These are not questions you probably think about on a daily basis. They are not what you ask your friends about in social settings. They may be questions you have never even thought about. So when I set them in front of you for consideration, your tendency maybe to think, "I really don't care." You may conclude it doesn't really matter.
You may think they are really deep and require too much thought. You most likely have not considered the implications for you of how you answer these questions. However, these may be questions that matter the most to you across your life.
Let's take a minute and explore these questions and why you answers should matter to you.
If you have decided that you will use your experiences to conclude what is true, then you are likely to answer the first question "yes." This means that what you believe about people in general and yourself in particular is a result of how you have observed other people and how they have made you feel about yourself. A good example is your self esteem, which is your belief of your own value or importance. If you have been successful in acquiring material wealth and power and people have told you how good you are, then you probably believe you are pretty important. Of course, the opposite would be true if you had been mainly a failure and not received well by other people. This is just one of many, many beliefs you have that come from how you have observed the world around you and how those experiences have made you feel. You have beliefs about the origin of the universe, about God, about authority, about family, about education and on and on based on what you personally have experienced. The obvious and ultimate conclusion you must reach if you answer the first question yes is that there is no absolute truth. Since truth is determined from our experience, we each have our own version of what is true, what is right and what is wrong.
If you answer the second question yes, then you have decided that there are absolute truths that exist before and beyond your personal experience. In this case you will work to gain more and more knowledge so you can find what is true. Once you have truth, you then perceive and interpret situations in life through the lenses of what is true. Back to example of self esteem. If you answer the second question positively, then you believe that you am important or not regardless of what your experience may suggest. That is, if you believe you are important because God says so, then when you fail and others reject you, it does not affect your self esteem. Similarly with the other areas you have beliefs. If you stand on what you believe and try to understand what just happened through the lenses of your beliefs, you will think, feel, and act differently than if you answered the first question positively.
If the first question is where you stand, then you have resolved the question "how do I determine truth?" If you answered the second question positively, you have answered the question "is there absolute truth?" but you must resolve the question "how do i know what is true?' This requires faith. In other words, what you settle on as absolute truth will be a result of believing something that you cannot prove.
Many believe that if they take the position that truth is relative to what they believe through experience then they do not need faith. The truth is that answering the first question yes and the second no is having faith in the fact that truth is relative and based on perspective.
Now, if you answer both questions "yes" or both questions "no", you are basically confused and not sure what you believe. These questions are mutually exclusive and demand that you decide. Not making the effort to resolve this is believing you can just float around independent of the effects of truth in your journey and destination. It is kinda like the common statement, "if you don;t know where you are going, then any path will get you there."
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