When a Culture Rejects God, Who Defines Truth?
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We live in a world with more knowledge than any generation before us, yet knowledge alone cannot answer the questions that matter most.
We can study the human body in extraordinary detail. We can explore space, develop new technologies, treat diseases, build complex legal systems, and gather information at an incredible rate. But none of those things can ultimately tell us why we are here, what gives human life value, what is morally right or wrong, or what happens after we die.
Those are questions of truth, meaning, morality, and purpose.
And that brings us to a question we desperately need to answer: Who defines truth?
I believe Scripture gives us the answer, and the warning found in Hosea 4 is one we need to take seriously.
A Culture That Has Forgotten God
Hosea 4 begins with a sobering description of a culture that had turned away from God.
The Lord brings a charge against the people because there is no truth, mercy, or knowledge of God in the land. The passage goes on to describe lying, killing, stealing, adultery, violence, and the rejection of God’s Word. Then comes a statement that should make every Christian stop and think:
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
But notice the context.
God wasn’t talking about a people who simply lacked information. He said they had rejected knowledge and forgotten the law of God.
A person can possess enormous amounts of information and still lack the knowledge that matters most.
We can know how the universe works without knowing why we exist.
We can understand biology without knowing what gives human life its value.
We can develop medicine without being able to answer every question about suffering and death.
We can create laws without those laws being able to establish the ultimate source of morality.
Knowledge is valuable, but knowledge isn’t the same thing as truth.
We Have More Information, But Are We Any Closer to Truth?
We’re living in an age where knowledge is increasing at an astonishing rate.
Yet despite all this information, we’re still wrestling with the most basic questions of human existence.
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- What is my purpose?
- What is right and wrong?
- What gives human life worth?
- What happens after I die?
These aren’t merely scientific questions.
They are questions that reach into the very foundation of human existence.
In Albert Einstein’s 1939 address at Princeton Theological Seminary, he discussed the relationship between science and religion.
One of the points from that presentation was that scientific knowledge alone cannot establish the principles by which we determine what we ought to do.
This is crucial.
Science can tell us many things about what is.
But knowing what is doesn’t automatically tell us what should be.
And that’s where we run into a serious problem when we make science, human reason, or any other discipline the ultimate authority for every area of life.
Science Is Good, But Science Isn’t God
Let me be clear about something because I don’t want this point misunderstood.
Science is good.
Medicine is critically important.
Law is vital to a functioning culture.
I believe each of these disciplines has tremendous value. They help us understand the physical world, care for human beings, and establish order within society.
But they each have limitations.
Science can investigate the physical world.
Medicine can diagnose and treat disease.
Law can establish rules and consequences within a society.
But none of these disciplines, by themselves, can answer the fundamental questions of human existence.
Science cannot tell you why you exist.
Medicine cannot tell you what your eternal destiny is.
Law cannot ultimately determine what makes something morally right or wrong.
These disciplines can give us important information, but they cannot provide the complete foundation for human life.
That’s why I believe we make a serious mistake when we expect human knowledge to answer questions that belong to the realm of truth, morality, meaning, and eternity.
Who Defines Right and Wrong?
This is where the question of authority becomes so important.
If God doesn’t define truth, then who does?
If Scripture doesn’t establish the foundation for morality, then what does?
If there is no objective standard outside of ourselves, we’re left with human beings deciding what is right and wrong based on whatever ideas happen to be accepted at a particular moment.
And that creates an unstable foundation.
What one generation calls good, another generation can call evil.
What one society celebrates, another can condemn.
What is considered morally acceptable can change as cultural values change.
But if truth is grounded in God, then truth isn’t constantly changing because human opinion changes.
That’s why Scripture matters so much.
The Bible doesn’t simply give us information about God. It gives us a framework for understanding ourselves, our purpose, morality, relationships, sin, redemption, and eternity.
It gives us answers to the questions that human knowledge alone cannot answer.
What Happens When God’s Word Is Removed?
This is the warning I see in Hosea, and it’s a warning I believe we need to consider carefully.
