Great Commission and Philosophy

Philosophical Requirements for the Great Commission: Truth, Propositions, Knowledge, Logic, Objective Meaning, and Authorial Intent

By Douglas Groothuis, PhD

Before he ascended to heaven, our Lord Christ Jesus, having accomplished saving his work through his life, death, and resurrection, commanded his disciples (and the church onward) to make his matchless teachings known to the world through making disciples of individuals and nations (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). Since Jesus endorsed the Hebrew Bible and authorized the apostle’s to continue his authoritative teaching, this entails that we are to teach the truth of the Bible to the whole world so that people know and obey God and name Jesus as Lord. This commission is not optional for the Christian. But in order to fulfill it, certain philosophical truths must be in place. These necessarily include (1) the correspondence view of truth, (2) the existence of propositions, (3) the law of noncontradiction, (4) objective meaning, and (5) authorial indent as necessary in hermeneutics. These will be sketched out below, although much more could be added. Sadly, some Christians deny one or more of these requirements and thus handicap the promulgation of the Christian message.

1.     The Correspondence View of Truth

Christianity is based on the objective truths revealed in history that people need to know in order to be rightly related to the living God of time and eternity. Jesus said he was “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and that only by being his disciple will his truth set us free (John 8:30-31). These teachings, and the entire Bible, assume and require a particular concept of truth: the correspondence view of truth. That is, a statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the reality (or facts) to which it refers. A true statement sticks to reality. Truth is not determined by social consensus, or power, or individual choice, but by reality. The Apostle Paul assumes this view when he writes of the resurrection of Jesus.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born (1 Corinthians 15:1-8).

Paul then ties the resurrection of Jesus to the general resurrection of the dead (Danial 12:2).

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:14-19).

Paul here presupposes the correspondence view of truth. The text is meaningless without it. The Christian’s belief that Jesus rose from the dead matches or reflects reality. Thus, for Paul, if Christ has not been raised, seven consequences follow: (1) Christian preaching is useless (2) Christian faith is useless (3) Christians are false witnesses to God (4) Christian faith is futile (5) You are dead in your sins (6) Those who have died as Christians are lost. (7) Christians are the most pitiable people on earth. The facts make all the difference in the world in this case, and beyond this world as well.

If facts make a statement true, then the lack of a corresponding fact makes a sentence false. So, if one says, “Jesus did not rise from the dead,” that statement does not match reality, and so it is false, untrue to fact.

2.   Propositions Exist

In order to be coherent, the correspondence theory of truth requires the existence of propositions. Without propositions, language and thought fall into postmodernist incoherence, which disallows the knowledge the Great Commission requires. A proposition is the meaning of any declarative sentence or statement. Several statements may mean the same thing—that is, assert or affirm the same thing. Consider:

1.      Jesus is the Lord.

2.     The Lord is Jesus alone.

3.     It is true that Jesus is the Lord.

While these sentences use different words, they mean the same thing; they affirm the same proposition. These sentences could also be written in another language, say French or German, and still mean the same thing. Thus, a written, spoken, or thought statement is not identical to the proposition it affirms, but it is inseparable from it. Put another way, every proposition has various language tokens, either written, spoken, or thought. Thus, propositions are not material and are not limited by space or time. They are immaterial, which bothers materialists, since they deny such a reality. God knows the truth value of all propositions. Here are two arguments for propositions.

1.      (P) If propositions do not exist, then (Q) no texts or speeches can be translated from one language to another. Translations require thoughts common to various different languages.

2.     Texts and speeches can be translated from one language to another (not-Q).

3.     Therefore, propositions do exist. By modus tollens or denying the consequent.  

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1.      (P) If propositions exist, then (Q) translations can be achieved.

2.     Propositions exist (P).

3.     Therefore, (Q) translations can be achieved. By modus ponens or affirming the antecedent.

If there are no propositions, then language and thought cannot correspond to the reality it describes, since language and thought are only a matter of symbols or sounds made by humans. There would be no referring function for statements and, thus, no truth relationship between the truth claim and the truth maker. The absence of propositions is affirmed by deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida who say, “There is nothing outside the text” and by Richard Rorty, who orphans sentences in a world without propositions.  This triggers two more arguments.

1.      (P) If there are no propositions, then (Q) language cannot successfully refer to anything outside itself.

2.     (not-Q). Language can and does refer to things outside itself. Example: the law of noncontradiction is true.

3.     Therefore, there are propositions. By modus tollens or denying the consequent.

1.      (P) If there are propositions, then (Q) language can refer successfully to something outside itself.

2.     (P) There are propositions.

3.     Therefore, (Q) language can refer to something outside itself. By modus ponens or affirming the antecedent.

Propositions are not luxury items for the Great Commission (or for any rational thought). They are necessary. Without them, we intellectually and spiritually perish. Language and communication involve more than propositions, but without them language and communication evaporate.

3.   Knowledge is Justified True Belief

As Dallas Willard and J. P. Moreland have argued, Christianity is “a knowledge tradition” and not a matter of blind faith or mere religious behavior. God has revealed himself in knowable ways in Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-17), in creation (Romans 1:18-21), in history (Old Testament record), and in Jesus Christ (New Testament record). Knowledge is best understood as justified true belief. One may have a true belief without knowledge if one came to that belief in a nonrational or irrational manner. As T. S. Eliot wrote, “The last act is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” We must apply that principle to beliefs as well as to actions. Being able to justify Christian beliefs is essential to apologetics (1 Peter 3:15; Jude 3).

