Hello Apondia . Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

Grill a Christian  (13+) Can we communicate with God and each other? How is this possible? #2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Makings of Truth a description." 

Did you answer the question?

My impression was that you entered the question into a search engine and then asked Co-Pilot to help sift and sort the results. You may have chosen from the result set, but there was little personal reflection on the options selected.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

Well, you used AI, which is not a problem for research purposes, but there was not a coherent personal response to the results and the integration of these into a clear argument in which your distinctive voice could be heard. Do you think that a machine is going to provide a better answer to this question than you are? Unlike an AI, you have a soul and a body, and your voice matters. I hope to hear it in the future because I did not hear it here.

How consistent was your argument?

You presented seven ways to look at the truth, but there was no consistency between these themes and no coherent argument.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

The search engine returned 108m answers, which shows the importance of the question and the amount of commentary available on that. As you say, it is a question that people need an answer to; it bothers them, and it matters. But you suggested that the volume of materials was so overwhelming that there was nothing you could add to that. So instead, you merely summarized the highlights of what others were saying. In effect, this was not a personal response to the question; it was a list of possible approaches one could take to the question.

That said, your choices were interesting ones: Logic, stuff that works, the trustworthy personal-historical example of Jesus: God-incarnate, Phenomenological experience, impact-assessment of truth claims, a progressive social construct, the moral-ethical-taste context in which truth can be upheld - is it life positive or negative? Maybe there was some overlap and repetition between these that could have been eliminated or reconciled in a more personal argument.

Your choices indicated a pragmatic/functional/experiential orientation to the question. You like answers that work in practice and can be incarnated into real-world experience. This reflects your Judeo-Christian orientation and recognition of the power of the incarnate revelation of Jesus as God with us, who was the perfect example of truth and whose every word was true and whose very person and presence are the Truth. I was interested that one of the sources you quoted was the Jewish Study Bible. The Jews looked for miracles and for the power of God, while the Greeks searched for wisdom (1 Cor 1;22-23). The Jews already had the outward form of godliness but needed the wondrous power of God to make it all work. The Greeks were on a continual quest for the thrill of the new, their stories were more abstract, fanciful and less grounded in historical reality.

Your most curious choice was the Social construction one. The notion that truth is progressive, acting on situations of falsity progressively, contrasts with conservative voices that seek to preserve truth from the corruption of change and evolving relativistic views of reality. My word does not return to me empty, it will accomplish the purpose for which I sent it - contrasted with "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever // Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.". You chose a side here without explaining the choice or demonstrating it with a practical example.

Mechanical issues

This was too short.

108,000000 - this should have been written as 108 million or 108,000,000

The text was well edited but felt like a summary of a Google/Co-Pilot search. It lacked soul coherence.


Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

STATIC

My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E) How do I assess people's work when reviewing? #2259390 by LightinMind