When a culture rejects the knowledge of God, something happens.
The loss isn’t simply religious.
It affects the way people understand human beings, morality, purpose, responsibility, and truth.
In today’s podcast, I describe what happens when God’s Word is removed from a culture, as darkness becomes even darker. Scripture is the light that gives us the foundation for understanding life and culture.
Without that light, we’re left trying to make our way through life using our own understanding.
And human beings are not sufficient to be their own ultimate authority.
We are limited.
Our knowledge is limited.
Our perspective is limited.
Our experience is limited.
Even our scientific knowledge continues to develop and change as we learn more.
So why would I place ultimate confidence in human knowledge when God has given us His Word?
The Problem Isn’t Knowledge. It’s Rejecting Truth.
I don’t believe the answer is to reject science or human learning.
That’s not the point.
The issue is what happens when we take something good and elevate it beyond the purpose God intended for it.
Science is useful.
Medicine is necessary.
Law is important.
Education is valuable.
But none of these things can become God; they cannot tell me who I ultimately am, nor can they tell me why I was created.
None of them can give me an eternal hope, nor can they replace the authority of God’s Word.
The problem isn’t that we’re learning too much.
The problem is that we can become ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth, as Paul warned in 2 Timothy 3:7.
We can accumulate information while missing truth.
We can become more technologically advanced while becoming spiritually confused.
We can know more facts while having less clarity about the meaning of life.
That’s why we need more than information.
We need truth.
God’s Word Answers the Questions That Matter Most
Think again about those basic questions.
Who am I? Scripture tells me that I am created by God.
Why am I here? Scripture tells me that my life has a purpose because I was created by Him and for Him.
What is right and wrong? God’s Word gives us His moral standard.
What is the value of human life? Scripture tells us that human beings are created in the image of God.
What happens after I die? The Bible gives us the truth about judgment, salvation, eternal life, and our need for Jesus Christ.
These are the most important questions we’ll ever ask.
And that’s why the Bible cannot simply be treated as one voice among many.
If God’s Word is truly God’s Word, then it has authority over how I understand everything else.
I don’t take Scripture and make it conform to the culture.
I take Scripture and allow it to shape how I understand the culture.
We Need the Light of God’s Truth
The poem I shared at the beginning of the podcast paints a picture of humanity becoming increasingly impressed with its own accomplishments until it effectively puts God on the shelf.
That’s a powerful warning.
Human beings can accomplish remarkable things. We can build, discover, invent, explore, heal, calculate, communicate, and create.
But none of our accomplishments make us God.
And none of our knowledge eliminates our need for Him.
The more we learn, the more we should recognize how dependent we are upon the God who created us.
The answer to cultural darkness isn’t less truth.
It’s more truth.
And not merely more information about truth, but a return to the truth God has already revealed in His Word.
Don’t Trade Truth for Information
I believe one of the greatest challenges facing Christians today is learning to distinguish between information and truth.
We have access to more information than we can possibly process.
But that doesn’t mean every piece of information is true.
It doesn’t mean every expert is correct.
It doesn’t mean every cultural consensus is right.
And it certainly doesn’t mean that human beings have the authority to redefine reality according to our preferences.
We need discernment.
We need wisdom.
And above all, we need to remain anchored in the Word of God.
The world doesn’t need the church to simply repeat whatever the culture is already saying.
The world needs Christians who know what God’s Word says and are willing to live according to it.
The Light Is Still Shining
The message of Hosea is sobering, but I don’t believe it should leave us without hope.
God has not stopped speaking.
His Word has not changed.
Truth has not disappeared.
The light is still shining.
The question is whether we will receive it.
We don’t have to remain confused about who we are, why we’re here, what is right and wrong, or where our lives are ultimately headed.
God has given us His Word.
He has revealed Himself.
And He has given us the ultimate answer to our search for truth in Jesus Christ.
So when our culture asks, “Who defines truth?”, we don’t have to look to human beings for the final answer.
God defines truth.
And His Word gives us the light we need to live in a world that desperately needs to find its way back to Him.
