CONTENTS
TRUTH
Edwin C. Blackman
Dictionary.com
Google.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/truth
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/
american_english/truth
http://www.yourdictionary.com/truth
THE NATURE OF TRUTH
Gordon H. Clark
Truth
Gordon H. Clark
What Is Truth?
Gordon H. Clark
Truth
Ted
Cabal; Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
NOTE:
The complete text of the original essay has
been posted even though in my opinion, and in light of the 1TP
definition of Truth, it might contain incorrect explanations of the
nature of truth. Passages which I feel support the 1TP view have been
highlighted.
Minor editing (punctuation marks, abbreviations, spelling errors, etc.) of the text has
been done to update their format and to improve the reading of the text.
The essays are not posted in any order. New essays will be added as I
become aware of them.
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TRUTH
Edwin C. Blackman
in
A Theological
Word Book of the Bible; Alan Richardson; ed.; The Macmillan Company; 1956; pp269-70.
“Jesting Pilate’s” question (John 18:38), if historical at all, implies
in the questioner no more than the intellectualist view of truth made
familiar to that age by the Greek philosophical tradition, and presupposed
still in our modern usage. The biblical usage is different, and is
fundamental, especially in its thought about God.
In the
OT truth is a quality which properly belongs to God.
God is a God of truth (Ps. 31:5, Jer. 10:10), who ‘keepeth truth for
ever’ (Ps. 146:6; cf. 100:5). Truth means essentially reliability,
dependableness, ability to perform what is required. The Hebrew words
translated as ‘truth’ (emeth, emunah) are sometimes rendered ‘faithfulness’ (Hos. 2:20, Deut.
32:4; RV changes to ‘faithfulness’ where AV has ‘truth’; cf. also Isa.
25:1). The verb aman is more
common than the nouns, and it means ‘confirm’, ‘stand firm’, ‘trust’.
From the same root we have the adjective
amen (q.v.) meaning ‘true’ in
the sense of ‘sure’, ‘reliable’, ‘valid’. In itself truth is a fact or
state which is unalterable and has to be accepted; as applied to persons
it means that there is something which regularly characterizes their
behaviour; they are consistent.
Three passages in particular illustrate the fundamental meaning. Gen.
32:10 uses the word with reference to the continuing kindness of God
made real in Jacob’s experience by outward prosperity. I Kings 17:24
similarly implies that God’s truth is related to his goodwill and may be
expected to manifest itself in tangible blessings. The prayer of the
Psalmist (Ps. 54:5) that God will cut off his enemies ‘in thy truth’ is
perplexing. There is no need, however, to follow those commentators who
would emend the Hebrew text here, for the use of ‘truth’ is consistent
with other passages. It refers to the abiding characteristic of God; he
is of such a nature as to react hostilely to human sin, and the pious
man may call upon God to act as it were ‘in character’. In view of this,
it is clear how different the Hebrew conception of God was from the
pagan view of the caprice and unaccountability of the gods. Not so had
Israel learned Jehovah in the school of her great prophets.
From the primary conception of a quality inherent in God, truth develops
into a quality of his activity, e.g. his ‘judging’ (Ps. 96:13); God
‘sends it forth’ (Ps. 57:3). Notice, further, the collocation of ‘truth’
with ‘mercy’ (Gen. 32:10, Ps. 25:10, 108:4, etc.).
Truth is also regarded as what God demands of man. He desires it in the
inward parts (Ps. 51:6); man must speak it (Ps. 15:2); and seek it (Jer. 5:1); and walk in it (II Kings 20:3). Here it means unwavering
conformity with God’s will as made known in the Law: ‘all thy
commandments are truth’ (Ps. 119:151); also, more generally,
faithfulness, trustworthiness.
Passing
on to the NT, we find ‘truth’ representing the Greek
alëtheia, and therewith
picking up Greek connotations, which are much nearer our modern ones.
But the possibility of a Hebrew meaning must always be considered.
