Is it true that there is no truth?

The materialism that has taken hold in the Western world —which is not the whole world—has given rise to a self-contradictory skepticism, a foolishness that has become fashionable but which has within it the faultline directing its own collapse:

Is it true that there is no truth? Certain that nothing is certain? Absolutely no absolutes? A universal truth that there are no universal truths? Dogmatically given that there are no dogmas given? An objective truth that truth is not objective? Sociologically or psychologically relative that everything is sociologically or psychologically relative? A myth that all is a myth? An illusion that all is illusion?

The game takes many forms, but you can never win it. Similarly with reductionism. If love is only lust, thought only cerebral biochemistry, reasoning only rationalization, gods only myths, justice only power, choice only unperceived necessity, eternity only time’s dream, etcetera, the formula for that “nothing buttery” is that A is nothing but B, that A is only B—but that means that there is in all reality no A, or dimension of A, that is more than B. 

But you can know that only if you know all reality or all dimensions of reality. And for that, you must have total, all-encompassing intelligence; in other words, you must be God. If you do not think you are God, then welcome to the ranks of at least the open-minded agnostics, those who are not sure that there is no door in the wall, that no angel will ever greet you, etc. If you do think you are God, I thank you for not punishing me for disbelieving in you. 

You cannot justify by the scientific method the principle that everything can be reduced to the scientific method. And since that scientific reductionism is a choice, not a logical necessity, and not only a choice but a logically self-contradictory choice, what in the world is motivating you to make that choice and to live it? Why do you want to deny human dignity, freedom, and spirituality? You don’t have to. Why do you want to chop off your head? 

Ω From: Doors in the Walls of the World: Signs of Transcendence in the Human Story  by Peter Kreeft. 

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