Hallelujah! The Institute of Ultimate Truth

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 20, 2010

A few days ago, someone sent me a message using our Contact Form announcing the Institute of Ultimate Truth, which is apparently a non-profit organization formed by students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Asserting that the root cause of all problems in the world is division, the purpose of IUT is to unite everyone around the Truth.

It’s an idea, that. But it is badly botched. The “young people” (one may doubt the plural, I think) who form and run IUT are, in their own words, “fed up with the lies and deception that millions of people are saying is the truth.” To put it another way:

They [the liars] are destroying the world and stealing our future. We are sick of the lies from our political leaders, businessmen, clergy, lawyers and other people in power that will sell our future in exchange for their shortsighted benefit. All the glad-handing, back-slapping, platitudes, and empty promises make us sick.

“Sign me up,” you say? But wait, take a look at their solution:

Many people believe in old myths that contradict other beliefs and scientific evidence, and this causes division. Religious dogmas and myths were created before people had the benefit of modern science. Science attempts to objectively discover how life works, and religion attempts to subjectively find a way to live in harmony with life, so they both have pieces to the same puzzle.

So while both have something to offer, science is by nature objective and religion is by nature subjective. This, of course, betrays such a fundamental misunderstanding of the claims of religion that the whole IUT project is stillborn. The movers and shakers at IUT, who intend to unite the world around truth and so solve all problems, can’t even get first principles right.

Fear not, though. The IUT is sponsoring as its main project the Truth Contest. Those interested may submit essays which “combine the objective and the subjective to find and define the underlying truth in everything, thereby united science and religion toward a common goal.” Entries are evaluated using “the evidence, critical reason, logic, common sense, and scientific methods.” The Final Solution (sorry, bad phrasing) will rise to the top like cream. Then, “for the first time, we will know and understand how life works so that we can live completely in harmony with it. This will present a solid, certain morality which will serve as the foundation for a united world.”

Nice.

The essays submitted so far include a “Memorandum from God”. I was not surprised that God’s Memorandum is in fourth place, considering revelation has been relegated to the class of subjectivity. The first place essay seems pretty clearly to have been written by the Institute itself, and it is based on the objective certainty and surpassing obviousness of an unending circle of life, which necessitates reincarnation. Apparently the evidence, critical reason, logic, common sense, and scientific methods have pushed it to the top.

CatholicCulture.org’s advice to the IUT is not to count God out. He is full of surprises, including the ability to provide a Revelation that is actually objective. But God also knows something the Institute of Ultimate Truth does not: Many won’t believe Him anyway, not even if He should rise from the dead.