Intuitive Truth Versus Empirical Truth Versus Grain of Truth – Three Ways of Knowing

What kind of truth?
Empirical truth is scientific truth…. something that has been measured or predicted by a theory that has been proven by subsequent data. Gravity is a theory that has been confirmed by measurements done properly and confirmed by lots of scientists.

Intuitive truth is an inner knowing that feels right. This can be a personal belief or a group belief. But it may not have been conclusively measured or proven. It sometimes depends on your origin, culture, or training. An example is a waterfall that you discover while hiking with friends. You may be struck by its beauty because its rare sight in your life. But a hiking pal may relate this to a lack of water caused by a severe drought where he lives, and this waterfall may look like wasted water and make him angry. I looked at waterfalls in the Snake River in a 1994 movie called The River Wild with Meryl Streep last nite, and I felt fear in the power of so much water in such a narrow canyon.

A grain of truth contains a kernel of truth but has been expanded into a much larger volume of untruth. It’s easy to announce and make believe its big news, but apart from the kernel of truth, an eye-catching conspiracy is often difficult to prove wrong. The 2020 election result was false, according to some claims, because there were irregularities in voting systems. But courts of law, based on data, ruled that the irregularities were minor and the elections were fair, not just in one court, but in 30 different courts of law. When results such as this are overwhelming, one could still argue the election results were rigged, but a substantial body of evidence says this is taking an extreme, basically false, position. Grain of truth, which may have a tiny element of truth in a larger statement of falsity built around it, is often called conspiracy theory, or misinformation or disinformation. In searching for truth, conspiracy theories need to be labeled and discarded. We confine our attention now to intuitive truth versus empirical truth.

An old debate about God truth.
God truth is largely intuitive truth. The atheist’s position is: there is no God. And famous atheists Richard Dawkins from the UK and Jerry Coyne from the US claim there is no empirical evidence for God. The funny thing is there is no empirical evidence that God does not exist. Atheists often claim the Bible is a bunch of fairy-tales. One early story of the Bible, in Genesis Chapter 19, recounts the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The date is about 3,600 years ago, in the time of Abraham. Sodom, a major city of the time, is described in unnerving details, from the main gate to the narrow streets to the escape of Lot and his family from the inferno, which was generally assumed to be caused by volcanic eruptions.

Now within the last 10 years, the city of Sodom has been discovered and excavated in Jordan, and has been carefully documented in a book called Discovering The City of Sodom by Dr Steven Collins. Many of the Biblical details about the city have been found to be accurate. The author, an archeologist from New Mexico, argued that the destruction of the city was caused by an exploding meteor. Even though no crater was found near Sodom, other similar cases (like Tunguska) exist. Meteors can burn out and destroy the surface of the earth in massive firestorms without hitting the earth to form a crater. In some of the Sodom excavations were found glass spherules of sand melted by the intense heat of the meteor explosion – much the same as spherules found at the Trinity site of the first atomic bomb about 50 miles south of Albuquerque.

A couple of years ago, a team of scientists, after careful empirical research, proved and published that the destruction of Sodom was caused by a meteor airburst, and even mapped its path and the impact area. In the figure, Tall- el Hammam is Sodom. Much of this very old Bible story has proved to be true (read the book by Collins), whether it was handed down verbally or in written form, over many hundreds of years (3,600 years actually).

People who accept the biblical story of Sodom, including the two angels who led Lot and his family out of the vast interconnection of tiny city streets, which took some time, believe the story because there is empirical evidence for the destruction by a meteor, and because it fits with their intuitive understanding of the Bible. To individuals, and whole companies of persons in churches across the world, the Bible stories are intuitive truth, and are a great source of life purpose, morality, and compassion to love and help others.

A personal example of intuitive truth.
Two weeks ago, my step-daughter lifted her adult chow, Nalah, and something popped in her back. She has had occasional sciatica problems for several years, but this episode made everything worse. Her knee hurt intensely, and made it difficult to walk. After a week of painkillers, she went to ER, and they dosed up the painkillers, gave her a whole-leg brace to wear, and told her to make an appointment with a specialist. Over the next week things worsened, so she was confined to a wheelchair and suffered intense pain when she got in and out of the chair.

Kim sent out a plaintive cry for prayer-help to all her friends in FaceBook. She was preparing to be driven to her home in Kansas by her sister, Lisa, on Sunday. But Kim was demoralized as the suffering continued with no change. on Saturday nite she cried out to God in desperation, saying she didn’t know if physically or mentally she could cope any longer. She felt a nervous breakdown was very close.

That nite, Saturday, she slept all nite pain free, and awoke without significant pain. She put on the brace, got in the passenger seat and she and her sister took off. They arrived in Kansas early afternoon and Kim was still virtually pain-free. She was rejoicing in this sudden reprieve that allowed her to be driven back to her home in Kansas. Kim says it was a miracle from God, and Lisa, who has been taking care of Kim in Dallas for two weeks, agrees. After two weeks of intense pain, they concurred intuitively that this was a touch from God.

A powerful illustration of intuitive belief.
I watched Season 4, Episode 7 of The Chosen which is a re-creation of the Lazarus story in the Bible. It’s always been a favorite story of mine, and I was intrigued to see how it would be presented in film. I cried at the intense emotions experienced by Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, when they rebuked Jesus for not being there to save Lazarus from dying. Jesus wept openly. And I cried when Jesus called to have the gravestone rolled back. And I bawled when Lazarus unsteadily limped out of the tomb completely covered in grave clothes. Some of the watchers veered away, scared it was an apparition. On most faces, with eyes wide open, the watchers seemed to be thinking, “I’m not sure I can believe this.”

I’m impressed by the film makers. They have created scenes that mesh closely to biblical times and the Bible narrative, even when they are filling gaps that may exist in the stories. No, the story of Lazarus can’t be proven empirically unless someone were to discover and excavate Lazarus’ tomb and find signature letters or artifacts or DNA that could confirm the origin. But notice there is a written record with reasonable reliability, like the story of Sodom, that spells out reality for experts and people on the street who are open to intuitive truth.
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Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”
{Gospel of John, chapter 11]