Ravi Zacharias - "What is Truth?" - University of Hawaii 2018

it's slightly different watching nice to meet you man can make a beautiful home beautiful state television I think it's been five three years and something here and every time I come back I think I ought to retire here I just love the way life is lived out but unfortunately I think those are one of the dreams that dreaming about March whatever happened as long as I am able to walk at Google and live and have my being and just delighted to be able to visit such beautiful places thank you for your hospitality thank you like sir for your invitation and all of you who work so hard to make this evening the reality the fact that the subfactor auditorium tells us a lot of hard work has gone before we got here for those of you sitting in the front my goodness I can do that too but I'm have titanium rods that are holding me up and just keep the lower half of my back upright otherwise I would not even be able to spend you have two major back surgeries but reminds me of a friend of mine now who was now under the Lord he always began every talk for many years in the first two minutes there's always this story he would day he talked about the Switzer who came to audience and said you know if you somebody stood up and pasta maybe wanted to stand or a sit down and he spoke he said if you don't mind I'm very tired I'd like to sit down and speak and then somebody else Turner from the audience and said we're really tired - you don't mind we'd like to lie down and listen if I see some of you we need to reply I know that you only need to lie down and not listen wonderful thing about being with a lawyer as of do is is you get to ask a lawyer questions and get a bill at the end the story is told of a lawyer and a doctor and an architect or an arguing as to whose was the oldest profession and the doctor said it has to be mine because when God formed the Eve on the side of Adam somebody had to stop him back so the doctor said my my trade was scolded to be used and the architects and women before that God framed the universe out of chaos so the framing of the universe was the architects job and the lawyers sitting there laughing saying who do you think created the chaos and was getting clarity and chaos atlandis giving you answers without any filling he's a brilliant guy and minded guy and just thrilled his family's here and just children some of our colleagues are here as well but he years ago I just arrived from a long trip I'm pretty sure it was Bangkok to Europe there's all those long hauls and the good thing about that is that you look like your passport picture when you get off the plane I was looking for my departure here and it was there I found the gate but Marty showed a different city so I look at the ladies in the corner I said is a flight from era going where I think it's what's the murder of Atlanta or is it going where the marquee is saying it's headed she said no it's going to hurl and said good so I turn it around to go and get myself a cup of coffee and I hope that some defeat they might be basically following and tap on the shoulder and it was this lady and she looked at me she said excuse me are you running saccharides I said I'm afraid so that's who I am she said that is amazing it is absolutely amazing I didn't know you had questions as well I'm not making up this story a little groggy from that one flight I didn't know you had questions as well right from the time we are able to put words into sentences we do two things we start carrying weights around in the house whether it's the chair or a toy or a teddy bear or somebody else's stuff we love the things around it's almost like we were baby bird bearers we carry these burgers physically but beyond that is the oft-repeated world why why and the assumption in the mind of that child even though they're not processing it to the same degree of sophistication or intricacies the assumption is that they will have an answer to that question and that answer will conform to reality as it is that the water will be given an answer and the answer will conform to reality as it actually is that's what truth is a propositional reflection of that which is truly the answer to the question truth is so indispensable that if even a person says they no longer believe in the truth they are either telling you the truth or they are telling you a lie you cannot deny the reality of truth without assuming that truth as a category since the immense we'll be talking about 100 stick the law of non-contradiction applies to reality two mutually exclusive statements in response to a question both cannot be true without at least one of them we qualified in a certain way it was Winston Churchill during the war who made this extraordinary comment he said truth is the most valuable thing in the world it's the most valuable thing in the world in fact it is so valuable setting that often it is protected by a bodyguard of lies truth is the most valuable thing in the world in fact it is so valuable that often it is protected by a bodyguard advice and the wars that are fought are ultimately not just fought with weaponry but they are won fought with intelligence if you can get the enemy to believe something that is not true if you can get the enemy to bother into your intelligence scheme and we deceived into thinking of something as was happening in the Second World War repeatedly it became a game of intelligence triumphing over ignorance truth is the most valuable thing in the world some years ago the former Israeli justice minister but I'm sure honesty had returned to his homeland in Israel and he had been incarcerated in the former Soviet Union and kept in solitary confinement for a long time he has no permission to come and visit the prison where he was once held and then this personal solemn Moscow when he went as he was about to enter that prison this time his wife was with him and she was going to walk in and he put his arm out he said if you don't mind I'd like to enter this