If Someone Says—“The Bible Is a Good Book, but There Is No Such Thing as Absolute Truth”
- Edward D. Andrews
- 7 hours ago
- 12 min read
When someone says, “The Bible is a good book, but there is no such thing as absolute truth,” they are usually trying to hold two ideas together that cannot remain stable in the same mind without one eventually swallowing the other. Calling the Bible “a good book” sounds respectful, even appreciative. Denying absolute truth, however, quietly empties the word “good” of any objective meaning and turns every moral claim, every historical claim, and every theological claim into nothing more than a personal preference or a social fashion. The statement is not merely a casual opinion; it is a worldview claim about reality, knowledge, morality, language, and meaning. If it is true that there is no absolute truth, then the Bible cannot be “good” in any sense that binds anyone else. If the Bible is actually what it claims to be—the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God—then absolute truth is not only real, it is unavoidable, because God Himself is the ultimate standard of what is true.
The best way to respond is not with irritation, sarcasm, or philosophical showmanship. The right response is calm clarity: expose the internal contradiction, define terms, show that truth is not a human invention, and then bring the discussion to the Person and words of Jesus Christ, because Christianity is not built on a vague religious sentiment but on God’s acts in history and His verbal revelation preserved in Scripture.
What The Statement Is Really Claiming
The sentence has two clauses that pull in opposite directions. “The Bible is a good book” is a value judgment. “There is no such thing as absolute truth” is a denial that any value judgment can be objectively binding. The moment a person denies absolute truth, the meaning of “good” becomes merely “I like it,” “It helps people,” “It inspires me,” or “It fits my community’s values.” Those are feelings and outcomes, not truth. But the Bible does not present itself as a helpful anthology of moral reflections that can be accepted or discarded at will. It presents itself as God speaking with authority, giving factual claims about creation, human nature, sin, judgment, redemption, and the future. If the Bible is merely “good” in a subjective sense, then it has no authority to correct, command, or judge. Yet the Bible repeatedly claims that Jehovah speaks, commands, and holds mankind accountable.
The denial of absolute truth is not modest. It is sweeping. It claims that there is no truth that holds in all places, for all people, at all times, regardless of feelings, cultures, or shifting opinions. That is a universal claim. It is global. It is absolute in scope. And that is precisely where the self-defeating nature of the statement becomes clear.
The Self-Defeating Problem With “No Absolute Truth”
If someone says, “There is no such thing as absolute truth,” one question immediately presses: Is that statement itself absolutely true? If the speaker answers yes, then the speaker has affirmed at least one absolute truth, and the statement collapses. If the speaker answers no, then the statement is not binding on anyone, including you. In that case, there is no reason to accept it, and the speaker has conceded the claim is merely a personal impression.
This is not a clever trick; it is simply honesty about what words mean. A universal denial of universals is incoherent. It is like saying, “I cannot speak a word of English,” in English. The sentence refutes itself by existing. The Christian response can be gentle but direct: “Are you saying it is absolutely true that there is no absolute truth?” That forces clarity. Many people have not examined their slogan. They have repeated a mood of the age.
Once the contradiction is exposed, the discussion can move from slogans to reality: what truth is, how we know it, and why denial of truth is impossible to live out consistently.
What Truth Is, And Why People Cannot Escape It
Truth is that which corresponds to reality. When a statement matches what is, it is true. When it does not match what is, it is false. This is not a religious idea. It is built into language, thought, and everyday life. People may deny absolute truth in a classroom conversation, but they live as though truth exists when they sign contracts, read medication labels, demand justice, call for honesty, or insist that others respect their rights. They do not want “your truth” from a pilot at 30,000 feet, from a surgeon in an operating room, or from a judge in a courtroom. They want what is actually true.
Even moral language assumes truth. When someone says, “That’s wrong,” they are not merely reporting a personal taste like “I dislike broccoli.” They are making a claim about what ought not be done. The word “wrong” is a truth-word. It reaches beyond personal preference. It carries an implied demand: “You should not do that, and others should agree.” But “should” has no foundation if there is no absolute moral reality. Without an objective moral standard, moral outrage becomes an emotional noise with no authority.
The Christian position is that truth is not invented by humans; it is grounded in Jehovah, the God who exists and who speaks. Because He is the Creator, reality is what He has made it to be. Because He is morally perfect, goodness is what conforms to His nature and will. Because He speaks, truth is communicated in words that can be understood and obeyed.
Why The Bible Cannot Be Reduced To “A Good Book”
Many people call the Bible “a good book” as a way of keeping its comfort while refusing its authority. But the Bible will not remain in that box. It does not speak like a self-help guide. It speaks like God addressing mankind: rebuking, warning, promising, commanding, inviting, and judging. It tells you what you are, why the world is broken, what sin is, why death exists, and how Jehovah has acted to save. It teaches that humans are accountable creatures, not autonomous meaning-makers.
If the Bible is merely “good,” then its commands are optional, its moral standards are negotiable, its warnings are theatrical, and its gospel becomes a therapeutic suggestion. That is not the Bible’s own view of itself. Scripture presents itself as God-breathed revelation and insists that it is true. The Bible’s authority is not derived from human approval but from God’s authorship. If someone wants to praise the Bible while denying absolute truth, they are praising a book they have not yet permitted to define what praise means.