Alëtheia in Greek means the
actual state of affairs as contrasted with rumour or false report or
mythology; to the philosophers it means that which really exists as
opposed to what only appears to exist or comes into existence only to
pass away. Thinking— the philosopher’s business— does lead to truth, and
when this goal is attained right action should follow; wrong-doing may
be put down to ignorance. This at any rate was the Platonic belief. Not
all Greek thinkers however agreed with Plato that
alëtheia could be found by
disciplined thinking, and in the
Hellenistic Age we find it regarded as accessible only by revelation.
This is the line of development in Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism.
The fusion of these two senses— the Hebrew and the Greek— in varying
degrees in the NT yields some interesting developments of meaning. The
meaning ‘that which has validity or stability’, when carried over into
the NT, makes it possible to speak of truth as something to be done (cf.
John 3:21, I John 1:6) rather than simply believed or thought of, and to
set truth in contrast with unrighteousness (cf. the immediate contexts
of the two passages just mentioned). For truth as that on which one can
rely see Rom. 3:3-7, where God’s faithfulness and truth are together set
over against human falseness.
A
meaning practically identical with our modern one, especially in the phrases
‘truly’, ‘in truth’, is found in the NT. This is sufficient to explain
the few occurrences in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and also Rom. 2:2,
9:1, II Cor. 12:6, 13:8, Eph. 4:25, Phil. 1:18, I Tim. 2:7. Similarly,
moreover, in the Johannine writings this meaning is adequate for John
8:40, 44-6, 16:7,13, I John 3:18. In these writings, however, a deeper
sense is generally implied; cf. John 17:17,19. For such an inward,
deeper sense we may compare Rom. 1:25, 3:7,15:8, where the phrase ‘truth
of God’ occurs; II Cor. 11:10,
‘truth of Christ’; and Gal. 2:5,14, Col. 1:5, where there is an alternative, ‘truth
of the
gospel’.
In these passages the word is moving towards
the meaning: the Christian revelation, or the truth as revealed by
Christ and as taking precedence over all other human apprehensions of
truth.
Such a meaning is required in II Cor. 4:2,
Gal. 5:7, Eph. 1:13, 4:21, II Thess. 2:10-12, Jas. 1:18, 5:19,
I Tim. 3:15, and the five occurrences (I Tim. 2:4, 4:3, II Tim. 2:25,
3:7, Tit. 1:1) in the Pastoral Epistles of the phrase
‘knowledge of the truth’ as the hallmark of a
Christian, as also in Heb. 10:26. In
II Pet. 1:12 the rather strange phrase ‘the present truth’ practically
means ‘Christianity’.
A
meaning practically identical with our modern one, especially in the phrases
‘truly’, ‘in truth’, is found in the NT. This is sufficient to explain
the few occurrences in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and also Rom. 2:2,
9:1, II Cor. 12:6, 13:8, Eph. 4:25, Phil. 1:18, I Tim. 2:7. Similarly,
moreover, in the Johannine writings this meaning is adequate for John
8:40, 44-6, 16:7,13, I John 3:18. In these writings, however, a deeper
sense is generally implied; cf. John 17:17,19. For such an inward,
deeper sense we may compare Rom. 1:25, 3:7,15:8, where the phrase ‘truth
of God’ occurs; II Cor. 11:10,
‘truth of Christ’; and Gal. 2:5,14, Col. 1:5, where there is an alternative, ‘truth
of the
gospel’.
In these passages the word is moving towards
the meaning: the Christian revelation, or the truth as revealed by
Christ and as taking precedence over all other human apprehensions of
truth.
Such a meaning is required in II Cor. 4:2,
Gal. 5:7, Eph. 1:13, 4:21, II Thess. 2:10-12, Jas. 1:18, 5:19,
I Tim. 3:15, and the five occurrences (I Tim. 2:4, 4:3, II Tim. 2:25,
3:7, Tit. 1:1) in the Pastoral Epistles of the phrase
‘knowledge of the truth’ as the hallmark of a
Christian, as also in Heb. 10:26. In
II Pet. 1:12 the rather strange phrase ‘the present truth’ practically
means ‘Christianity’.