place for just a few minutes only by myself because it was the solitary incarceration all by myself that are really what the most powerful things in this world are about and so she gave him that privilege of going in and spending that time some time after that the battery of microphones confronted him to interview him he said before I answer any questions would you allow me to go to the grave of Andrei Sakharov the physicist who gave to the Soviets the atomic bomb may I go and lay a wreath at his grave and people wondered what on earth this was about so she runs he goes to the grave of suffering the physicists have given to the Soviet atomic bomb and he later meet there and then he filled in this questions when he began by saying this Andrei Sakharov said before he passed away I always thought that the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb I always thought that the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb I have changed my mind the most powerful weapon in the world is not the bomb that was a powerful weapon in the world is it true it is the most valuable thing in the world it is the most powerful weapon in the world therefore just think about this the man who asked the most important question you could ever have asked of Jesus was asked by a man who stood in front of him claiming to have more power than even Jesus don't you know I have the power to release you other than that then you don't have any power other than that which is given to you flying even this little power that you had was a killing petty little potentate comes to you from now mighty God Jesus looked at him and claimed to be the truth and they that are on the side of truths and Jesus listen to me violent missed the greatest opportunity ever given to a person in those 30 seconds he looked at Jesus and he said what is truth and did not wait for the answer what is truth and he walked away you know we can think of truth in many many ways I am at the limitations of time I want to talk to you about truth that we know in one way for sure but in another way we actually struggle more deeply in that which we do not often think about as coming under the category of truth so it makes plain that look different with you truth comes first of all in propositions if I make a statement in the court of law the opposing attorney has the right to question me if he or she thinks I have not told the truth and when they are looking for answers they're looking for two things and then whether my individual statements are corresponding to reality and when all of my statements put together great but coherent response to everything that has been asked December I'm saying individual answers correspond to reality all of the answers put together have to be coherent so the theories of truth move and sweep between the correspondence theory and the coherent theory particular statements corresponding to reality that double story coherent reality we understand that and we think about that but oftentimes what we willing miss are honest what has truth got to do with meaning the meaning of your life the purpose of your life because the fundamental question you really ask as I did at the age of 17 a bit of suicide why am I really here in this world you know about violence and youth is a mistake man who distrubing had all day to regret youth is a mistake and ruthless trouble and all day to regret we are living today probably because of the capacity for the dissemination of information on a cosmic scale within seconds we are now living not with old age being having its regret but youth themselves have a regret well before they have reached the 17 18 and 19 year old mine it's no longer youth as a mistake matter of the struggle and all nature of breath they young themselves are living in regret before they enter into what we would call young adulthood why is this happening we must understand the nature of truth it meaning there's what found among Margaret says we listen very carefully how he says this in this gaso sea of fantasy and fraud how can i or anyone else hope to swim unencumbered how can I learn to see through and not just with the eye how take off my land how to take off my little motley wash away that makeup raised the Iron Chef but aren't the studio lights and silence or sound effects and put the cameras to sleep can I ever once the sunrise and sunset boulevard and the sunset of a forest nor can I find furniture among the studio props silence in a disco peg love in the striptease lead truth moment of you catch it on a screen chase it on the wings of music can I ever view it in living color with the news arrogant living south along the motorways no not in the wind better at the mountains a broken piece of the rocks not in the earthquake not given the fire that followed the earthquake but it said a still small voice not in the screeching of tires either for the driving of grey brakes or the roar of jets of the whistle of sirens not in the howl of trombones the rattle of drums and the chanting of ghetto voices again and again and again I come to realize it's that still small voice he goes on to say the voice of God if one can only catch it those who our iPods in the world of entertainment live in this artificial world of plasticity and often times when their lives have fallen apart and everything around them has collapsed we begin to see that all that was around them was a sham and ultimately ashamed for everything material that they actually had was something that many of us long to have but they know better than anyone that there was really no fulfillment and no ultimate meaning a man who took his life and one of the most sophisticated hotels in Vegas left this note on his dresser here there are no answers here there are no answers well what are the answers we are really looking for folks how do we find what I'll do was talking about that point of reference that point of unchanging truth so that we can find the nature of ultimate reality where do we turn manually suggest you that if you are