Orthodox Christianity declares that the Bible is the Word of God and is the standard of truth. Such a statement doesn’t sit well with a generation conditioned to believe truth is relative. So the question we need to ask ourselves is whether the truth we believe is objective or merely preferenence? Is our faith based on personal preference or objective reality?

Fifty years ago, Francis Schaeffer warned coming generations about the danger of embracing a view of truth detached from objective reality. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what’s happening as many, especially of the younger generation, have come to believe that what is true or false is relative to the subjective feelings, ideas, and preferences of the individual. And so nowadays a person might say to you concerning your faith, “Well that may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.”

The first thing we need to understand is that the claim that all truth is “relative” is obviously a self-contradicting claim. For if it’s true, then it’s false. The law of non-contradiction states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time.

Secondly, when it comes to religion, and Christianity in particular, believers must reject the notion that truth claims are merely personal preference. Progressives would say that I believe the Bible is God’s Word simply because that is my preference and not because of any objective reality.

Thirdly, as Christians we need to understand that our faith is based on objective truth. The attack on truth is as old as the garden of Eden when Satan tempted Eve to determine her own truth. Christian apologist Greg Koukl offers this paraphrase of that event:

“Has God said?” the Deceiver challenged. “He’s lying. He’s holding out on you. He is not good. What do you want? What does your heart tell you? “The fruit seems good to eat. It delights my eyes. It will make me wise, I want it.” “Then take it. Be free of Him. Truth is not out there. Truth is within. Make your own rules. Follow your own heart. Be true to your own self.”

Satan convinced our first parents that they could be their own authority and that God’s one prohibition, intended to prove their faith and love, was actually oppressive and keeping them from their true potential. The same lie has become what one writer called “the heartbeat of our age.”

Chris Kratzer is a liberal pastor who posted his experience with a woman struggling with the biblical doctrine of penal substitution. When she asked him about some of the apostle Paul’s view on the subject his post read:

"I told her, 'He’s wrong.' She replied, 'I’m allowed to do that? It’s ok to say he’s wrong?' I could hear, over the phone, the shackles break free from around her heart and the monstrous god hiding under her bed was revealed as a fraud created by men. She started breathing for the first time.”

He went on to say, “The most dangerous thing in all of Christianity is a person who reads the Bible in front of them who has not learned to read the mind of Christ within them and see it as our ultimate Light.”

Let me just say that if the “mind of Christ” inside you conflicts or contradicts the Word of Christ, it’s the voice of the same serpent who beguiled Eve. Christianity is based on objective truth. That Jesus Christ rose again from the dead is either true or it is false. To make this a matter of subjective personal preference is to deny its historical evidence, eyewitness testimonies, and its transformative power in the lives of billions who have embraced it.