There has been plenty of dialogue about truth in recent years, even in youth ministry circles. Dan Kimball, Tony Jones, and I discussed the concept during panel discussions at all three National Youth Worker Conventions last fall — and on each occasion we were met with packed rooms of interested, engaged youth workers.

And rightly so.

How can we help our students answer the huge questions that stir their hearts and souls if we cannot answer the most basic questions about truth?

In his excellent book, Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers, Chap Clark reminds us that the most basic task of adolescence is individuation — the journey of becoming an individual, the odyssey of becoming one’s own person. He describes it as a quest in search of authentic answers to four basic life questions:

1. “Who am I?” (the quest for identity)

2. “Where am I going with my life?” (the quest for autonomy or purpose)

3. “How do I — or how should I — relate to other people?” (the question of intimacy)

4. “How do I know these things, and how can I know that I know?” (the question of epistemology)

If you’ve been in youth ministry more than 20 minutes — and have taken the time to listen to students and to the culture in which they live — you can appreciate that the fourth and final question may be the most important one of all.

Because how our students answer that fourth question — “How can I know that I know?” — will determine how they’ll pursue their search for answers to the other three.

How do we know, and how do we know what we know?

I am satisfied neither with modernism’s position (that truth is absolute and can be measured) nor postmodernism’s position (that truth is relative and depends on individuals to determine it) on this question. I believe both lead us down the wrong road — although in opposite directions. (Unfortunately in an article like this one, it isn’t possible to explain or  critique either position adequately; for further detailed thoughts on both sides of the coin, see the brief bibliography at the end of the article.)

This article is about a third approach to truth and how to know it — an approach that takes us beyond modernism and postmodernism. (If I really wanted to be edgy and hip, I’d call it a  postpostmodern” perspective.)

The philosopher Charles Pierce calls it critical realism.

Critical Realism and the Kids in Your Youth Group
Here’s a quick explanation using the popular “umpire metaphor”:

The modernist umpire says, “There are balls, and there are strikes, and I call them absolutely accurately according to rules of the game.” This position, sometimes called naive realism, assumes there really is something called a strike zone, and it is possible for the umpire to call a game absolutely objectively with respect to that zone. The umpire, in effect, says, “Personal interpretation has nothing to do with it. I can know absolutely what every pitch is.”

The postmodernist umpire says, “There are balls, and there are strikes, but they ain’t nuthin’ ’til I call ’em.” With this position, the umpire says, “Look, who are we kidding? The very concepts of ‘strike’ and ‘ball’ are cultural constructs with no real meaning apart from a particular game played in particular places. What one guy sees as a ‘strike’ another guy sees as a ‘ball.’ There are no absolutes.”

The critical realist umpire says, “There are balls, and there are strikes, and I call ’em the way I see ’em.”

This last umpire is telling us something quite different from the other two umpires: “The rule book is absolutely clear about what are and what are not balls and strikes. And they are what they are regardless of what I believe. That doesn’t mean I always get the call right, but we are not left with uncertainty. There are clear absolutes, and my calls can be objectively measured by the standard of that rule book.”

This third approach to truth not only is the one that most closely reflects the biblical perspective; it also offers authentic hope to our kids who are awash in a storm of uncertainty. Here’s why:

1. Critical realism addresses the basic presupposition that truth is a matter of perspective. One of the most basic premises of postmodernism is that truth is perspectival (per-speck-tive-al) — clearly a premise that our culture (and our kids) have swallowed hook, line, and sinker. That’s why, when you finished your Bible study on premarital sex last week, several students came up at the end to say, “I accept that what you said tonight may be true for you, but can you be tolerant enough to accept that it isn’t true for me?” (That’s why we have book titles like Stories of Emergence: Moving from Absolute to Authentic.)

Critical realists agree that perspective is certainly a factor in how we see reality. To use Leonard Sweet’s phrase, “None of us can claim immaculate perception.” And because of that, modernism’s promise of objective truth is presumptuous. Science claims more than it can deliver, whether offering evidence that God doesn’t exist or does exist.