A fruitful response is to ask: “Good by what standard?” If there is no absolute truth, then there is no absolute standard of good. The person has borrowed the category of “good” from the world of objective truth while verbally denying that world exists. That borrowing is common. It is also unsustainable.
Jesus Christ And The Reality Of Absolute Truth
The question is not merely philosophical. It is personal, because Christianity rises or falls with Jesus Christ and His teaching. Jesus did not speak as a religious poet offering inspiring perspectives. He spoke as the One who came from the Father, revealing Him, and calling mankind to repentance and faith. He treated truth as real, knowable, and authoritative. He did not present truth as a social construction. He presented truth as something that stands over human opinion.
In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus did not say He has truth or teaches truths only as helpful guidance. He identified Himself with truth. That means truth is not merely an abstract idea; it is anchored in the character and words of God’s Son. When someone denies absolute truth, they are not only rejecting a concept; they are rejecting the claim that God has definitively revealed Himself.
Jesus also taught that Scripture is truth. In John 17:17 He said, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” If God’s Word is truth, then it is not merely “true for you.” It is truth in the same sense reality is real. It stands whether embraced or mocked. It judges the hearer rather than being judged by the hearer.
When you bring Jesus into the conversation, you are not changing the subject. You are locating the issue where it truly belongs: If God has spoken, then truth is not up for negotiation. The modern mood is to treat all beliefs as lifestyle accessories. Jesus does not allow that. He calls for repentance, obedience, and faith because He speaks with divine authority.
The Historical-Grammatical Foundation For Biblical Truth
A common assumption behind “no absolute truth” is that the Bible is impossible to know reliably, that it has been corrupted, or that meaning is endlessly fluid. Those claims collapse under careful, historically grounded reading. The historical-grammatical method begins with the conviction that God chose to communicate in real human languages at definable times in real places, using identifiable genres, grammar, and context. Words have meaning. Sentences communicate propositions. Authors intend something. Readers are accountable to that intention, not free to reinvent it.
This method does not treat Scripture as a wax nose. It seeks the natural sense of the text as conveyed by grammar, syntax, literary context, and historical setting. It recognizes figures of speech when the text signals them. It recognizes that narrative is narrative, poetry is poetry, and epistle is epistle. But it does not surrender meaning to the reader’s feelings. The goal is not “what this means to me,” but “what Jehovah meant by what He caused to be written.”
This matters because the denial of absolute truth often travels with the denial of stable meaning. But if language cannot carry stable meaning, then communication dies—morality, justice, science, and daily life collapse. The very act of asserting “no absolute truth” assumes language can communicate a stable claim. The Christian can gently point out that the speaker is relying on what he denies.
Moral Truth And The Need For A Standard Beyond Man
People often deny absolute truth because they fear oppression: “Absolute truth has been used to control people.” Abuse of truth claims is real. But the abuse of something does not make the thing unreal. People have abused medicine; that does not mean the body is imaginary. People have abused law; that does not mean justice does not exist. People have abused religion; that does not mean God has not spoken.
Without absolute moral truth, the strong dominate the weak by raw power or by cultural manipulation. If there is no objective standard, then “right” becomes whatever the powerful can enforce and the crowd can applaud. The denial of absolute truth does not protect the vulnerable; it removes their appeal to any higher court. In Scripture, moral truth is grounded in Jehovah’s character. That is why Scripture can condemn not only individual sins but also public injustice. Jehovah is not a product of culture. He stands above it and judges it.
When someone says, “There is no absolute truth,” ask them if it is absolutely wrong to torture children for fun, to rape, to enslave, to betray, to murder the innocent. Most people immediately say those things are absolutely wrong. That response reveals they know moral absolutes exist. They may not have traced the foundation, but the moral knowledge is there. Scripture explains why: humans are made in God’s image and have conscience, even though sin distorts and suppresses truth.
The Bible’s Claim: Humans Suppress Truth, Not Lack Access To It
Romans 1 explains a reality many modern people feel but do not name: humans suppress truth. The problem is not that truth does not exist; the problem is that sinful mankind resists it. When people deny absolute truth, the denial often functions as a moral escape hatch: “If nothing is ultimately true, then I cannot be ultimately accountable.” But accountability presses in anyway—through conscience, through the hunger for justice, through the fear of death, through the longing for meaning that pleasure cannot satisfy.
The Bible teaches that humans are not neutral seekers. We are morally involved. We want autonomy. We want to define ourselves. We want moral freedom without moral consequence. The denial of absolute truth provides that illusion for a time. But it cannot heal the guilt of sin, cannot explain the universal sense of “ought,” cannot ground love as more than chemical impulse, and cannot answer death.
This is where apologetics becomes pastoral. You are not merely winning an argument. You are helping someone see the moral and spiritual motives behind a fashionable slogan, and inviting them to come into the light.
