The pressure builds somewhere in my chest and pushes a lump into my throat. My professor points at the board, the line that she claims revolutionized man's thinking from belief in a Creator as the source of all knowledge to belief in man as the source of all knowledge. I stare at the white board, lines blurring, as I swallow hard. Descarte's line: "I think, therefore I am." Her square glasses outline her eyes, challenging...Christians, challenging me. She nods at the floor and tells us in clear, sophisticated words that this defies the Christian idea that is stated in Genesis 1: "In the Beginning was the Word..." She points her finger at the class, telling us that, conveniently, we can choose to hold onto traditional beliefs and decide that Descarte's statement was not true.
I look around the classroom, trying to catch anyone who is shifting uncomfortably in their seat, but they all look calmly, fists squeezed against cheeks and eyes drooping at the Professor, as if this is acceptable or as if it doesn't matter at all. Man is the subject of language, the beginning of knowledge, and the absolute truth. Then she goes onto describe how this statement can be complicated in that Man does not know what he is thinking and all that he is thinking all the time. She scratches another statement on the board: "I think, there I am not where I think I am." She continues to talk, but I'm lost in thought.
So, the subject of language and of life is 'I', is man. That's the problem with this world. We stake our morals, our worldview on a dis-unified statement. By my professor's own assertion, Descarte's statement breaks down into dis-unity. Anything that is not unified cannot be true. The binary opposite of truth is a lie. A lie is something that is crooked, something that is inconsistent, something that changes. The subject 'I' of Descarte's statement changes based on every person that is signified by that pronoun. Every person has varying morals, different ideas of right and wrong. If we base our lives upon the inconsistency of man's ideas, our world will fall apart. We DO base our modern world on the reason of man and it IS falling apart. So, where do we get truth?
I remember what he said to us a few weeks ago, over lunch, a bunch of students eagerly leaning forward in our seats, wanting to understand the Bible better. He told us: "Define truth without God." Silence. The only plausible explanation for an absolute truth is based on something or Someone that is unchanging and is perfect. God is the only Being that I have ever known to fit that criteria.
I am just an undergraduate student. I'm not that smart. I cling to this only: I know whom I have believed.