This paves the way for the distinctive Johannine usage, which is the
most developed and suggestive in the Bible and demands a closer
investigation. The dominant meaning is here divine truth, revelation,
without the unparticularized connotation of truth in ordinary English
speech. For example, John 8:32 is not a motto for the metaphysician or
scientist; truth here is that which God has made known of himself in
Jesus, and similarly freedom is not a general freedom of thought or
conscience but freedom in the strictly moral and religious sense of
freedom from sin. Truth in the intellectual sense is far from being all
that man needs; the primary thing is not to understand and make sense of
the universe, but to know God and live a good life; and Christ’s work is
directed to this end (John 17:3); it is truth of this kind that he
offers. In fact he brings it into the world (John 1:17; cf. 1:9) and may
even be identified with it (John 14:6). After the resurrection it will
be the function of the Holy Spirit to lead men into ‘truth in its
entirety’ (John 16:13). Truth so understood is a stimulant of conduct
rather than matter for contemplation; something which we do, to be
obeyed or disobeyed (John 3:21, I John 1:6; cf. also Gal. 5:7, I Pet.
1:22). It makes men fit not only for good living in fellowship with one
another, but fit also for divine life in fellowship with God: ‘I am the
way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’
(John 14:6). It is a means of sanctification for those who receive it
(John 17:17,19), a thought which is easier to understand if the
embodiment of truth in Jesus the Revealer is kept in mind; in this
connexion he is conceived as performing a priestly function, mediating
between God and worshipper. In the light of this we can interpret the
famous statement about true worship (John 4:23f.); worship such as God
requires is ‘in spirit and in truth’, i.e. conformable to the divine
nature which is spirit, and determined by the truth which God has made
available concerning himself. Here again the thought of
Jesus as the
personal embodiment of truth is not far away, and it is right to
interpret vss. 23f. in the light of vss. 25f.:
in so far as men see the
truth in Jesus they will both worship and live acceptably to God, but
such worship and conduct are not possible apart from Jesus. In certain
Johannine passages the OT background shows through unmistakeably, viz.
John 17:17 (‘Thy word is truth’), III John 3-4.
*************************
Dictionary.com
1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: The truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.
6. an obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
Google.com
1. the quality or state of being true.
synonyms: veracity, truthfulness,
verity, sincerity, candor, honesty;
2. that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
synonyms:
what actually happened, the case, so;
3. a fact or belief that is accepted as true.
synonyms: fact, verity,
certainty, certitude;
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth
the real facts about something
: the things that are true
: the quality or state of being true
: a statement or idea that is true or accepted as true
1a archaic: fidelity, constancy
1b: sincerity in action, character, and utterance
2a (1): the state of being the case: fact
(2): the body of real things, events, and facts: actuality
(3) often capitalized: a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality
2b: a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true
2c: the body of true statements and propositions
3a: the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or
reality
3c: fidelity to an original or to a standard
4 capitalized Christian Science: God
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/truth
1a. Conformity to fact or actuality: Does this story have any truth?
1b. Reality; actuality: In truth, he was not qualified for the job.
1c. The reality of a situation: The truth is, she respects your work.
2a. A statement proven to be or accepted as true: truths about nature.
2b. Such statements considered as a group: researchers in pursuit of truth.
3. Sincerity; integrity: the truth of his intentions.
4. Fidelity to an original or standard: the truth of the copy.
5. Theology & Philosophy That which is considered to be the ultimate ground of reality.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com
/us/definition/american_english/truth
1
The quality or state of being true
1.1 That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality
1.2 A fact or belief that is accepted as true
http://www.yourdictionary.com/truth
•the quality or state of being true; specif., OBS. loyalty; trustworthiness, sincerity; genuineness; honesty
•the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality; conformity with fact
•reality; actual existence
•agreement with a standard, rule, etc.; correctness; accuracy
•that which is true; statement, etc. that accords with fact or reality
•an established or verified fact, principle, etc.
