an analogical sense,
univocal as in my mind has reached the level of the divine mind,
maybe not like quantitatively, like God, of course, knows more about a thing.
(24:00):
But of the same quality.
Yeah, exactly same quality.
But I follow Thomas Aquinas and his understanding of analogical knowledge that,
analogies deliver meaning and understanding, but more like a through a metaphor,
it doesn't deliver it directly.
But we can still have some semblance of knowledge.
(24:21):
So kind of like the famous examples are like, hey, if the way I say I love my wife is different than I love my dog or whatnot,
they're qualitatively different.
And so our knowledge of the divine mind, what God knows is via like an analogy,
rather than something that's direct one to one, what we call univocal knowledge.
(24:43):
And so when we say that we are, that we know something as absolute truth,
even if they mean objectively, I think the language can tend to shape the social understanding
and the social way in which we now live out what it means to know something as absolute truth becomes very rigid.
(25:08):
It becomes as if now we have the divine right to say, and the divine authority to say,
this is right, I know it.
And if you disagree with me, then you're out.
And because there's this divine authority behind it,
the actions can tend to be more than merely exclusive to say you're part of that tribe,
(25:31):
but to become vehement, not following the ways of the peaceable kingdom of Jesus.
And if anyone holds any belief, they are automatically saying no to a whole bunch of other contrary beliefs.
Like to hold anything to be true, you are saying there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's untrue,
like that you're already doing that.
And that's perfectly fine to do.
(25:53):
That's not actually the problem here.
I think one issue that people have is a matter of what some scholars would call epistemological humility,
or just the acknowledgement that we are all finite.
We believe things to be true and we can be wrong,
even though we're deep-seatedly understanding that this is what I think is true.
(26:15):
Some things I'm just very confident and convinced about.
And so I'm going to say, no, I genuinely think you are wrong and I am right.
And there's going to be some consequences on how I would communicate this and live out my life in relation to the person I disagree with.
(26:36):
However, how I utilize that knowledge claim from the perspective of Jesus' lordship, his authority and power should look different.
So with all of the understanding of what information is and what truth is and different theories and stuff,
I think what we want to do is put practicality to this,
(27:00):
where we kind of take the theoretical and kind of make it a wee bit practical,
especially as we head into a space where practicality and everything is going to be needed.
So how do we form beliefs in an age of misinformation?
We know that the world is chaotic, that the media is unreliable,
that how we're getting information, there's a bias and a spin always.
(27:21):
So how would you say is a way that we can really sift through and find truth in a time in the world
where people are trying to inform us and tell us what we need to believe?
Yeah, for a geriatric millennial like me, when I was younger, I lived in a more innocent world, I think.
(27:44):
In fact, even within the years since our book came out, the landscape has changed dramatically with AI.
So if there's ever a second edition, I think we would have to address that.
We're kind of at a place where in who knows, maybe in another year, just because of how
(28:07):
advanced and how fast this thing is progressing, that we might not be able to confidently believe
whatever we see on the internet or through the screen, right?
We might have to see with our own eyes to be able to truly believe something.
And with video, how AI can just really determine photos and even video and stuff like that,
(28:31):
like it's, I think we're in a way more difficult era than ever before to determine truth.
Since a year ago, I don't know how I can confidently answer this question,
just because how fast technology has gone and it has accelerated the age of misinformation.
So where I would go here then, and I don't know, again, I think it's probably going to be inadequate,
(28:57):
is an epistemology with Alvin Plintaga, who I am a big fan of.
When I studied his theory of knowledge, I quickly recognized that there needs to be
an element of virtue, like intellectual virtues, like open-mindedness and clarity and pursuit
of evidence and things like that. But virtues aren't solely individual.
(29:19):
Our communities play a huge role, a critical role in delivering truth to us.
From when we are babies to children, to being a student, to just being friends,
whatnot, we receive much of our knowledge of truth from other people.
If we are part of a virtuous community, there is probably a higher chance of our community
(29:48):
arriving at truth compared to one that practices intellectual vice.
As in they're more than willing to jump to conclusions easily and quickly.