But critical realists go on to say that while perspective impacts how we view reality, it does not create reality. Reality is what it is, regardless of how we see it. “Balls” are “balls,” and “strikes” are “strikes,” and they are defined absolutely in the baseball rulebook. Every single pitch is authentically a “ball” or a “strike” regardless of what the umpire says. Truth is not solely a matter of perspective.

2. Critical realism takes seriously the challenge of using language to communicate truth. Postmodernists argue that truth is a matter of perspective because truth claims are expressed through the limits of language — specifically words, which are subject to interpretation, which is very much affected by everything from family background to heritage to history to culture. In essence, what we see and hear is based on what we’ve seen and heard — and none of us has seen nor heard it all.

That’s why, in a Bible study, students are less likely to ask, “What does it say?” and more likely to state, “This is what it means to me.” They have grown up with a president who testified under oath that he didn’t really commit perjury and break the law because “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is…” They have come to accept that every statement deemed “truth” is subject to interpretation. Therefore, postmodernists argue, to the extent we admit this, there are no absolutes.

The problem, of course, is that postmodernists make these claims as if their claims are absolute truth — which is just a little ironic. And they make their claims with words — as if we’re supposed to know what these words really mean. And if words have no true, absolute meaning, then every sentence is potentially nonsense — even the sentence that proclaims “words have no true, absolute meaning.” Which is why critical realists argue that, at some point, postmodernism becomes little more than a parlor game. That’s the point C.S. Lewis makes in The Abolition of Man:

“…you cannot go on “explaining away” for
ever: you will find that you have explained
explanation itself away. You cannot go on
“seeing through” things forever. The whole point
of seeing through something is to see something
through it. It is good that the whole window
should be transparent, because the street or garden
beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through
the garden too?…If you see through everything,
then everything is transparent. But a wholly
transparent world is an invisible world. To “see
through” all things is the same as not to see at all.”

Once you’ve argued that language has no meaning, it’s a little tough to get dialogue going.

3. Critical realism helps us to understand that we don’t need to leave behind “absolute” to get “authentic.” Critical realism affirms that when we use words to represent reality, whether terms such as “ball” or “strike” or “rebirth” or “Heaven” or “Hell” or “Trinity,” they do represent reality. But by “represent” we don’t mean the formal or literal one-to-one correspondence of photographs. Instead critical realism tells us to think of knowledge as a model, a map, a blueprint of reality. We can know “truth” absolutely, but in a certain way.

For example, here is a map of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. I live near that town in an area known as Valley Forge.

This map communicates absolute truth, but only in a certain way. In the first place, the correspondence between the map and reality is symbolic. If you were ever to visit the King of Prussia area, you would see that the roads and highways are not actually different colors. And there are no town names scrawled across the countryside.

This map is not a photograph of reality. It is a model, a mental diagram, like an analogy. It conveys limited but accurate information about reality.

For example, in the blow-up map of the King of Prussia area, you might be able to find a small square located between three major highways. It’s labeled “King of Prussia Mall.” It’s a large mall, and my wife likes to shop there. They have a Chick-fil-A and everything. But it’s not a perfect square as the map indicates. And the King of Prussia Mall is not a red square, also as the map indicates. (I think the Red Square is in Moscow.) And you have to understand it that way or you might say the cartographer is not giving us an “authentic” picture of King of Prussia.

4. Critical realism helps us understand that we don’t need absolute knowledge to have absolute truth. Because words are like maps, they have real meaning, and they represent  absolute reality. And they can guide us with absolute certainty without communicating absolute knowledge. In fact, a map like the one you see on this page is more helpful because it doesn’t provide absolute knowledge. Mapmakers have to be selective. We don’t reject a road map because it failed to include a notation of every bend and bridge. The truthfulness of a map is not measured by the accuracy of its extraneous information but by the information it claims to present truthfully.