Absolute Truth Does Not Mean We Know Everything
A common confusion is to treat absolute truth as if it requires omniscience. It does not. Absolute truth means that what is true is true regardless of who knows it. Limited human knowledge does not imply that reality is fluid. It implies we must be humble learners. Christianity is not the claim that Christians know everything. It is the claim that Jehovah knows everything and has spoken truly where He chose to reveal Himself.
We can know real truth without knowing all truth. We do that constantly. You can truly know that 2 + 2 = 4 without knowing all mathematics. You can truly know that a person is dead without knowing everything about biology. You can truly know that lying is wrong without knowing every ethical dilemma. In the same way, you can truly know what Scripture teaches on salvation, holiness, judgment, and Christ without possessing exhaustive knowledge.
This distinction matters because skeptics sometimes slide from “humans are fallible” to “there is no truth.” That is a non sequitur. Human fallibility is a reason to submit to God’s Word, not a reason to deny the possibility of revelation.
Why The Bible’s Truth Is Not A Private “Religious Truth”
Modern culture tries to confine religious claims to a private corner: “That’s your truth; mine is different.” But if God exists, His existence is not private. If He created mankind, His moral authority is not optional. If Jesus rose from the dead, that is not a private preference; it is a public fact with universal implications. Christianity makes claims about history and reality, not merely about inner experience.
The Bible is filled with publicly checkable claims: real places, real rulers, real events, real writings circulating among congregations, real eyewitness testimony. The New Testament writers did not present their message as an inward spiritual myth. They presented it as God acting in space-time and then interpreting those acts through inspired Scripture. The Christian faith is rooted in what Jehovah has done and said, not in what a community feels.
When someone calls the Bible “a good book,” you can agree that it is good—then immediately clarify what kind of good. It is not good like a novel is good. It is good because it is true, because it reveals Jehovah, because it exposes sin accurately, and because it announces the only remedy: the atoning sacrifice of Christ and the resurrection hope.
The Resurrection Hope And The Reality Of Truth
Truth is not an abstract game; it is tied to life and death. The Bible teaches that death is not a doorway into conscious existence elsewhere, as though man possesses an immortal soul. Man is a soul. When a person dies, his life ceases; the person is not alive in another realm. That stark reality is why truth matters so much: if death ends us, then only Jehovah can restore life by resurrection. The Christian hope is not human immortality but God’s act of re-creation through Christ.
If there is no absolute truth, then the resurrection is reduced to symbolism, and hope becomes wishful thinking. But Scripture presents resurrection as a real act of God grounded in Christ’s own resurrection. Christianity is not “true for me” because it helps me cope. Christianity is true because Jehovah has spoken and acted, and He calls all men everywhere to respond. The denial of absolute truth ultimately undermines hope, because hope without truth is fantasy.
How To Respond In Conversation Without Becoming Combative
When you hear, “The Bible is a good book, but there is no such thing as absolute truth,” a calm approach is more effective than a rapid-fire debate. Begin by asking what they mean by “absolute truth.” Many people mean “I don’t like dogmatism” or “people disagree,” not “reality has no objective structure.” You can grant that people disagree and that hypocrisy exists, while still insisting that disagreement does not eliminate truth. People disagree about medicine; that does not mean the body has no objective biology.
Then ask, “Is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth?” This is not a trap; it is intellectual honesty. If they soften the claim into “We can’t know absolute truth,” then the conversation turns to epistemology, revelation, and why we have good reason to trust Scripture. If they admit some absolutes (like moral wrongs), then you can show they already believe in absolute truth and are borrowing it while denying it.
Then invite them to consider Jesus’ claims. Christianity is not merely “The Bible says so.” It is that Jehovah has revealed Himself, and Jesus Christ spoke and acted with divine authority. If Jesus is who He claimed to be, then truth is personal and authoritative.
Finally, keep the conversation anchored in Scripture’s clarity and purpose: God reveals truth so people can be reconciled to Him, walk in holiness, and receive the resurrection hope. The goal is not to win a point; it is to remove intellectual smoke so the conscience can see the light.
The Demand Of Scripture: Submission To Jehovah’s Truth
If absolute truth exists—and it does—then the real question is not whether we like it, but whether we will submit to it. Scripture does not invite mankind to be a committee over God. It calls mankind to repent, believe, obey, and endure. That is why the denial of absolute truth is so attractive: it protects the self from God’s authority. But it also leaves the self alone—alone with guilt, death, and a universe stripped of meaning.
The Bible is not merely a “good book.” It is the true Word of Jehovah that confronts every human heart. It tells the truth about our sin. It tells the truth about God’s holiness. It tells the truth about Christ’s atoning sacrifice. It tells the truth about the coming Kingdom and Christ’s premillennial reign. It tells the truth about eternal life as a gift, not a natural possession. It tells the truth about Sheol and Hades as gravedom, not a conscious realm, and Gehenna as eternal destruction, not everlasting torment. It tells the truth that salvation is a path that must be walked, not a label that can be worn. Those truths are not cultural suggestions. They are divine realities.
When someone says, “There is no absolute truth,” they are not becoming humble. They are claiming an authority over reality that belongs to Jehovah alone. The Christian response is to invite them to lay down that false autonomy and come under the truth that gives life.
About the Author
EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
Comments