Those who are apt to just believe whatever is seen on the internet or whatnot and will follow
every gossip, whatever. And so as Christians, as people who confess that we worship one who
(30:18):
is ultimately true, again, truth not in a mere cognitive sense, but one who is love and faithful
and whatnot, in order to participate, perform our fidelity, our faithfulness to God,
then we as individuals and communities must get on the road to learning and cultivating
(30:43):
our virtues, to grow in wisdom, grow in discernment, so that maybe when I'm lacking
in my ability to figure out whether something is AI generated or whatnot, but maybe there's
somebody who's Gen Z, right? Somebody who's like 19 years old, but is way much smarter than me in
(31:04):
this aspect and have studied it and honed his or her time and skills in looking at these things,
maybe able to contribute. So this is where maybe, yeah, the pursuit of virtues in partnership,
in reliance with the Holy Spirit, who we still believe will deliver us to truth,
(31:24):
will give us a better chance to navigating in this age of misinformation.
So it sounds a little bit like you're saying, and you're saying more than this, but part of what
you're saying sounds like it needs to be proven by action, by being lived in. So truth will reveal
itself in the actions of a person or individual of their pursuit of this certain life. Is that
(31:49):
part of it? You can't just rely on like, oh, I can fact check this, but you have to kind of feel
this experiential truth. You know what I mean? This is something that this person lives in.
Oh yeah, I mean, I'm huge on performative correspondence. Correspondence is just mere
idea proposition to some reality out there. We are always participating in truth, whether we
(32:12):
like it or not, or truth or falsity, right? And so there is definitely going to be an active
and also a emotive, affective side to it. Like, do I truly desire truth? Do I truly love truth?
Do I love people to want to know the truth to come as a community on our journey toward truth?
(32:34):
Truth in a misinformation age is going to require even a greater commitment, I think,
to living out the truth as a whole body, as an individual, and as a body of Christ. I know that
sounds more theoretical, right? But that's just kind of where I am. This is so new for me.
(32:57):
I think you're right. I mean, I would agree. I also think it's cool that these like, even in,
well, I think it's in Proverbs where it's like, there's a wisdom in the multitude of counsel,
which I feel like you're kind of articulating is like this community aspect is so important of
like, as there's a group of people who are virtuous, who are pursuing this aspect of truth.
And so I kind of love that that kind of like, I feel like the Bible really points us towards
(33:19):
how to pursue truth, because obviously we believe that the Bible is truth. So how it reflects on
that of like how to pursue it, I think that that's really special. But I think we can jump on down
and kind of hit our pastoral application that we like to kind of tack on in the end of all these
to not get too theoretical. But so what would you say, like, what does it mean when we, you know,
(33:42):
we all know this verse, we all know love this verse, right? What does it mean when Jesus says,
I am the way, the truth and the life, and that no one goes to the Father except through me?
Because in that verse, we have the truth term, which we've been trying to unpack this entire
episode. So what do you think, like, what does this verse tell the church about truth?
Truth is a person, not mere proposition, not not something impersonal, which again would lead to
(34:06):
the primacy of merely knowing with our minds and creating the, the unfortunate history that has
followed that type of presupposition and ideology. It has to start and end with Jesus. And of course,
if we start from Jesus, we always get to the Trinity because Jesus is Lord and he's a Savior
(34:26):
and he can't save us unless he's God. And as the Bible reveals to us, the spirit is Trinity.
So given that I'm not a biblical theologian, I'm afraid I'm going to butcher this. So I'm going
to kind of take it again, kind of as a philosopher, more devotionally speaking, Jesus is the way we
(34:48):
have to be on the way. We have to be an apprentice and follow the ways of Jesus by relying on the
Holy Spirit through one another because we are members of the body of Christ of Jesus. Right.
So if, if Jesus is the way, then to follow the way cannot come merely by me or through me. It has to
(35:10):
be in reliance with one another. And that's hard. We like to hurt each other and hate each other.
And, you know, I've suffered from that, those things. Badly, I'm getting better. But still,
I'm not, I'm just merely in the beginning of my journey as well. He's good. Yeah. He's life.
