The Truth about Truth: Part 1

Introduction:

One of the most controversial concepts in this postmodern and post- Christian era is one about the truth.  What is truth? Can truth be known? If it can, how so?  Is there Truth or truths? These and many other questions about truth indicate that we cannot take it for granted anymore that people in general conceive of truth the same way. Definitions of truth are now as plenteous as those who give them.  Technology, in making the world a global village, has exposed people to a myriad of diverse cultures. This exposure has succeeded in reinforcing the idea that truth can no longer be defined in absolute terms.  The underlying notion is that there are as many truths as there are realities in different parts of the earth.  And these realities are not only different but at times even conflicting. So in a postmodern framework truth or rather truths are different and can at times be conflicting. The chief idea of postmodernism is the fact that the great Truth is that truths vary and conflict. And there is no truth that is truer than the other.  All truths are equally true.  No truth can serve as a point of reference.  Is it true though that there is no Truth but only truths? Could it be true that all truths, if indeed all we have are truths and not Truth, are equally true?  I hold the view that there is Truth and that this Truth exists objectively and absolutely.  There are theories of truth which aim at discrediting the absolute and objective view of truth which in my assessment succeed only in affirming it.  To these I would like to turn now.

Theories of truth:

There is no truth

There are people who hold the view that there is no truth.  They believe that what we call truth is just an illusion if not delusion.  Truth does not and indeed cannot exist because of the different views of it.  The argument is that if we should say truth does exist we would not be sure which truth that is since it seems like there are so many truths. And the concept of many truths is absurdity for these people since these truths conflict and contradict.  But the problem with this theory is obvious.  If there is no truth then this theory cannot be true itself.  If it is true, then it is not true that there is no truth because there would be the truth that there is no truth.  But the question is why should the only truth be the truth that there is no truth?  So this statement is self defeating and therefore cannot be true.   

Truth cannot be known

You have people who believe that truth cannot be known.  These people, as opposed to the ones who believe that there is no truth, believe that truth does exist but it cannot be known.  For them truth is elusive.  There are two major problems with this theory.  Firstly it seems pretty obvious that you have to know the truth in order to know that it cannot be known. Otherwise, how do you know that it cannot be known unless you know it? Secondly, it is seems like it is a truth-statement to say truth cannot be known.  In other words the proponents of this view would like us to know the truth that truth cannot be known. But if we know that, then we know the truth. So truth then can be known. Again here we meet another self defeating theory. And it is therefore not true that truth cannot be known. For why should the only truth that can be known be the truth that truth cannot be known? 

Truth is relative and not absolute

The view that truth is relative is very popular in the postmodern era.  This view is entrenched by observation of different cultural realities all over the world. The argument is that different realities presuppose different truth-contents. Different realities dictate different truths. And what may be true to me may not be true to the next person.  Or what is true today may not be true tomorrow or may have not been true yesterday. The problem with this view of truth is whether or not we should consider it to be relatively true. If all truth is relative, then it means even the truth that all truth is relative, if it is truth, must also be relative.  Because if it is not relative then it is not true that all truth is relative. Besides, the statement “all truth is relative”, by its very nature, is absolute. And if it were to be true, then it would be absolutely true.  So even this view of truth becomes self defeating. Another thing is that even if it were granted that truth is relative, there would remain some sense in which it would still be absolute. For instance, if I feel cold and another person feels hot, I would be absolutely feeling cold and she would be absolutely feeling hot. It would defy logic to say my feeling hot is or her feeling cold is relative. Our sensations at that moment are absolute. When a person is sick then he should be absolutely sick irrespective of who may be more or less sick than him.  It is absolutely true that summer in the Southern Hemisphere is around December and in the Northern Hemisphere is around June.  It would be absurd to say it is relatively true that summer in South Africa is around December simply because in America it is around June.   Again, how possible is it to be practical with this theory?  At a practical level, this theory makes life impossible to live and it degenerates conversation to irrationality.  Living is possible precisely because certain things are just absolute.  And conversation is rational because certain things are true for all people, at all times and everywhere.  1 +1=2 is true for all people, everywhere and all the time.  The fact that a triangle has three sides is true to all people irrespective of where they come from.  Some things are just absolutely and objectively true.

