Has Truth Always Existed?

Has Truth Always Existed?

 

 

         What is true are propositions and propositions abide in the mind. But this does not mean that objective truths require a mind as they are independent of it. Propositions in the mind correspond to objective facts. Objective facts are the truth-makers while propositions are the truth-bearers that represent objective facts. God grounds the propositions as He is the necessary being and all facts are contingent upon Him. If there was no God then there would be nothing to ground truth. If this was the case then truth would begin when the first mind comes into being. Then how does one explain necessary truths like the law of noncontradiction or excluded middle? If there was an eternal mind to ground these truths then these laws would always be true. In other words, if the truth-bearers are propositions and propositions are grounded by minds and if minds have not always existed then truth is not always eternal and therefore not necessary.

 

P1: All truth-bearers are propositions.

P2: All propositions are grounded by minds.

P3: Minds have not always existed in all possible worlds.

 

C1: Therefore, Truth is not always eternal.

 

P4: Something is necessary if it always existed and cannot be another way in all possible worlds.

P5: Truth is not always eternal.

 

C2: Therefore, Truth is not necessary.

 

P6: God is an eternal mind.

P7: God grounds all propositions eternally.

 

C3: Therefore, Truth is necessary

 

One can have facts of the matter or state of affairs prior to minds but not truth as minds are the truth-bearers. The way to avoid this is to say that propositions are not grounded in minds such that they are a priori or to equivocate objective facts and truths or to have an eternal mind.

         Kant posited that the human mind possesses innate, a priori categories that serve as the framework through which we interpret and understand the world. These categories, including causality and the law of noncontradiction, are essential for making sense of the phenomenal world. These a priori categories, which are necessary for coherent thought and understanding, are dependent on the existence of minds. Without minds, these categories and the truths derived from them would not exist. If we conceive of God as the eternal, transcendent mind, then it could be posited that God serves as the ultimate source or ground for these a priori categories. In this view, God’s necessary nature would provide the necessary conditions for the existence of these truths, serving as the eternal noumenal foundation that makes the coherent structure of the phenomenal world and the a priori categories possible. Therefore, God, as the eternal noumenal mind, becomes the ultimate guarantor of the truths embedded in the a priori categories of the human mind described by Kant.

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