(35:34):
And when we rely on that as a community, I'll just trust on the Holy Spirit and God's faith
fulness that again, knowing truth and pursuing truth is ultimately about faithfulness to God.
And given that he is life and he gives life abundantly and he promises that I will just have
to gladly trust, right? Have faith. And I know that I know that I won't be, I won't fail in that
(36:02):
because God does not fail. It's a, it's a, it's a very basically Christian answer. But like, we can't,
I mean, but like not in a bad way in the, in the kind of way that it's fundamental. It's fundamental
to our faith. Like we're, we're called to live by faith. Carl Bart in his billion pages starts
out his whole church dogmatics with a volume on faith before he gets into anything else.
(36:25):
I had a thought that I want to know what you think about, about this. So Megan and I were on a podcast
recently. It was a crossover podcast with our dear friends, Tim and Jen over at the How to
Church. And they were asking how to minister to Gen Z folks and me being a geriatric millennial as
well. It's more of like, um, I, I, my approach was like, I teach a lot of Gen Z. So like that
(36:50):
question. And then Megan of course, uh, spoke from her own personal experience, you know, like
obviously Gen Z need to be at the table making decisions and all this kind of stuff and don't
just like give them something. But then I did have a thought in it, a epistemological thought in it.
And I want to know what you think. Cause I think this is actually a good thing or an
interesting thing that Gen Z does. This is just observation, but Megan affirmed it. So
(37:14):
resident Gen Z affirm. Yeah. So, uh, in this age of misinformation, when everything is going on,
like, like you just have a billion different narratives about everything and you just can't
even find on the internet. You can't find it. I think one way Gen Z screens out a lot of stuff
is if the person actually believes what they say, if the statement is authentic to them,
(37:36):
because if it's, if they don't believe what they're saying, they won't even listen to the rest of it.
Or like, if they don't feel like they believe what they're saying, they won't listen to the rest,
because what are they doing? They're doing propaganda. They're just trying to sell you
something or something like that. But if they believe what they say, then I think Gen Z will
actually listen, which is when we were talking about in the podcast, that's an open door to ministry.
(37:57):
You know what I mean? Just like live in it. Don't just say these words, be a disciple of Christ
and strive to be like Christ more and more every single day and let that come through in every
aspect of your life. I mean, it is what it is to be, to walk in the Christian life. And then with
that authenticity becomes this discerner for, will I even give this ear? And I think that
(38:19):
actually screens out a whole lot of stuff that is misinformation. What do you think of that?
Yeah, I went as you were speaking, you said this word toward the end. I was thinking authenticity.
And I've always heard, and from my own experience with my students, my Gen Z students, that they
crave authenticity and that they had a very sensitive BS meter when it came to inauthenticity.
(38:45):
And yeah. So I think that is a virtue. I think where Gen Z should work on more is,
I mean, it's just everyone critical thinking skills, because I think critical thinking is also a
very important virtue and skill for developing discernment. Yes, there's that spirit led discernment.
(39:09):
And we play a role in how God has designed the world and how we are to respond to that.
And so, like I was, I was, I'm in a couple of small groups here in my church. And one of my
favorite is one where we do book studies and whatnot and got to know some really cool friends.
(39:33):
And about one person was saying how her son, who is I guess around Gen Z,
he just kind of believes everything that's on TikTok. Yeah. So you can be very authentic on
TikTok, right? I think, right. And so if authenticity is the primary or the only
(39:55):
criterion for accepting a belief or whatnot, that's not good. That's not enough. Yeah.
It's so much muddier for them to see because things that sound legitimate,
you know what I mean? That look of legitimate, like we didn't have that when we were, when we were,
you know what I'm saying? Like we had textbooks that just literally told us what it was. You know
(40:16):
what I'm saying? And we're like, all right, there it is. They got YouTube people that are complete
farces that sound legitimate in school and stuff. You're still top critical thinking.
Like Megan is still top critical thing. She's a very strong critical thinker.
