There is a growing confusion in our culture about what the word truth really means. People now say “objective truth” as though it were the only kind of truth that exists. When they do, they are usually referring to something measurable or verifiable. But this narrow use of the word ignores an entire dimension of reality, the dimension of quality.
What has happened is that objective truth has been mistaken for truth itself. In doing so, the subjective, the realm of value and judgment, has been quietly dismissed as irrelevant. But truth cannot exist in only one dimension. What follows is an exploration of how truth unfolds through the ancient order of subject and object, where quality gives birth to quantity.
The Subject and the Object
The words subject and object both come from the same Latin root iaciō, meaning “to throw.”
Subject comes from subiciō, “to throw under.”
Object comes from obiciō, “to throw against.”
Even in their origins, the two ideas were meant to stand in tension. The subject lies beneath our experience, the foundation that holds meaning. The object is what stands before us, something thrown against our perception, confronting us from the outside.
Software design mirrors this perfectly. In object-oriented programming, a code class defines qualities, not quantities. It describes potential and meaning, but it cannot be measured. When we create an instance of that code class, it becomes the object, something concrete and testable.
Subjective truth equals quality.
Objective truth equals measurable quantities.
The code class represents the inner, qualitative structure of reality. The instance is its outer, measurable form. Without the subject, the object has no definition. Without the object, the subject remains unexpressed.
Deleting the Code Class
What modern culture has done is elevate the measurable while discarding the meaningful. It is as if we have kept the instances and deleted the code classes.
This inversion began during the Enlightenment, when reason and rationality were placed above tradition and faith. The objective was declared superior to the subjective. What could not be measured was dismissed as untrustworthy. The scientific method became the new scripture, and in the process, we began to forget that truth had once included the unseen dimension of quality.
When we discard traditions, we do the same thing. A tradition is a code class passed down through generations. It holds the distilled lessons of human experience, the qualitative ideas that have survived the test of time.
When we ignore them because they cannot be measured, we lose the structure that gives meaning to what we build. We may still have data and progress, but without form or direction. Without the code class, the object eventually disintegrates.
The Evolution of Quality
In software development, we do not discover quality through measurement but through iteration. We build, test, and adjust again and again. Over time, patterns emerge that endure. These become principles, like SOLID or OOPs, that guide our future work.
Human traditions evolve in exactly the same way. The practices that last, resting on the Sabbath or treating others as you wish to be treated, survive because they work. They have endured the evolutionary stresses through time.
As I wrote in Tradition, Evolution, and the Power of Subjective Truth, quality cannot be measured; it can only be tested through time. The truths that endure become traditions. They are subjective truths proven through iteration.
Truth as Relationship
Truth is not a hierarchy where the objective reigns over the subjective. It is a relationship between them.
Objective truth tells us what is.
Subjective truth tells us what is worthy.
When we conflate the two, when we treat objective truth as though it were truth itself, we create systems that are efficient but meaningless. We become engineers of things that no longer matter, things that are an end in themselves.
The Bible teaches that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). All things must both consume and provide; nothing can be an end in itself. If something is an end, it ceases to provide. And when something no longer provides, it becomes a parasite. And parasites either kills the system its in or is cut out of it.
The Subject Comes First
This relationship between subjective and objective truth is not equal in order. In my experience creating complex systems, the subject always comes first. The code class must exist before any instance can be created, for the qualitative pattern always precede every measurable expression. Quality comes before quantity. The subjective gives birth to the objective. Meaning precedes measurement.
This order is woven throughout Scripture. Creation began not with matter but with the Word: “And God said, let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). The Word, the Logos, came first, and the world followed (John 1:1–3). When God commanded Moses to build the Tabernacle, He said, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” (Exodus 25:40). In every case, the qualitative order, the subject, comes first, and the quantitative form, the object, follows.
When we invert this order, when we try to measure before we understand, we build without foundation. We attempt to live by data alone, forgetting that all truth begins in the unseen structure of quality.
Overview
Objective truth is about quantities, the measurable facts of existence. Subjective truth is about quality, the enduring wisdom that evolves through time. Like the relationship between code class and instance in software, the two must coexist, but never be confused. The subject gives birth to the object. The qualitative gives rise to the quantitative. Truth, rightly understood, begins with quality, and only then finds form in quantity.
LongLoft - Code Writer 