I recently heard a well-known biblical scholar say something that made my ears perk up:
We don’t have access to objective truth because we filter everything through our subjective minds.
For those of us who are Christians, the claim can sound a little silly. We believe we have access to objective truth, particularly in the form of Scripture, and that access doesn’t change simply because we filter things subjectively.
So, in my opinion, the claim overextends itself.
However, the foundation of what this scholar said stuck with me. On the surface, it sounds unbelievable, but if you actually think about it, he’s not too far off either. I would just rephrase the concept to make it more precise:
We aren’t able to recognize objective truth because we filter everything through our subjective minds.
That statement isn’t something I can easily dismiss, and the implications can be unsettling if we sit with them long enough. If everything is filtered through our minds, definitions start to depend on interpretation, and even “obvious” claims become shaky under scrutiny. Even if we encounter objective truth, and believe it to be so, there’s no way to prove that we’ve identified it correctly – both to others and to ourselves.
This article is going to be more philosophically inclined than most others that you’ll find on this site, but I hope you’ll stick with it and join me in working through the tension surrounding our ability to “know.”
But, before we get in the thick of it, here’s my (rather long) thesis statement:
Although human beings cannot verify, from a perspective outside themselves, that they have fully grasped objective truth, they can still encounter real and meaningful aspects of reality; and when those aspects are followed down through layers of dependence, they point not to skepticism, but to an ultimate foundation best understood as God: a foundation that, if personal, must reveal itself in order to be truly known.
This is not necessarily an argument for the existence of Yahweh, in particular, though I do believe he is the ultimate foundation of all reality. Instead, this argument is meant to show that, philosophically, the most plausible explanation for reality is wrapped up in the existence of a personal, conscious, ultimate foundation.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
The Problem of Subjectivity
If we take the claim seriously (that we can’t reliably recognize objective truth), things start to unravel faster than we might expect. At first, it feels like a technical limitation or something that’s confined to philosophy classrooms, but that’s just not the case. Take a simple moral statement, for example:
Murder is wrong.
To most of us, that feels obvious, even on a foundational level.
But let’s take a step back and start defining terms:
What counts as murder?
Is it intent? Outcome? Context? Authority?
Is killing in war murder? What about self-defense or capital punishment?
You see how, suddenly, what felt like a fixed truth now depends on how we interpret the category itself. And that’s the problem. It’s not just that people disagree… It’s that disagreement happens at the level of definition, not just application.
But let’s take another step back and go more basic, because sometimes morality can feel too abstract. Look at something in front of you: a wall, for example. You might say: “That wall is green.” But someone with color blindness might see it as red or brown. So, which of you is actually perceiving reality?
We can appeal to wavelengths of light, sure, but even that requires interpretation, instrumentation, and trust in a chain of reasoning we can’t step outside of to verify.
At no point do we access reality unfiltered. Everything is mediated.
It starts to become clear that the problem isn’t as simple as: “We might be wrong.” It’s that we have no way to step outside our own perspective to verify whether we’re right. Even if we actually are correct, even if we’ve genuinely encountered objective truth, we have no independent vantage point to confirm it.
That means…
- Every belief you hold
- Every conclusion you reach
- Every “obvious” truth you rely on
…is filtered through the very system you’re trying to evaluate. Which means, you can never fully verify that your understanding of reality corresponds to reality as it actually is.
Is Skepticism the Answer?
At this point, it’s tempting to fall into radical skepticism. But, if you really think about it, that conclusion collapses just as quickly. Because to say something like, “We can’t know anything for certain” is itself a claim about reality. And not just any claim, but one you would have to believe is true, and that you’re asking others to take seriously. That means, you’re still relying on reasoning, you’re trusting your mind, and you’re still acting as if truth is accessible.
…even while denying it.
Skepticism just restates the problem, instead of solving it. And that leaves us in a tricky position, in the sense that both extremes fail. Naive certainty doesn’t work, but neither does total skepticism; we can’t prove we have objective truth, but we can’t live as if truth is completely inaccessible.
The question, then, is:
If we can’t step outside ourselves to confirm truth, what exactly are we interacting with?
Are we just dealing in interpretation, approximations, and shadows? Or is there something real behind them?
And if there is, how would we tell the difference?
Shadows and Trees
Now, it seems to me that we’re stuck. If we can’t step outside our own perspective to verify truth, and we can’t trust radical skepticism either, then what are we left with?
This is what I found myself wrestling with, and in the process, a simple analogy came to mind:
Imagine you’re looking at the shadow of a tree. You have no concept of what a tree is, or what it’s supposed to be like, but you’re able to recognize its form. You see the shape of its branches, the height of the trunk, and the general structure of the tree itself. And from that shadow, you can actually learn quite a bit.
The shadow isn’t meaningless.
But here’s the problem: you don’t whether the shadow or the tree itself is the true definition of what a “tree” is. You’ve never encountered either before, and at first glance, they both look passable.
From your perspective, the shadow isn’t imaginary, arbitrary, or detached from reality. But at the same time, you can’t prove that what you’re seeing corresponds perfectly to the tree as it actually is.
So, is the shadow the problem? No. The shadow is objectively real, just like the tree is objectively real. Even if you misidentify the shadow as the tree itself, the shadow doesn’t suddenly become false.
It just becomes misunderstood.
That means we aren’t dealing with illusion vs reality, but rather, different layers of reality.
The shadow is true and real, but it exists because of the tree. Over time and observation, you’d be able to notice that the shadow changes depending on the light source, but the tree itself remains the same. This is telling, because it indicates that the shadow is dependent on the tree for its existence, not the other way around.