looking for absolutes you have to be able to define that with all categories of thought and once you define the scope categories it will not only find what it absolutes matter but you will find there if you find your real meaning Darrin you find your real meaning it was Lee Iacocca the auto magnate in his twilight years said this he remind in the twilight years of my life still actually life is all about all I can say is this said he fortune and fame up for the birds fortune and fame offer the birders is but then I stand and I watch my little children or grandchildren coming towards me and I asked myself this question is that what it really is all about not fortune and faith I look at the grandchildren look at the little ones and I say to myself is that what it really is all about may I suggest you he was on the right track and the four categories that have to be defined if we find meaning and I'll have to race for this number one how do we define what evil really is psychiatrists are coming to the conclusion that some crimes are so heinous some crimes are so horrific that you have to give it only one word no other word will describe it we had to use the word evil but the reason they are reluctant to do that is because immediately it brings a moral framework into reference and the very psychiatrists who use this term says nobody knows where to turn for that definition nobody knows where to turn for that definition you know this there's nothing there wrestling with the kind of a drug that will take care of post-traumatic stress disorders you go to the battlefield you have done things you regret you hate what has happened there you come back they're living with nightmares you can't go to sleep at night and they can find they're looking at some medication that will help you believe me that memory and somehow help you block it out of your bus the problem they face is this if we do find a medication that can erase all those horrific things you are engaged in what about the breakfast and the murderer who goes and rapes goes and commits murder comes and pops a pill and is that the end evil I remember years ago in the 1980s visiting outlets in Poland I've never seen anything like that I've been to a concentration camps that was a person had walked into a death camp what used to be the death camp where they were obliterating them at the rate of 12,000 every day 12,000 every day and outside the gas chambers were the words of a navicular I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience imperious relentless and cruel I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience imperious relentless and true and so we look at evil look at nature and we say how can anyone have such a dream and such a goal and you know what the mistake is ladies and gentlemen we look at that type of costly cosmic as an evil and we forget to live pink up inside and recognize the evil that is enough the Bible says everything that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life must bleed and pride you take those three categories and you live with it I live in it and we better deal with it so rather than looking out there at the harder of announcements look at the horror of your own heart and mind and all the things that go wrong in there on a given day evil secondly justice the search for justice and the young generation wants to fight justice you know I had had a friend who came upon some sorry times he was accused of doing something which he vowed and swore he had never done I was not there during the trial but many of my friends attended and I was traveling and ultimately they found him guilty in 35 years it's a sad story and a few weeks had gone by and I throw from Atlanta about two two and a half hours to go and visit him I'll never forget that experience as you walk into that private quarters where they search you and take everything that can have any communication capacity the phones and pens and all that they take it away from you and then they open a door and that door slams behind you and you're of a long depleted corridor in your own and they tell you when you reach the other in the corridor try to the left of the stairs that be a guard standing they will be waiting for you so as I'm walking even that corridor I said for goodness sakes I'm just here for half and I'm already terrified just as a visible star wall went up the stairs there was a guard waiting for me so Sui frisk me again then he put me into another corridor another guard and then they took me in front of a glass and sat me down in this seven I have come to see will be here shortly this was a man who worked for a Christian ministry a peace-loving man and as far as I knew in my estimation and the capacity to do what they did occasionally so he comes with his handcuffs and his ankle irons and all of a sudden I didn't even recognize I didn't recognize but a few weeks they had dehumanized them and I looked at them and I said I have any questions when one question I had why did you get the kind of returning to get away in a very poor job of descent it's a drubbing because I never dream that this thing [Music] I never dreamed that this day had any merit by him an innocent man I have not done this and three decades of his life in a 70s now he will never see the life of a free ticket all I want to say to you is this man claims innocence a system founded guilty this truth matter thus truth matter here is it important for just one life that we have truth and justice at the same time and what is being done to him is unjust it's a cruel kind of infliction common human being I walked away from there unable to pull back the tears walk through that whole corridor again and all of a sudden I was not terrified of that corridor I just said what a world we are living in I got into my car and before I could drive I just put my forehead on the steering and I cried and cried and prayed Lord what a horrible thing has happened if injustice has really been carried out evil justice thirdly love we have to find the answer