God bless GPS technology. I rarely leave the suburb area on the southeast side of Houston without entering my destination on my GPS. Before GPS, my mother was my GPS in my early twenties and teenage years. It was common for me to have her on the phone, especially anytime I was near the downtown area, asking her how to get to a cross street or navigate my way out of downtown.

 But whether navigating via GPS or my amazing mother, they both needed a critical piece of information before they could begin helping me. A starting point. I have fond memories of laughing as my mother would ask, “Well, where are you son?” and she would burst into laughter as I answered, “I have no idea.” Obviously, she was laughing because I asked her to do the impossible; navigate me to a destination from an unknown starting point.

Starting points are critical for any journey, large or small. Whether getting out of bed to get breakfast or to make a cross country drive, unless you know where you’re starting from, you can’t begin to get to where you want to be.

This is also true of ideas.

Today, many of us feel misunderstood, in conflict with others, and unable to communicate because we lack the crucial starting points to engage with others today properly. The ideas we believe and communicate also have starting points. In other words, the beliefs we have and communicate had a beginning, a point in which we believed them to be true, a point in which they became meaningful to us.

Words Have Meaning

This may sound obvious at first, but words have meaning. If they didn’t have meaning, it would make all communication impossible. “Well duh,” you might say, but hold on a second, not so fast. Today’s culture would argue that words mean different things to different people.

So before going any further, let’s make sure that we are both on the same page, if you will, about a specific word you’ll see me frequently use throughout this blog article and website.

Truth.

The purpose of Elysian Ends is to discuss the truth about the world we find ourselves in. We live in a world rich in design and wonder. We continue to discover fascinating things about this world, and those discoveries all have philosophical and historical implications. To have a meaningful conversation about these things, we must have a starting point we can commonly understand. Without this starting point, it won’t matter how engaged we are with each other. Our discussion will be meaningless.

Truth is where we must begin. It is the starting point from which we chart our journey forward.

The Truth About Truth

Truth is what describes the way things really are. It is the property of what corresponds to reality. Truth is universally exclusive in that what is true necessarily excludes all other things that contradict it.

For example, if it is true today that my name is Chuck, then it is necessarily true that the statement, “my name is not Chuck,” be false. Therefore, regardless of how I feel, who it offends, and what changes I make in the future, the statement “today my name is Chuck,” is true.

But “wait,” you say. “Your legal name is Charles. Thus, truth can’t be rigidly exclusive. Truth must be malleable to account for nuances and additional details else we run into contradictions like this.”

Yet, this isn’t a contradiction. A contradiction is defined as two statements in which both cannot be true in the same sense at the same time. So, for example, “my legal name is Charles,” does not contradict “my name, also being Chuck.”

So why the introductory logic lesson regarding truth? Because, for us to have a meaningful discussion about the world, what is in it, its purpose, our purpose, and all that we can know about reality, we need a starting point. That starting point is appropriately understanding what truth is.

Who’s Truth is That?

“Finding my truth.”

“That’s my truth.”

“Living my truth.”

We’ve all heard these expressions. Most of the time, the speaker is seeking to affirm another person. What is being expressed is false. Take the expression “that’s your truth.” As discussed above, truth is universally exclusive, which means that what is true is always true for all people. Therefore, when someone says, “that’s your truth,” they are actually saying, “that is your belief.”

But beliefs can be wrong!

And thus, we have arrived at the crux of the situation.

Politically Correct and Post Truth

We’ve lost the ability to communicate. We tremble at the thought of telling someone they’re wrong. Oh, sure, we’ll vent our beliefs and engage in arguments in the safe virtual sphere of social media. But what about with our neighbors, classmates, workmates, family, and friends that we have meaningful relationships with?

What about in the public square where we might be canceled or, worse yet, doxed?

We’ve lost the art of dialogue. No longer are we a society of tolerant people that can separate the person’s ideas from the person. Whether you agree with my views or not, you have intrinsic worth as a human being. So we can disagree with each other and still be cordial.

However,  we cannot live in a meaningful world with meaningful communication by redefining what truth means simply out of fear of offending someone.

An Agreement

I hope you hang out with me here—dialogue with me. Ask your questions and push back on my ideas. But can we agree on a starting point of what truth means. I ask that you grant me the courtesy of knowing what I mean when I say truth, and you read further with a proper context of this commonly misused word.

I value your opinions, and as I stated before, you have intrinsic worth as a human being, made in the image of God. God has given you free will over your own thoughts and beliefs as a human being. Thus, you can freely reject what is false and accept what is true. Further, you are free to do the opposite and reject truth over what is false. God has given you that very ability within your human nature, and not even He is going to force you or overrule your power to believe how you so desire.