This doesn’t prove which (if either) perfectly corresponds with objective truth, but it does demonstrate that “structure” exists.
There are many things that we’ve come to understand as being “dependent” and others we recognize as being more “fundamental.” But even if we conclude that the tree is fundamental in relation to the shadow, it doesn’t mean that our view of the “truth” is complete. We still don’t see certain components of the object, like the roots, so our understanding of what a tree is is still lacking.
Considering that, it might be more helpful to restate the initial question. Instead of asking: “Can we know what’s objectively true?” it might be more helpful to frame it as: “What does reality seem to be made of, given what we can observe?”
We’ve already noticed some patterns:
- Some things explain others
- Some things depend on others
- Some things remain stable while others change
Even if we can’t verify truth from the outside, we can still trace lines of dependence within reality itself. And once we trace those lines back far enough, it’s easy to wonder…
Do these layers go on forever, or is there something at the bottom?
Following the Chain
Once you start seeing reality in terms of dependence, it becomes difficult to unsee it:
- The shadow depends on the tree
- The tree depends on the soil, water, and light
- Those depend on deeper systems (chemical, biological, etc.)
And so on. At every level, the same pattern repeats…
Some things exist because other things make them possible.
But what happens if we keep following that chain? Take any object, event, or fact, and ask: “What does this depend on?” Ask the same question of the answer and continue the process. At some point, you either have to say (1) the chain of dependency goes on forever without an ultimate ground, or (2) the chain terminates in something that doesn’t depend on anything else.
Those are the only real options.
The problem with infinite regress is that nothing is ever actually grounded. You don’t get an explanation; you get an endless deferral of explanation. The best analogy I can think of to describe it is like trying to hang a chain in the air with no ceiling: no matter how many links you add, you can never answer the question, “What’s holding it up?”
On the other hand, a terminating foundation does something the infinite chain never can. It says there’s something that exists, not because something else made it exist, but because it is, in some sense, self-sufficient.
To be fair, this isn’t proof that a terminating foundation accurately represents reality, but I do believe it’s the superior option in terms of plausibility. And if this foundation does exist, what would something like that actually be? Because whatever it is, it has to be capable of grounding everything we experience.
And that already gives us some clues.
The Ultimate Foundation
As mentioned, the foundation must be non-derived and have no dependence on anything else. But the deeper implication is that whatever this foundation is, it’s the ground of everything we experience. That means:
The ultimate foundation cannot be less than what it supports.
The “shadows” of truth that we encounter aren’t random or meaningless. They include things like:
- conscious awareness
- rational thought
- moral intuition
- relational connection
- the ability to recognize patterns, truth, and meaning
These attributes all find their root in an ultimate foundation, which means that foundation must be capable of accounting for what appears above it. You don’t get features of reality that have no grounding in what ultimately exists.
Effects don’t exceed their source.
Two Possibilities
At a high level, there are two possible ways to think about this foundation. The first is as an impersonal force (something like matter, energy, the laws of physics, or something more abstract), which wouldn’t be relational, intentional, or conscious. And yet, from it, we would somehow need to get those exact elements, in addition to moral awareness and rationality.
That’s not impossible, per se, but it does feel like a stretch.
The other possibility is a personal foundation, or a mind-like foundation, that would be conscious, rational, capable of intent, and relational in nature. In this case, the features we observe in reality (minds, meaning, morality, relationships) are not surprising. They’re simply expressions, or reflections, of what’s already fundamental.
We’re not asking for proof at this point. But given the options, it’s worth thinking about which makes more sense given what we experience. While both possibilities are logically possible, they are not equally satisfying. If reality includes mind, meaning, and moral awareness, then a foundation that includes those things is a more natural fit than one that does not.
Revelation
I’ve talked through what I consider to be a compelling argument for the existence of a rational, conscious, relational foundation of reality. And yet… We haven’t really moved from the starting line. Despite everything said so far, one problem remains exactly where it was at the beginning:
We still cannot prove that we’ve identified this foundation correctly.
We can reason and argue for it, but we can’t step outside ourselves to confirm it from a neutral vantage point or otherwise verify it with absolute certainty. Whether you want to think of this foundation as “God” or not doesn’t really matter because it’s still shaped by our interpretations and filtered through our minds.
This is a fundamental limitation of what it means to be human.
We’re effectively stuck in uncertainty if the direction of movement stays one-way. But if this ultimate foundation chose to make itself known…
That would change everything.
We’ve already worked out that a conscious, relational foundation is most plausible. With that as our base, it’s hardly a stretch to claim that this relational foundation would be open to and/or actively initiate a relationship with us.
If we can’t escape our own perspective to verify ultimate truth, then the only way to truly know it would be for that truth to meet us within our perspective. This doesn’t solve every problem, but it does make “knowing” possible in a way that wasn’t there before. Because now the question shifts again: instead of asking, “Can we reason our way to ultimate truth?” we can shift some of the burden onto this foundation and ask, “Has ultimate truth made itself known?”
For Christians, this is where Scripture enters the conversation. And the claim that Scripture makes is that the foundation of reality has spoken, he wants a relationship, and he wants to be known. Whether that claim holds up is a separate discussion, but the category itself – revelation – seems to be the solution to our problem. All that’s left is to encounter reality honestly, follow it as far as it leads, and remain open to the possibility that what we’re searching for isn’t just something to be discovered…
…but someone willing to be known.
