We’re (15-20 other LCers) studying a book called Building Belief by Dr. Chad Meister.  Chad’s a friend of mine and one of my former professors at Bethel College.  Building Belief is a fairly concise book that merges philosophy, theology, and a bit of teleology together and has helped me come to a better place in wrestling with truth, Christ, and religion.

In the first chapter of the book, Chad unpacks the idea of truth as foundational to developing a worldview.  To illustrate the construction of a worldview, he’s developed a very helpful pyramid (hence the BUILDING part) that looks like this:

Building Belief Pyramid

Building Belief Pyramid

One of the most foundational principles in deciding whether or not there is absolutes in this world was the Law of Non-contradiction (or, for simplicities sake, the LoNC).  The LoNC states (symbolically):

Building Belief Pyramid

Building Belief Pyramid

In other words, if there are two truth claims that oppose each other, both of them cannot be true.  If A is true, then non-A (or B) cannot be true.  B might contain partial elements of A, but it is not true.

For me, the LoNC has changed the way I look at truth.  Quite frankly, I think I’m less sure of some “truths” that I formally believed yet I feel more confidence in others.  I believe absolutes exist and I believe it’s the job of humanity to pursue absolutes.  I’m looking forward to our class this weekend to dialog about this and more.  See you then.