Truth is made and not discovered

This is a social theory of truth.  Its proponents argue that truth cannot be dissociated from the social experience of its adherents.  In fact the view is that truth is formed by those experiences.  Truth is not something that is out there which we, from time to time, stumble upon and then incorporate into our experience.  According to this view, truth is made by us as we interpret our day to day reality.  And because of this, truth will differ since our experiences and interpretations thereof vary from one person to another.  The obvious problem with this subjective view of truth is that it seems to be incognizant of truths that exist irrespective of personal experiences. Truths that are true for all people, all the time and everywhere.  The earth revolves around the sun. A square has four sides.  These facts are true despite what our different experiences are. 

Truth is what works for me

The view that “truth is what works for me” seems to mean that truth is what is beneficial to one. If it yields the desired results, then it is truth. There are serious problems with this view of truth. Firstly, this view seems to harbour serious adverse ethical implications.  What if stealing to make a living works for me?  Does it therefore mean that stealing as a philosophy of life is true?  There are people who are chronically unfaithful in certain areas of their life and in some way it works for them. Does this therefore turn unfaithfulness into truth?  What about those who suffer from this kind of unfaithful behaviour? How should they consider unfaithfulness? As truth? Secondly, is it not a fact of life that what we intuitively know to be truth does not always work to one’s advantage? Virtues like honesty, truthfulness, faithfulness, altruism and others do not always work to one’s immediate, visible advantage.  These virtues are pursued not because they “work” but because they are commendably good and worth pursuing for their own sake.  The world is today standing beneficiary to the selfless contributions of the likes of Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others like them.  Their altruistic behaviour came to them at a great personal loss and pain to those who are close to them.  On the other hand you have the likes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin who did what worked for them.  What was the result of that? In the case of Hitler, six million Jews were tortured and killed.  The view that truth is what works for me is not only untrue and counterintuitive but it is also selfish and unimaginably dangerous.

Truth is not either-or but both-and

The view here is that truth cannot be viewed in terms of something being true and its opposite being false. In other words, all things can be and indeed are true. It is argued that an either-or logic is too exclusive and can therefore never be true. The both-and logic is preferred as it is inclusive and accommodating. But the problem with this view is that even if both-and logic is used, it will still end up with either-or. For if we adopt this logic, then it should be both-and logic or nothing else since either-or logic is dismissed. So one still ends up with either-or logic.  Apart from this self defeating conundrum, it is adversative to commonsense that a thing and its opposite can actually be both true at the same and in the same sense. For instance it could not be true that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and at the same time also true that there are other ways to salvation apart from him.  This would be a senseless contradiction.  Either Jesus is the only way and there are no other ways or there are other ways and Jesus is not the only way.  It cannot be both-and. It is either-or.

The question of truth

This brief survey of these theories of truth serves to show us that there is something fundamentally wrong when we view truth in terms of a concept or idea or thought or even a collection of all these. This way of looking at truth invariably leads to a limited, faulty view of truth. Perhaps the question pertaining to the nature of truth ought to change for us to arrive at a correct conceptualisation thereof.  Perhaps the question is not: What is truth? Perhaps the question is: Who is the truth? Posed in this manner, the question allows for objective and absolute categories of reflection on truth.  Especially for us Christians, thus constructed, the what part of truth can be easily put at sync with the who part of truth, as long as truth for us becomes who rather than what.

A question may be raised as to whether there is justification in thus posing the question about truth.  I believe there is.  Given revelation, we thus pose and approach the question with the benefit of knowing the answer.  In fact without the revelatory knowledge that truth is who rather than what, we couldn’t even pose the question in that manner.  It is revelation which behoves us to consider that truth is who rather than what.

In John 14:6 Jesus claims that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He claims this in no uncertain terms.  And it is worth noting that Jesus was not claiming to be truth only to and for Christians.  He claims to be the truth in an absolute sense.  In a sense that subjects all to him as the truth.  So all other so-called truths are truths only to the extent that they are a true reflection of the great Truth, Jesus himself.  Any deviation from Jesus cannot be truth but an abrogation thereof.  Viewed in this manner and to the extent that all the other truths bear a correct testimony to Jesus as the great truth, all truth is then God’s truth for Jesus is of God. Indeed Jesus is God. And therefore God is Truth. Not a theory or an idea or a philosophy or thought but God.  In part two we will consider the implications of truth as Who rather than what.

Authored by: Pastor BG Modiri