•a particular belief or teaching regarded by the speaker as the true one
THE NATURE OF TRUTH
Gordon H. Clark
Butler University
Although there
seems to be little use in speculating about the degree of Pilate’s
philosophic profundity when he asked, “What is truth?”
a Christian does well to consider Christ’s prior statement, “I am
the truth,” together with other Scriptural passages that might throw
light on the nature of truth.
Since Protestants, in contradistinction to Romanists, reject a
literalism in the words, “This is my body,” and since other phrases
of Christ, e.g. “I am the door,” are obviously figurative, one must
not immediately assume that “I am the truth,” is true literally or
that the nature of truth is ‘personal’ and therefore
non-propositional and non-logical. At least other views should be
considered; and here three theories will be briefly examined.
The
first
of these three views, for want of a better name, will be called the
empirical view of truth. That the view to be described is empirical,
no one can deny; though there may be empiricists who would not
accept all the description. Whether it is possible to have a
consistent empiricism without one or another of these elements,
everyone must consider for himself.
This empiricism professes to discover
truth in sensory experience. The two ideas to be noted are discovery
and experience. Truth is said to be discovered or given, not
constructed or reconstructed with the aid of a priori forms of the
mind. Reliance is placed on sense data. The idea of a tree is a
sense datum, not the work of the productive imagination, and so is a
cloud and a mountain. Thus things are found in or by sensation
alone. This view does not necessarily entail Locke’s analysis of
experience into the simple ideas of white, bitter, soft, and so on;
but even if the data are wholes after the manner of Gestalt
psychology, it is essential that they be given in their entirety, in
a single experience of receptivity, and that truth consists of these
perceptions with their legitimate combinations.
The Christian proponents of this
empiricism see in it at least three advantages. First, it conforms
to common sense. No uneducated person would ever suspect that his
image or idea of a tree or a mountain is other than a sense datum.
To ordinary consciousness there seems to be no intellectual
operation involved. Second, a Christian in particular can easily
believe that this view is extremely favorable to, not to say
necessary for, a proper use of Christian evidences. Do not the
arguments from miracles, fulfilled prophecy, and especially from the
resurrection of Christ demand an empirical epistemology? And third,
since the history of philosophy furnishes examples of views which
imply omniscience to avoid skepticism and skepticism to avoid
omniscience, empiricism appears to steer precisely between this
Scylla and Charybdis.
However, as epistemological problems
are extremely complex, so that an assured adherence to a detailed
view borders on rashness, it is not surprising that empiricism has
had to face serious difficulties. The history of British empiricism
from Locke to Hume is prima facie evidence of its skeptical
implications. Nor does the connection between empiricism and
skepticism depend on Locke’s enumeration of simple ideas. Not only
have the later and more radical empiricisms of James, Schiller, and
Dewey tended toward skepticism, but even Hume himself made little
use of Locke’s analysis. A second difficulty, though perhaps not so
evident a one, concerns the existence of sense data. With all of
Kant’s efforts to avoid the skepticism of Hume he still insisted on
a sensory given, and the development from Kant to Hegel contained as
one of its most important phases a search for this given. The search
was unsuccessful. A contemporary Hegelian, Brand Blanshard, in his
The Nature of Thought, is still troubled by the same difficulty. And
if it be supposed that this is not the lesson a Christian should
take from Hegelianism, it might be recalled that St. Augustine also
was unable to find a sensory given existing apart from an
intellectual operation.