But the difference is you have to cipher through so much, like separating the wheat from the chef
(40:37):
is such a bigger task nowadays than it was, I think, in our day. Kind of plays into what,
and we've used this word a couple of times, this aspect of discernment. And I think that
that spreads multi-generational. I think that all of us are in desperate and like intense need
of a discernment that is rooted in scripture, that is Holy Spirit led, that is something that we
(41:00):
need to lean into. And I think we need to be much less responsive and we need to be more
reflective. And I think we've been taught a lot to just kind of respond to things and be very quick
about it. And I think that we need, especially in an misinformation age, when we're quick to see
something and then post it as if it's gospel truth, we need to be really reflective and not just take
(41:23):
things at face value anymore, unfortunately. But I think that takes all of us, that's a bit to
learn because none of us have really lived this moment before. We've never lived this internet,
this AI, this misinformation space. And so hopefully it can only go up. Hopefully we all
can get better at this and we only go up from here. But as we wrap up, what advice do you think you
(41:46):
can give for Christians who are seeking the truth in such a difficult day? Wow. Yeah, I love,
love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. So we always kind of forget about that.
And if so, then we will love and desire truth and we will need each other in our pursuit of truth
(42:13):
because of the neighbor. Like we have to be in this together. And that's going to be messy.
There are going to be a lot of disputes, perhaps even vehement ones that desire to have to vehemently
disagree about truth claims. But that's just part of what it means to be human in this world.
(42:34):
And so going in with eyes open and relying on the Holy Spirit within the members of the body of
Christ. And also because God loves creation, being open to others were not Christian, because God
speaks of all truth is God's truth. Everyone is a conduit to truth. And so just being open,
(42:58):
critically open, will be important with neighborly love. That's a good, that's a word right there,
open, but critical, critically open. That's a, that is something that I think the church needs to
learn. Agreed. We get so closed off, we don't want to hear anyone else. But then we also can't be
(43:19):
just so open that we let our proclamations of Jesus Christ's Lord wash away. Being open,
critically open, I think is, is such a good, good term. But I have to say, my friend Yoon, you
demonstrate being critically open in a very great way. You're one of my close friends. And,
(43:43):
and, you know, I'm proud of being able to work alongside you and learning from you,
and chatting with you all the time. So thank you for, for joining us in this conversation. I think
there was a lot of stuff to chew on, a lot of stuff to think through. It's kind of scary, you know,
but I think you brought it back to this very, very important and simple key. Love God with
everything you got. And then your pursuit of truth is going to follow that. All right. Well,
(44:07):
thank you, Yoon. Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you. That was good. Yeah. I love picking a
philosopher brain every once in a while. Every once in a while. It's a good thing to do. Yeah,
you gotta, you gotta get around to it. But I think that what we really gotta take from that is that
we are in an age of discernment. Like we need to be so invested and intentional about our
(44:34):
relationship with the Lord and our discernment against and putting everything that we're being
told is truth up against scripture, up against prayer, up against the discernment of the Lord.
And who we know Jesus to be, who we know Jesus to be, and who we know the character of God and
what love means and all of these conversations that we've brought up and had before. Because truth
(44:57):
is God and we need, we're going to need him in these processes. So I think that
as we wrap up this conversation, that's kind of a very key takeaway that we need to be having
with this. Yeah. And you know, we've been saying this throughout this season too, but be in prayer,
being constant prayer, pray for discernment, pray for wisdom, pray for truth, pray for knowing the
(45:21):
truth and seeing the truth. And then also when you do have the truth, not to be arrogant and a
jerk about it, but to be a loving presence, you know, as we are bearers of the truth. Yep. Even
in COVID when we were like, God didn't fall off the throne. So in this era of misinformation,
you know, God is still good. He is still reigning. He is still consistent. And then a lot of
(45:41):
misinformation, God is still the same yesterday, today and forever, yesterday, today and forever,
baby. So we are going to, that's what I'm going to be cleaning too. Sounds good. That's a great
way to end. We had a little motto from four square, by the way, life Pacific University is a four
square institution. Yeah. And this is brought to you by the School of Theology and Ministry.
(46:02):
We'll see you guys next time. See ya.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.