TRUTH.

What are truths, and are truths true?

Knowledge and Truth.Knowledge can be defined as a kind of true justified belief.

Definition of truth: To say of what is that it is not, or what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or what is not that it is not, is true.

1. Rationalism

2. Empiricism. a. The source of our ideas.

b. How we know necessary truths.

The Source of our Ideas.Empiricists claim that all our ideas are derived from experience: sense experience plus introspection.

1. Ideas given in experience.

2. Constructed ideas.

This thesis involves the conception of the mind as a ‘blank slate’ which receives impressions from the external world via the sense modalities.

The Source of our Ideas.Rationalists agree that many of our ideas are derived through experience.

Some ideas are innate.

For example experiments have shown that depth perception is innate.

Many Christians hold the Rationalist thesis and in pre-Christian times so also did Plato.

Knowing necessary truths.a priori proposition or statement is one that can be recognized as necessarily true simply by considering its meaning and without appeal to the evidence of sense-experience.

a posteriori proposition or statement is one which has to be verified by sense-experience. They are also called ‘empirical’ or ‘contingent’ propositions.

Knowing Necessary Truths.The issue about which Rationalists and Empiricists disagree concerns the nature of a priori propositions.

Analytic. Synthetic.

An analytic proposition is a statement whose truth follows necessarily from the meaning of the words in which it is expressedA synthetic proposition is a necessary truth that is non-analytic.

2 + 2 = 4

2+2=4 = (1+1)+(1+1) = 1+1+1+1

John 14: 5 & 6. Knowledge and Doubt.Thomas said: ‘Master, we have no idea where you are going. How do you expect us to know road?’

Jesus said: ‘I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No-one gets to the Father apart from me.’

Knowledge and Belief.

Belief is the attitude of holding a proposition to be true where there is some degree of evidence, though not conclusive evidence for the truth.

M knows that S IFF

(i) S is true(ii) M believes that S(iii) M is justified in believing that S

Religious Beliefs.To reflect upon religious beliefs one needs concepts.

Beyond the area of personal religious experience religion encounters human reason.Reason may contribute: the logic of a statement and the likelihood of a statement being true or false.

Faith: Believing in and Believing that.

Faith is a matter of personal commitment and trust.

There is a difference between believing that something is true and believing in something.

Believing in. Believing that.

‘I believe in God.’ ‘I believe that God exists.’

Person has a relationship with God and God matters.

Person thinks the statement is correct, but God may be of no personal interest.

Paradigm Lost.

In science a set of fundamentally unquestioned assumptions is called a Paradigm.

With the passing of time a scientific paradigm becomes challenged because of problems inconsistent with its assumptions. A new paradigm is formed.

The ‘Big Bang’ Theory seems to be in need of a fix.

Cosmic Inflation.Inflation refers to a brief burst of hyper-accelerated expansion that is supposed to have occurred during the first instants after the ‘Big Bang’.

1. To start the Universe had to be extremely uniform with only extremely tiny variations in the distribution of matter and energy.2. The universe had to be geometrically flat so that curves and warps did not bend the paths of light rays and moving objects.

The Case for Inflation.

1. Inflation is inevitable.

2. Inflation explains why the universe is so uniform and flat today.

3. Inflationary theory is powerfully predictive.

The Case Against Inflation.Presents a challenge to the logical foundations of the Inflation Theory.

Two questions:

1. Does the theory really work?

2. Are the previous predictions still the predictions of the inflationary model as understood today?

NO.

Good Inflation, Bad Inflation.

It Had to be Just So.

Inflation is Eternal.

The Christian Alternative.There is one God of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.Jesus is the Word and Lamb of God who took upon himself the sins of humanity.