These two difficulties concern the
function of the human mind in its obtaining truth, and may therefore
be called subjective. One should also distinguish certain objective
considerations, for the two questions, What is truth? and How do we
know?, although related, are not identical. Further use of this
distinction will be made later; so far as empiricism goes, the
objective difficulty reduces to the question whether the unity of
truth can be preserved or whether data, precisely because they are
data, must be disconnected and unsystematic. A mere mention of this
objective difficulty must suffice at this point in view of the
contention that the subjective difficulties with empiricism seem to
be insuperable.
If some empiricists, whatever they
think of the objections, refuse to accept all the elements of the
description above, a
second
theory of truth, or group of theories, is still more difficult to
characterize or even name. Perhaps the term mysticism will be
appropriate, for the anti-intellectualism of several of our
contemporaries, such as Barth, Brunner, and certain writers of Dutch
extraction, is in some ways reminiscent of the later medieval
mystics. Negatively they can be said to agree in that they reject
empiricism, but a positive statement without many qualifications
might prove impossible to formulate. However, one does not distort
history too greatly by affirming that they all stress the unity of
the truth and react against epistemological atomism. They also
stress the contribution of the human mind to the resultant
knowledge; not, however, as Kant did in using categories for the
formation of judgments; but rather by introducing non-logical
factors. They might thus be more included to understand Christ’s
claim, “I am the truth,” literally, and they
might say that truth is not propositional but ‘personal.’ The more
recent of these writers in their stress on the person emphasize the
noetic effects of sin; for if sin contaminates the whole man as a
unitary person and thus vitiates his intellectual processes, it
follows that the truth he has constructed or reconstructed by his
intellectual operations cannot be pure or uncontaminated.
Inclined as they are to mysticism
with its reliance on analogies, they might describe the
epistemological situation by the view from this window. Here in
Luzern today one can look down on the Vierwaldstättersee and up to
Mount Pilatus. But it is rainy and very cloudy. Instead of seeing
one tree or crag distinctly, the mystic tourist sees the whole
confusedly. The trees, the mountains, and the clouds merge in dim
shapes. That is to say, no human being can see or know any single,
pure, distinct truth, but he may have a cloudy perception of all
truth as a whole. This analogy is supposed to be consistent, not
only with the noetic effects of sin, but also with the infinite
glory of God. Around about God are clouds and thick darkness that
human eyes cannot pierce. Of him Bonaventura says we have a global
representation for which the intuition is lacking.
And if God is truth, literally and
without qualification, obviously man cannot have the truth.
Emil Brunner states explicitly and
accepts an implication of this position, which others have missed,
or have not seen so clearly, or even try to repudiate. Since on the
mystical view intellectual distinctions are inadequate to the
existential situation and logic cannot cope with life, it follows
that if God can speak to man, the revelation may consist of false
propositions. The sentences in the Bible may be both revelatory and
false. In fact, Brunner might even have concluded that all
propositional revelation must be false, for in his Divine-Human
Encounter he says that not merely the words but their intellectual
content itself is a mere framework or receptacle and not the real
thing. And there are professing Christians who have said publicly
that the human mind simply cannot grasp truth at all.
On the subjective side of the
epistemological problem these objections out to be clear. When the
unity of truth and personality is so stressed that one must be
omniscient in order to know anything, the theory for all its
superficial piety is as skeptical as Hume’s. But the difficulty on
the objective side is perhaps not so obvious and may require further
explanation.
It is that this view provides no clear
definition of truth. Naturally, if nothing is clear and all is
cloudy, the meaning of truth is equally obscure. Not only is it
impossible to distinguish between a mountain and a cloud, for only
in virtue of the clear and distinct perceptions on a sunny day can
one believe that there are mountains among those cloudy shapes, but
what is worse, the human mind does not know the meaning of mountain
and cloud, i.e. of truth and falsity. These meanings must also be
clear and distinct items of pure knowledge which the theory makes
impossible. This may explain the appeal to unintelligible paradoxes,
silent traces, or voluble analogies.
