I happened to scroll on Facebook and see this post that says: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” It caught my attention and prodded me to scrutinize it, though it already sounded familiar as I had already encountered similar statements before.
Glancing merely at the surface level of this statement, one may nod one’s head. But critically analyzing such a statement, one can find internal incoherence in it, a sort of a philosophical untenability.
Viewed from the vantage point of the Science of Logic, since the statement uses the word “everything,” it is a universal proposition. Thus, there is no “exception” in such a claim.
It follows therefore that that very statement in itself is within the scope of its very own claim. In other words, if and if everything is … not a fact; if everything is … not the truth,” then the word “everything” also includes that very statement in itself. It is a self-including statement.
Therefore, that very statement in itself is also an opinion, and it cannot be taken as a fact. That very statement in itself is also a perspective, and it cannot be taken as the truth.
It is the expression of extreme relativism. That everything is relative. Everything is subjectivity and there is no such thing as objectivity.
If it is (to be) the criterion of truth, then there is in fact no objective truth that can be had. What is considered true depends only on the subjectivity of the person. In the realm of art, there is a similar familiar statement, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
In the history of western philosophy, the Greek philosopher Protagoras appears to be the first to espouse relativism. He says, “Man is the measure of all things.” It is man that is the meter stick of what is true or false. There is no such thing objective truth. But, of course, it is false view.
Extreme relativism is a self-defeating claim, because it includes itself. It is philosophically untenable. Unfortunately, it is the dominant mentality or mental framework of this era.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, epistemological truth is had when the mind conforms with the reality outside the mind. This presupposes the fact that there is a reality we call the mind, and that there is a reality outside and other than the mind.
It is true that knowledge of truth exists in the mind, but it is also true that knowledge comes into existence when the mind conforms with the reality outside the mind. Thus, there is real danger in extreme relativism. It is untenable. The statement above is a self-defeating claim. (But of course, there are other views contending this view on the criterion of truth. Immanuel Kant offers his own view among others as can be gleaned from his “Copernican revolution in philosophy.”)
If and if such relativistic claim be applied to God, then it follows that there is no such thing as an objective reality called God. Everything merely depends on the subjectivity of the person. Protagoras’ view “Man is the measure of all things” is making man a little god. But the truth is that “God is the measure of all things.” For, biblically, as St. John says, “Through him [God] all things came into being, and apart from him nothing came to be” (Jn. 1:3). Philosophically, St. Thomas Aquinas proves God’s objective existence through his “quinque viae.”