for love millions our world doesn't understand it and here the West we have open fuse than ever there is no such thing as free love gesture that says that's a black and white contradiction in two words three levels of like the quite contradiction in two words love was never intended to be free it's the nature of love to bind itself it's the nature of love to commit itself it's the nature of love to say I do and also I don't what you say I do too and the counter perspective involves what you say I don't in other respects love is a critical need in your life CS Lewis not so follows the love of God enough a our relationship with God the love of a parent storge protective love the love of a friend or brotherly love Phil mo and the romantic and sexual love which is eros a campaign Stargate fillable eros the last three can only find this death definition once you understand the first which is a copy it cannot hang with its feet in midair it has to stand on the solidity of an unchanging eternal love which God talks about there is no contradiction Indian and that's why that simple verse 32 33 words depending on which version for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life there are many aspects of death there's a filial aspect of a father here's the internal aspect of time moving into eternity there's the relational aspect all of these and it is all built on a legal aspect there is a moral law on which this world that was built and so the sacrifice of Christ became unnecessary love you know in India when I was growing up India produces more movies than any other nation on the face of the earth and some of those movies when you see them you know buy and they produce more movies but I was doing up that was no kissing on the Indian screen alright the fellow would generally be chasing her around trees and singing a song and as soon as he catches up with her at the scene would change so I remember somebody writing to an Indian comedian and saying what's the difference between love at the Western screen and love of the Union screen is that just what word trees to funny thing the entire structure of my culture in which I was raised was not based on romantic marriages it was based on arranged marriages [Music] I had people in my family who arrived at the wedding day without even knowing what the other person look like horrors thinkin what do you live for you don't even know what this person looks like very and all the movies are what romance the heart the lungs for that flutter it lungs of an enchantment that excitement all the delights of arrows but if they ever move away from agave then the presenters rendering of what else was ever managed to do evil justice love and lastly the absolutely must notice how does one legitimately forgive the you need forgiveness I need forgiveness if everything in our heart were exposed to this whole audience that wouldn't be a person but that they would hang their head and say you've seen me like I know one of you to see forgiveness how desperately we need forgiveness that can couple with an understanding of love and no way through this and bring justice and I say to you very simply or only in the cross of Jesus Christ that we have that grace exposed to evil justice love forgiveness whereas the one place in the world the four men converged on a hill called Calvary it is a cross of Jesus Christ that's the centerpiece of the gospel there is no other worldview with a cross there is no other world beautiful goodness is given because of grace in every other worldview you earn your salvation or you earn paradise only the Christian worldview is it a gift it's a gift of grace because of the sacrifice and Zoning in May and paid for you on the solidity of God's definition of people justice love forgiveness converging at the moment of Calvary as a price of spade for you and for me we have the answers to what truth is really all about that's why the Sun shall set you free you shall be free indeed it doesn't just say I am the truth he says I am the way the truth and the life no man comes unto the father but by me if he were only the truth you could talk about propositional correspondence but the way in the life talks about coherence as well and if you really want meaning truth is not just propositional truth is also a coherent life on the inside that was the one thing the Greeks search for which they never found how do you find unity in diversity how do you find unity in diversity you know what their answer was create the universities that's why we get the word University the Greeks were looking for unity and diversity dr. leverage University student today and I said that they found you that universal the graduating from universities the disciplines have very little connection with each other hopefully we can find unity in diversity is to find unity and diversity in the community of the Trinity and the reality of that relationship in your own life so ladies and gentlemen god bless you and I just hope and pray that we can tease out these questions and find you some answers my grandson his name is gieux he's seven years old now is vocabulary is terrifying really is terrified in fact my daughter Naomi asked him a question the other day and he said this is my hypothesis using the word hypothesis if it even makes Marino home but he was little at 3:00 his mother lost her car keys and she couldn't find she smacks her forehead and says I must be losing my mind and little judicata Thunderbird said money whatever you do please do never lose your heart because I'm don't ever lose your heart because I'm to be there God has you on his heart and in his heart and what's that mean by giving you the definitions of what ultimate reality is all about god bless you and thank you [Applause]

Channel: FREEDOMEDIA

Views: 18,944

Rating: 4.8661089 out of 5

Keywords: ravi zacharias, uh, hawaii, manoa, ravi, zacharias, atheism, science, god, abdu murray

Id: CLv8SqqJ79s

Length: 31min 27sec (1887 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 13 2018