4.   The Law of Noncontradiction 

The law of noncontradiction is a necessary test for all truth claims. If a truth claim passes this test, it might be true; it is possibly true. If a truth claim fails this test, it must be false. Thus, it is a necessary and negative test for truth claims. As Ronald Nash puts the law of noncontradiction:

“A cannot be both B and non-B at the same time and in the same sense.” In this formulation, the letters A and B are variables in the same way that x and y are variables in algebra. All we have to do to use the variables properly is to substitute for them consistently. When we do this properly, we end up with propositions like “An object (A) cannot be both round (B) and square (non-B) at the same time in the same sense” or “A proposition (A) cannot be both true (B) and false (non-B) at the same time in the same sense.”[1]

Let us return to Paul’s statement about the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus rose from the dead in space-time history, then it is false that he failed to rise from the dead, that he remained cold, dead, and buried. Jesus cannot be dead and alive in the same way and at the same time. He was dead. He is now alive forever more. Without using the law of noncontradiction, no meaningful thought or communication is impossible since contradictory truth claims could both be true, leaving us barren of knowledge. A term could mean anything, so language could be impossible as means of communicating ideas, which may be true or false.

1.      (P) If the law of noncontradiction is not true, then (Q) there is no meaningful communication.

2.     There is meaningful communication (not-Q).

3.     Therefore, the law of noncontradiction is true. By modus tollens or denying the consequent.

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1.      (P) If the law of noncontradiction is true, then (Q) meaningful communication is possible.

2.     The law of noncontradiction is true (P).

3.     Therefore, meaningful communication is possible. By modus ponens or affirming the antecedent.

5.    Texts have objective meaning

If we do not assume that a written text or spoken word have some objective meaning, then we cannot hope to gain knowledge from them. If meaning dissolves into arbitrary interpretations, then no text can have any truth value and thus must fail to convey knowledge. Texts and spoken language may be difficult to interpret, but without the assumption of objective meaning, we have no target to hit and no solid rock upon which to stand. Since the Bible claims to be true and knowable (Psalm 119; 2 Timothy 3:15-17), it must be ascribed an objective meaning however difficult that might be to determine in some secondary matters of doctrine. Peter warned of people who misinterpreted the Apostle Paul:

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-17).

Misinterpretations are only possible if texts have an objective meaning that can be found through proper methods (more on that below).

Consider two arguments:

1.      (P) If texts have no objective meaning, then (Q) misinterpreting texts is impossible.

2.     Not-Q. The misinterpretation of texts is not impossible. It happens all the time.

3.     Therefore, texts have objective meaning. By modus tollens or denying the consequent.

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1.      (P) If texts have objective meaning, then (Q) misinterpreting texts is possible

2.     (P) Texts have objective meaning.

3.     Therefore, misinterpreting texts is possible. By modus ponens or affirming the antecedent.

The communication of the Christian message to the world demands that we rightly interpret the Bible, the Word of God, we proclaim. To do that, we must assume that it has an objective meaning, and we should attempt to determine what that meaning is.

6.   Authorial Intent is Necessary for Interpreting Texts Properly.

While there are several features required for proper interpretation of texts (hermeneutics), authorial intent is necessary and takes center stage.[2] This is commonsensical. If I receive a letter from a friend, I want to know what she wanted to communicate. If I read a book, I want to know what the author intended. We often read books because we trust a particular author (say, C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer or J. I. Packer) and, thus, we want to know more about what he thought. These thoughts are given in the texts that he wrote. We would not read these texts unless we wanted to know what the author thought and was attempting to communicate.  

Deconstructionists deny the rule that we should attempt to discern the author’s meaning of a text. Some even revel in “the death of the author,” so that a thousand subjective takes on any text may prevail. As I wrote in Truth Decay (InterVarsity, 2000), no deconstructionist would want his or her texts read arbitrarily.

Ironically, Derrida has attacked his critics, such as John Searle, for misinterpreting and misrepresenting his own work. Apparently, Derrida's intended meaning took on an objective identity, which he expected his readers to ascertain. He even claimed that his point should have been clear and obvious to Searle! Millard Erickson notes that this is "an incredibly nondeconstructionist, nonpostmodern response for someone who maintains that the meaning of a text is not in the author's intention, but in what the reader finds it saying to him or her."[3]

Philosophy for Mission

The meaning and implementation of Great Commission requires that certain philosophical claims be true and supportable rationally. Therefore, philosophy is not merely for intellectual experts, but should be understood by any Christian who wants to bring the message of the Gospel and the whole Bible to a lost and needy world. I have argued that at least six claims must be established to undergird the Great Commission.

1.      Truth is correspondence to reality

2.     Propositions exist and are necessary for (1)

3.     Knowledge is justified true belief. Christianity is a knowledge tradition and the mission of God is to restore the knowledge of God on earth.

4.    The law of noncontradiction is a necessary and negative test of all truth claims.

5.     Texts have objective meaning; otherwise, we are doomed to interpretative relativism and nihilism.

6.    Authorial intent is a crucial element of hermeneutics and without it texts become untethered from any knowable objective meaning.

Let us call all Christians fulfill the Great Commission and affirm and defend the philosophical assumptions that are necessary for that grand and necessary endeavor.

[1] Zondervan. Life's Ultimate Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (p. 194). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

[2] See R. C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture, 2^nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016).

[3] Douglas Groothuis. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Kindle Locations 2388-2390). Kindle Edition.