Apologetics | What is Truth?

What is truth? Seems like a simple question; doesn't it? what can be said about such a simple word, but in our world today it's not such an easy question to answer.

Cicero, the latin philosopher, argued that the wise person should follow what seems most probable and reject what seems improbable, avoiding the arrogance of absolute claims. For him, certainty was rash. Probability was the only reliable ground for human judgment.^[1] In-fact this idea of relativistic truth is known today as postmodernism and in more lay terms, "living your truth".

It's interesting to note that ideas of humanity are rarely ever novel; simply repeated, confirmed or refuted and then lost through the generations only to be "re-discovered". These ideas are always touted as "mind-blowing" or "No one has thought of this before", but the same arguments are always there, just dressed in a different syntax.

But what exactly is truth? When we look at this word from a greco-Roman perspective we get some delineations. First, the greek word aletheia (ἀλήθεια) is translated as truth in modern English, but we actually define our word truth much different than the greeks or even how the romans used it.

I. Aletheia

First, let us look at the etymology of our word "truth", as early as the 14th century A.D the English word "triewð" (meaning loyalty) was being used to define a proto-germanic word "treuwaz". This word would be used to describe something "characterized by good faith". By the time the mid-16th century rolled around, the word "truth" would change to meaning evidence based or factual.

The importance of this cannot be overlooked, as we must understand what our word's meaning is in comparison to how Biblical speakers would have understood it, and in our passage we are basing this article on, we can see that both Jesus and Pilate uses the word "truth".

The word used in John 18:37-38 as truth is, as was mentioned above, aletheia. The word aletheia has a very vague and abstract relationship to our understanding of the word truth, and to the Romans it would have been a philosophical word, not a word that would be used in daily life or by a commoner.

In the Republic, Plato used an allegory of a cave to describe our present reality ^[2]. In this allegory Plato describes a group of people chained in an underground cave. They face a wall. Behind them is a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners, others walk by carrying objects. The prisoners can see only the shadows of those objects on the wall. Since they have never seen anything else, they assume the shadows are the real world.

The point being made is that our world is so distorted by our perception of reality that we can never see the source of those shadows. In other areas of the same work, he uses the word aletheia to explain the cause of the shadows shown on the wall, which is the Good; therefore, the Good the aletheia is only supported by the Good which is the perfect cause of life's origin.

The word in Greek, then, is not synonymous with our word truth, instead it carries a much deeper meaning. In reality, it is defined as "the unveiled thing". Which, as I stated before, is abstractly related to our word truth, but only in certain contexts. This context is extremely narrow and can only be used when there is a conclusion to a hypothesis or mystery. To the ancient philosophers though, this word was of utmost importance.

II. The life and times of Pontius Pilate

Not much is known about Pontius Pilate, except that he was one of 5 pontificates in Judea in a short time frame and he ruled from 26/27 -35/36 A.D ^[3]. We do know he was an officer of the Roman Emperor Tiberus and was of the Roman Equestrian class. These were similar to the rank and title of "Knight" in English and were given out as military honors. The reason why these were so well regarded, was that it allowed a poorer member of society to move up into aristrocracy.

We do not know if Pilate himself was a military man, or if a previous ancestor was, we do know that his family was not "natural" nobility. What we do know is that Roman rhetorical education relied on Greek material. Students learned model arguments, set pieces, and philosophical themes because they were essential for public speaking. Texts from Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics were used as sources for training. No one expected an equestrian or senator to be a philosopher, but they were expected to recognize major philosophical images and arguments. Plato’s cave was one of the most common illustrations used to explain appearance versus reality, ignorance versus understanding, and the need for intellectual formation.

This would also influence his worldview and how he handled Judean rebellion, issues and politics. In our passage today we see a common response that Pilate said, but we need to look at the history to fully uncover the magnificence of these two verses.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

This response is more along the lines of a curious philosopher than a threatened government official. This question, had Pilate grasped what was being relayed to him, could have made him famous for a myriad of different reasons, just not the one he was actually famous for. You see, everyone during that time had multiple different ideas of the truth.

To the commoners, truth was what the empire would tell you it is.

To the law keepers, truth was what kept law and order.

To the philosophers, truth was what sustained their school of thought.

But in all cases, truth was subjective and not readily available to be defined. Even in the Roman senate, truth was merely whatever persuaded the Senators the most. But Rome did have one idea of truth that wasn't to be questioned by anyone. That truth went out to all neighboring foreign lands to announce the "Good News" that they would soon be a part of Rome. Ironically, being of a military family, if anyone would have recognized the man in front of him, it should have been Pilate. After all, Jesus was the herald and emissary of another kingdom.

III. Jesus, the Herald

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the in the gospel.