There is a
third
view of truth that attempts to escape these difficulties. It might
be called apriorism, presuppositionalism, or intellectualism, if
these terms are not too definitely connected with earlier, specific
systems. The subjective aspect of this theory requires a body of
apriori forms or truths as a guarantee against skepticism. In
empiricism the mind begins as a blank sheet of paper, and to use
Aristotle’s phrase, it is actually nothing before it thinks. Then
sensation furnishes data. But the apriorists find themselves unable
to understand
how universal and immutable truth can be
constructed out of constantly changing particulars. How can the laws
of logic, which are not sense data, be constructed from bits of
experience when these bits must first be connected by the laws of
logic? How can alleged data bear any meaning
apart from presupposed logical forms? The classification of data or
even of one datum can be made legitimately only through the use of
universal principles not contained in momentary particulars.
A Christian who adopts this view does
not find that it lacks Scriptural support.
The Reformed doctrine of the image of God
in man attributes to man’s mind or soul characteristics which come
directly from the act of creation and not from sensory experience. Man’s original endowment contained both
knowledge and righteousness. Scripture does not describe the soul,
either before or after the fall, as blank or actually nothing. So
ineradicable is this original knowledge that even when a depraved
sinner wishes to extrude God from his mind, he cannot do so, but
retains some recognition of the divine majesty and the moral law
written on his heart.
It is in this way that apriorism
avoids the deadly dilemma of omniscience or skepticism. Instead of
beginning with nothing and failing to arrive at universal
propositions through sensation, and instead of beginning with
everything and failing to explain our present extensive ignorance,
apriorism allows a body of primary
principles on which further knowledge may be built up.
On the objective side of the problem
also, apriorism or intellectualism would seem to offer less
difficulty than the competing views. The unity of truth is preserved
without sacrificing the clarity and distinctness of several truths
because truth is conceived as a system of truths. While a person may
know this or that proposition without knowing its place in the
system, the proposition itself is objectively a part of a logical
whole. It derives its meaning from the system although the person in
question may not know the derivation. At this point a short
exposition encounters a formidable obstacle. One may hastily assume
that when two persons write or speak on the same words, they have
expressed the same proposition. This is not always so, and after a
long and confusing philosophic interchange it may seem never to be
so. At any rate, certain terms and sentences which are verbally
identical, in Riemannian and Euclidean geometry for example, do not
express the same truth. Their message depend on the systems from
which they are taken. The result can be subjective confusion, but
objectively the unity and diversity of truth is maintained.
This distinction between the
subjective and objective aspects of the question also enables the
Christian apriorist to do justice to the noetic effects of sin. In
the philosophy of paradox, knowledge is so conditioned by the human
mind that the result can never be pure or true. If God speaks to us,
what we hear must be false. On this third view the objective truth
of a proposition is not affected by sin. Sin and its guilt attaches
to persons, not propositions. The power and result of sin is found
in
the subjective confusion of philosophic discussion, in some thought,
not all instances of ignorance, in all errors of logic, and of
course in the ordinary moral or practical use to which propositions
are put. It would seem that these spheres suffice for the noetic
effects of sin; but if something has been omitted, it cannot be the
truth of the propositions themselves – on pain of denying the clear
and distinct truth that sin has noetic effects.
In conclusion, the empirical view of
knowledge seems to entail skepticism. Mysticism attempts to combine
omniscience, ignorance, paradox, and a false revelation.
Intellectualism, though it will require more elaboration before one
can enjoy great assurance, hopes to escape these pitfalls.
--------------------------------------
thegordonclarkfoundation.com
Although Dr.
Clark effectively critiques erroneous attempts to define truth,
sadly he never developed a clear definition of truth. He assumes
that propositions about objects that are functions of space, time
and matter, can be true. That is a fatal error.
*************************
Truth
Gordon H. Clark
Evangelical Dictionary
Fundamental or spiritual reality. The first
Christian theologian to attempt any systematic exposition of the
concept of truth was Augustine.
