Color Blindness & Absolute Truth
Can there be absolute truth if some can't perceive it?
September, 2019
I was recently asked if color blindness disproved the idea of absolute truth. The questioner suggested that the fact that some people perceive colors differently than others might mean there was no such thing as blue, or green, only our perception of those things. He said something similar about the right temperature for a room so it wasn't too hot or cold, according to different people. His suggestion was that colorblindness proves that "blue," for instance, is not something absolutely true.
It's essential to define our terms. Sometimes, an entire problem can be resolved in that way. There's an important difference between "perception" and "reality." The idea of absolute truth doesn't mean there cannot be differences in how people perceive things. Absolute truth simply means there are facts which are true regardless of your perception of them.
Consider a table, with three blocks on it. You can see them, and you know how many there are. If I blindfold you, does that change the number of blocks on the table? Not at all. If I take one away, while you're blindfolded, and then ask how many there are, does your answer of "three" mean there might be another block there, somewhere? Certainly not. The number of blocks on the table is what it is, whether you "perceive" it correctly, or not. Nobody would suggest the count of blocks really is in doubt, simply because since one person has a different opinion.
The same is true even when a person has no facts, at all. As I type this, there's a container to my right with grains of sand in it. Did that container exist before you read that sentence? Of course it did. Or does it? Maybe I'm lying to you. Either way, whether the container exists is a fact which is (objectively) either true or false. Your perception of that fact, or your knowledge of it, cannot change whether it's true or false. That, in a nutshell, is "absolute truth." Some things are, or are not, regardless of who knows them or approves of them.
So, for instance, we define "blue" as light with a certain range of wavelengths. A person who's colorblind might not perceive that well. Yet this doesn't change the wavelengths of light hitting their eyes. It's not logically different from a person who is entirely blind, and cannot perceive whether the light in a room is on or off. Their perception does not change reality.
By definition, "preference" means something grounded entirely in perception. "Too hot" or "too cold" is relative, and that's fine. But what has not changed is the actual temperature of the room. That's the objective truth. People are free to debate what the "most preferred" temperature of the room is. At no time, and in no way, will that discussion change the actual, absolutely-true temperature.
The same would be true of the sand grains in the container on my desk. You might think there are 10,000, while I think there are 20,000. You might wish there were more, I might wish there were less. But no matter what we guess or feel, if someone counted those grains, there would be a single, absolute number that's "the real" count.
This matters when it comes to how we interpret, explain, and live out God's will in our lives. It's popular for people to section off certain ideas as "my truth" versus "your truth." Take note, this is typically only done with matters of morality or spirituality. The same people who claim "my truth" in defense of their preferences wouldn't accept that excuse if their paycheck was half what they expected.
The more we examine reality, the more clearly we see that some things are true, and some things are false. That makes it all the more important we're contending for what's real, not merely what we perceive or prefer. To see this in action, from Scripture, see Acts 17:11, 1 John 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, and John 14:6.
-- Editor
