On Subjectivity & Objectivity Within Christianity

 

The human engagement with the world is primarily one of subjective interpretations of objective reality. For the individual, subjectivity and objectivity are co-dependent, like two blades on a pair of scissors. So, when considering Christianity, we start down the same path of analysis; Christ being Lord and Saviour is an objective consideration, not merely a subjective one - because if it's true, it's objectively true, and it matters more than anything else in the world. The evidence for this lies in subjective interpretations of both subjective experiences and objective phenomena, reflecting the interplay between truthful propositions, personal faith and historical reality.

When considering evidence in the world, we want two things; we want to know what objective facts are, and we want to assess the probability of the propositions about those facts being true. Objective facts simply mean things that are true irrespective of subjective human opinions. You might think of it like this; if we were Omniscient and had access to all the information in the cosmos, then we would be able to answer any statistical question definitively, as the truth or falsity of any situation would in no way depend on the perceptual ability of any of the observers. In other words, the general term 'objective' in relation to most scepticism needs redressing, because the reason that God's objective evidence cannot yet be settled purely with recourse to external facts does not make it subjective with respect to the evidence provided, only subjective with respect to our own probabilistic epistemology.

Therefore, when we talk of Christianity's truths (and true propositions about them), objective facts are to do with things that are true irrespective of subjective human opinions, because, in Christ, God has provided objective evidence for His existence and His love for us. Of course, we may rightly contend that the evidence's standing with respect to our individual phenomenological perspective is the only sense that actually matters to us, but that is also the primary sense in which God has made Himself known in Christ - to engage with each of us at the deepest and most personal level - so we are adequately equipped with everything we need.