This is important because our students (and even some youth workers) have inherited a sub-Christian humility about the truth claims of Christianity. It can be characterized by the  following statements, each of which is valid to some extent:

*  “I believe Christianity is true, but I don’t believe my version (or yours, for that matter) of the faith is completely true. (In other words, I believe that all versions are incomplete in some ways, weighed down with extra baggage, and marred by impurities, biases, misconceptions, and gaps).”

*  “I believe Jesus is true, but I don’t believe Christianity in any of our versions is true. (In other words, we know in part and prophesy in part; we have not yet reached that unity and maturity of faith and knowledge that will come when we know as we are known.)”

*  “I believe there’s no completely true version of Christianity anywhere except, of course, in God’s mind. (In other words, incompleteness and error are part of the reality of being human.)” (From Brian McLaren’s The Church on the Other Side, pp. 172-173.)

What’s invalid in these statements is the notion that because we don’t have absolute knowledge, we need to be timid about absolute truth. The Scriptures say that we see but “a poor reflection as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:10); it doesn’t suggest, however, that we cannot see anything. And it certainly doesn’t say that we should claim blindness.

We need not be squeamish about what we know. If I meet someone who wants to get to the mall but is lost, it makes little difference to that person whether the road to the mall crosses the stream here or there as long as I can show the lost person a road on the map that leads to the mall. Absolute knowledge isn’t necessary to help get a traveler headed in the right direction. Instead what we need is absolute certainty of absolute truth.

5. Critical realism reminds us that truth matters. For a map to be helpful, it must contain positive analogies and direct correspondences with reality. In other words, if we drive to the intersection of Routes 76, 202, and 276, there’d better be a mall near there. Otherwise, the map has no value. Because we evaluate the map’s truth not by whether most people understand it or agree with it, but by whether it reflects reality.

There really is a King of Prussia Mall (as surely as there is a King of Prussia in southeastern Pennsylvania). So…is King of Prussia really where the map said it would be?

It’s clear that the critical realist approach to truth reflects the views of the apostles. Paul takes great pains explaining in 1 Corinthians 15 that the resurrection is not just a matter of opinion or perspective. He’s talking about this as a truth claim that represents reality. It really happened. Contrary to the postmodern notion that we create our own realities, there is no sense in which the New Testament writers seem to believe they’re creating a story. No, they were reporting it. And their testimony would rise or fall depending on whether their reports match the real events, times, places, and characters.

Our Students Need to Know They Can Know That They Know
For those of us in youth ministry, the stakes have never been higher. Our students are yearning for certainties in a world that seems to offer only ambiguities. How we frame the truth claims of the Christian faith is a matter of supreme importance. Because I know that some of my postmodern friends share my sense of urgency and concern for these kids, I can only trust that we will continue this dialogue. I hope so. We can’t afford to be just doers. We must be thinkers. And we must know the truth.

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For Further Reading

Postmodernizing the Faith: Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism, Millard Erickson (Baker Books). Provides a spectrum of six different ways — three negative and three positive — for thinking about postmodernism from the perspective of an evangelical.

A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist /Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed -yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN, Brian McLaren (emergentYS/Zondervan). Provides an engaging, well-written explanation of how a postmodern mindset enhances our understanding of faith.

Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications, D.A. Carson. Provides a thorough critique of postmodernism and the emerging church movement, specifically the writings of Brian McLaren.

This Way to Youth Ministry: An Introduction to the Adventure, Duffy Robbins (Youth Specialties Academic). One of the chapters on culture includes my own, more thorough, effort to assess the ideas behind, and the strengths and weaknesses of, the postmodern framework.

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DUFFY ROBBINS is an associate professor of youth ministry at Eastern University in St. Davids, Penn. He’s a thirty-year veteran of youth ministry in local parish and para-church positions. He’s a popular speaker at the National Youth Workers Convention, and part of the CORE training team. His numerous books include This Way to Youth Ministry (YS), Youth Ministry That Works (Victor), and Ministry of Nurture (YS).