{"id":57731,"date":"2023-01-07T09:18:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T15:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=57731"},"modified":"2023-01-07T09:18:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T15:18:49","slug":"what-is-your-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-your-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Your Standard?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

by Doy Moyer<\/p>\n

What is your standard of what is true? How do you determine what is good?<\/p>\n

Remove God from any answer and what will you have? Personal preferences? Whatever society says? Human experience? What other options are there?<\/p>\n

\"\"Once God is taken out of the answers, no other standard suffices to provide us with what is universally true, good, or beautiful. Personal preferences provide no standard for anyone but self. We might as well debate the favored flavor of ice cream. What society says is in constant flux, and often one culture has generally accepted what others would consider to be immoral practices. Why are they wrong? There is no standard there. And human experience? Once we allow human experience to be a standard of what is true and good, just about anything will go, for human experience includes the most perverse evils conceived along with those who would defend the evils. Why shouldn’t they be allowed, too? None of these give us any standards outside of ourselves, and we are miserable makers of definitive rules. You can disagree if you wish, but what standard will you use to make your case? What if I reject your standard? Why would it matter?<\/p>\n

Removing God from the answers leaves us lurching for something solid to grasp, and we aren’t finding it. We are trying to feel our way through a darkness that has no hope of light. This is why Paul’s point in Acts 17 is significant. We are reaching for something, but what is it? Paul argues that God made humanity “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring’<\/em>” (Acts 17:27-28).<\/p>\n

We innately reach for God. Denying Him is pointless. The true, the good, and the beautiful find their answers in Him. With God, the standard does not come from within corrupted humanity, but from the outside. Only God has the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to provide what is universally needed because only He stands above the creation and sees the total picture of reality. Truth, goodness, and beauty are grounded in who God is. These are not arbitrarily imposed preferences coming from corrupted, finite, ignorant people. Our worldview matters because it says something vital about the standards we choose to accept and reject.<\/p>\n

Again…<\/p>\n

What is your standard of what is true? How do you determine what is good?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Doy Moyer What is your standard of what is true? How do you determine what is good? Remove God from any answer and what will you have? Personal preferences? Whatever society says? Human experience? What other options are there? Once God is taken out of the answers, no other standard suffices to provide us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78,220,441],"class_list":["post-57731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-authority","tag-standard","tag-truth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23429,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/racism-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":0},"title":"Racism Is Wrong","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Racism is wrong. Do you know why? If you say that it is wrong, but do not ultimately know why, then all you are doing is expressing either your own personal preferences or mirroring the preferences of others. That is not acceptable, for preferences are subjective expressions,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/racism-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":88561,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-is-telling-the-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":1},"title":"Who Is Telling the Truth?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jerry Falk A friend on Facebook recently asked, \"How do you know 'facts' are truth or lies?\" Apparently, he was referring to the current political climate in the United States. I took his question a step further. If we reject the existence of God and dismiss biblical morality, on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/questioning-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":91697,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/these-three-words-are-the-fabric-of-reality\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":2},"title":"These Three Words Are the Fabric of Reality","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer These three words are at the heart of everything that exists - and every human being longs for them. But what happens when we try to define them without God? In this video, Doy Moyer explores why truth, goodness, and beauty can't be grounded in human opinion,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Video"","block_context":{"text":"Video","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/video\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60868,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/measured-to-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":3},"title":"Measured to Us","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 24, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer \"For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you\" (Matthew 7:2). \"Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94916,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-the-bible-isnt-your-standard-what-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":4},"title":"If the Bible Isn\u2019t Your Standard\u2026 What Is?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Steve Wolfgang via InLight Media For centuries, the sola scriptura debate has raged on (most notably between Catholics and Protestants) over this primary question: is scripture sufficient as our only final, authoritative standard, or do we need some sort of council or magisterium to help interpret and apply it?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Video"","block_context":{"text":"Video","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/video\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55187,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-bible-alone-is-the-standard\/","url_meta":{"origin":57731,"position":5},"title":"The Bible Alone Is the Standard","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by David J. Riggs from\u00a0Catholic Teaching Examined The apostle Paul said, \"...How that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}