His immediate aim was to refute skepticism. If man’s mind is
incapable of grasping truth, particularly if man is incapable of
grasping the truth about God, then morality and theology are
impossible. Augustine distinguished four senses of the term “truth.”
First, truth is the affirmation of what is, e.g. three times three
is nine, and David was king of Israel. Second, every reality
(particularly the immutable, supersensible ideas) can be considered
as an affirmation of itself: it is true when it merits the name it
claims. In this sense beauty and wisdom are truth. Third, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is
the Truth because he expresses the Father.
And fourth, in the realm of sensible
objects, such as plants and animals, there is a resemblance, but
only a resemblance, to the primary realities of point two above.
Strictly speaking, a visible tree is not a true tree. But as the
resemblance is real, even sensible objects have a degree of truth.
Many contemporary
students of the Bible, fearing that Augustine or others are too
deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, attempt to specify the
several senses in which truth is used in the Scripture. Hoskyns and
Davey, The Riddle of the NT, after quoting Eph. 4:20-24,
seek for a conception of truth that will have “not an intellectual
but a moral and spiritual effect upon them.” The common conception
of truth as “a fact” or “what is real,” so they assert, “has no
moral or spiritual significance.” The Hebrew notion of truth, with
its close relation to God, is considered un-Greek. So also Gerhard
Kittel distinguishes, more cautiously perhaps, between Hebrew and
Greek usage, citing several passages in the Platonic dialogues.
One should,
however, bear in mind that the technical concepts of the
philosophers are hardly ever used by the majority of the population,
whether in ancient Greece or modern America. The Bible, too, is
written in colloquial language, and the senses in which it uses the
term truth are not so different from colloquial usage anywhere.
“The Bible, too, is written in colloquial language […]”
One should also
bear in mind that moral and spiritual truth is as much truth as
mathematical, scientific, and historical truth. It is all equally
“intellectual.” Nonintellectual truth is unthinkable. It is not true
that the common conception of truth as a fact or what is real “has
no moral or spiritual significance.” We need only to recall that God
gave the Ten Commandments.
“Nonintellectual truth is unthinkable.”
Furthermore, the
Greek philosophers did not divorce truth from moral and spiritual
values. Plato went so far as to teach, to the consternation of many
readers, that a knowledge of the truth automatically guarantees a
moral life. Both Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism were systems of
salvation; and even the Stoics and Epicureans made ethics the
culmination of philosophy.
The differences
between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek philosophies are rather
to be sought in the nature and the method of the salvation
proclaimed, in the concepts of sin, of redemption, and the specific
norms of morality; and not in the usage of the word “truth.” The
relation between God and truth in the Scriptures is indisputably
quite different from anything found in Greek philosophy, mainly
because the concept of God is so different. It is in such
theological content, not in philological usage, that the important
distinctions are to be found.
The usage of the
words in the Scripture supports this conclusion. Plain, ordinary,
factual truth is the point of Gen. 42:16, “Ye shall be kept in
prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in
you” (Cf. Deut. 13:14; 17:4; 22:20; Prov. 12:19; Jer. 9:3). Esth.
9:30 concerns legally certified information, and Josh. 2:12 points
to a private oath.
It is not a
different meaning but precisely the same meaning when the veracity
of divine revelation is asserted. God tells the truth; he tells what
is so; his assertions are correct. Cf. Pss. 19:9; 119:160; Dan.
8:26; 10:1, 21.
For the NT Kittel
lists six different meanings of the word “truth,” but adds that “in
many individual cases the distinction is not certain.” One of the
six meanings is “that which has existence or duration.” It is true
that truth exists or endures, but it is not in this sense that Gal.
2:5, 14 and Eph. 4:21 define truth.
Similarly one can
rely on the truth without defining truth as “that on which man can
rely.” Rom. 15:8 is not thus to be pressed; nor with the connotation
of “sincerity” can II Cor. 7:14; 11:10; and Phil. 1:18 be used for
this purpose.