Above, I said Rome had no problem announcing the "truth" of their "Good News", the word "Good News" is also translated to our word gospel. The verse above ^[4] quoted from Mark portrays to us the position and function of Jesus on this Earth. He was here in the same way Roman heralds were sent, to deliver the blessings of a new kingdom. His gospel was not subjective though, and it was the answer to many. See His gospel was there for the broken hearted, the poor, the weak, the sick, and the unrighteous, but it was also there for the philosophers. If they humbled themselves they would have an answer to their questions. These questions were naturally ambiguous and cosmic in origin, but they all came down to the same question of what is truth.

As quoted above in John, Jesus came into this world only for one purpose and that was to tell about the truth. See, Pilate understood this as the ultimate reality, the idea that someone could possibly understand and know the cause of our present reality without speculation was unfathomable, especially to a likely skeptical stance on philosophy.

He had been taught by the classical philosophers such as Plato, Cicero, Aristotle etc. and truth was anything but fact, it was barely able to be grasped.

IV. Relativism vs. the Kingdom of God

In Pilate's world and in our modern society, truth often shifts based on power, persuasion or majority. All it takes is one influencer, one politician, one voice to get a whole new reality created for most people. Each group would operate on their own version of the truth. It is flexible after all right? What's the harm if someone believes their own truth versus the truth. Once truth becomes flexible, every truth carries some kind of weight.

And as today, as it was back then, we are all scratching our heads saying, what is the truth? There was a recent study done ^[5] that shows that Gen Z and Millenials are outpacing their parents in church attendance for the first time since it started being tracked. The drugs, the sex, the freedom that we have allowed people to have, has begun to backfire on their lives and their mental health. The instability carries a cost, they attempt to dedicate their time to "research", to "self-care", to anything they seem to find solace in. Seneca wrote "A man who seeks the truth will find at last a mind at rest." ^[6] and that is what people need, a mind at rest.

The kingdom, the truth that Jesus spoke of, the aletheia, was the revelation of where this all came from. He spoke of the origin of reality and He was from there. His stance on it never changed, he tried to tell everyone what it was like. He wanted His people to understand what the expectations were in this new Kingdom. The demands of that kingdom: loving enemies, trusting solely in God, blessing those who do us harm, returning evil with good, collide with our fallen nature and come outside of our justified "truth" we've convinced ourselves is real.

As humanity has lived within perpetual ambiguity and the allowance of many truths, our human nature is wired from creation to seek the truth or we will short circuit. We will look, much like addicted lab rats, everywhere just to find that rest that Seneca spoke of. There is one reality that didn't change, it just requires us to change, and that is the gospel of the kingdom of God.

V. Cosmic Irony

Pilate stood in front of a herald of a new kingdom, a more powerful kingdom and asked Him, "what is truth?".

John 1:1 tell us

In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Psalm 119:160a says

The sum of your word is truth

Pilate was standing in front of the embodiment of Truth. He was standing in front of what Plato identified as the Good. Yet, when brought to the test, He even didn't recognize it. Christ made sure we knew why Pilate didn't understand in verse 37.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

The word 'of' there in Greek is extremely interesting. It doesn't mean someone merely identifies with it or that they want to be associated with it. It means their very origins are from truth. The people who have citizenship in the Kingdom hear what Jesus says, the others scoff. This is heartening for those of us belonging to the true, universal church. That before we were created we were already "of" that kingdom.

VI. Western Christianity and the Truth

Pope Francis, speaking at the Sri Lanka Multi-Religious Meeting in 2015, said that the "Various religious traditions have the potential to offer an important contribution to the rebuilding of our society. May we respect each other and help one another in our common quest for truth." Several other mainline protestant preachers have used the same line of thinking in recent years as well ^[7] with a Barnum study showing that only 75% of Evangelical Christians admit to worshipping Jesus, one out of 12 worship God, Jesus, Mary and/or the Prophets and one out of 14 worship God and one or more deities from non-Christian beliefs ^[8].

This as a whole has gotten severely out of hand and is at the failure of the church at large. The Church as a whole in the past 100 years has failed the West by not demanding the singular worship that should be afforded to God alone. What has this done has not only allowed many who would call themselves Believers to be led away by idols which are "approved" by the pastorate, but also weakens the faith of true Believers by relegating their faith to mere opinion.

At the end of the referenced report Mr. Barna accurately concludes, "The research clearly highlights the desperate need for greater biblical clarity concerning 'big picture' beliefs such as the existence, nature power, and purposes of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and Satan.

VII. Conclusion

Not much has changed from when I started writing four years ago. "Christians" today more than ever are having an identity crisis of faith because the church has failed to give them the truth, not only the truth of what Jesus bore witness to, but also the evidence based truth that our faith is not folly but has a solid foundation.

I pray that we can get people to wake up to respond not how Pilate did, "What is truth?", but more adamantly "I know the truth, and the truth has set me free"

At the end of Plato's allegory of the cave, we see that the one who turned around to look at the Good, the source of everything in the cave, was free. That same way, if we turn and look to Christ as the Truth, we will be free indeed.