Rather, all these
usages are derivative from the basic meaning of “the actual fact” or
“the truth of an assertion.” Cf. Mark 12:14, 32; Luke 4:25; Acts
26:25; Rom. 1:18, 25. It is not another and different meaning of the
term, but exactly the same meaning, in the NT as in the OT, when it
is applied to correct doctrine or right belief. Cf. II Соr. 4:2;
6:7; 13:8; I Tim. 2:4; П Tim. 3:7.
Like other words,
truth too can be used figuratively, by metonymy, in which the effect
is substituted for the cause. Thus when Christ says, “I am the Way,
the Truth, and the Life,” the word “truth” is just as figurative as
the word “life.” As Christ is the cause of life, so is he the cause
of truth. That water freezes and that a sinner may be justified by
faith are true because Christ creatively said, Let it be so.
Bibliography.
Augustine, Contra Academicos; N. de Malebranche,
Recherche de la Vérité; J. Locke,
Essay Concerning Human
Understanding; I. Kant,
Kritik der reinen Vernunft; B.
Blanshard, The Nature of Thought.
*************************
What Is Truth?
by Gordon H. Clark
The Trinity Review; #324; December 2014
Even though neither Dr. Clark nor Dr. Henry provide a definition of truth,
nor are they aware that such a definition is needed, there is much of value in this essay.
Editor’s
Note: “What Is Truth?” was first published in the Fall 1980 issue of
Covenant Theological Seminary’s journal Presbuterion. It was first
published by The Trinity Foundation in the second (1987) and
subsequent editions of God’s Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics.
The Reformed
Journal of May 1980 (pages 27ff) carries James Daane’s review of
Carl F. H. Henry’s God, Revelation and Authority. Its rejection of
Henry’s views circles around certain theses, allegedly held by
Gordon H. Clark, and adopted or adapted by Henry. Surfacing once or
twice in the review, but underlying the whole, is the conflict
between the Henry-Clark defense of Biblical inerrancy and the
Daane-Fuller assertions that what the Bible teaches is sometimes
false. Unless this conflict is clearly understood, Daane’s review
will easily be misinterpreted.
The title of the review is well-chosen:
“What is Truth?” No other three words could better express the
question at issue. Henry and Clark rather definitely say what they
mean by truth, or at least they define the form of truth. Daane
clearly rejects their view. The conclusion of this rejoinder will be
that Daane – while he intends to defend a radically different form
of truth – nowhere describes the form of truth he defends, nor does
he even outline a supporting epistemology.
Epistemology
Daane’s attack
on Henry begins very plausibly: “In theology as in any science, what
is to be known dictates the terms by which it can be known.” Though
plausible, Kant denied it. But let us assume that it is merely
ambiguous, or at least incomplete. Physicists (for Daane mentions
science) have often thought they knew an object, when their method
of knowing – the limitations of which they did not recognize – gave
them an entirely different object. Because of such complexities, and
even simpler ones, Daane’s application of his principle to Henry’s
method carries no weight. Daane inferred that therefore, Henry –
instead of beginning with epistemology – should have written his
theology first and his epistemology last. On the contrary, in any
subject – physics or theology – not only may the method be explained
first, but it is best to do so. Suppose a physicist says that space
is curved, or a botanist says that an ocotilla is not a cactus. The
inquiring student will ask, How do you know? The student or critical
colleague will wish to know whether the method used could possibly
arrive at the conclusion stated. Physicists used to say that light
consisted of ether waves. Today it is generally agreed that the
methods used were defective, and that light is something else (they
don’t quite know what). Hence even if botany or theology is written
first, it cannot be accepted by a scholar until the crucial question
is answered: How do you know? In a systematic treatment, the
methodology ought to come first. Instead of asking, What is a
cactus? or What is light? someone asks, What is God? How can one go about
answering that question? Do we consult the Koran or the Vedas? Do we
study the stars? Do we send a questionnaire to a thousand college
professors? A method must be chosen (or used unwittingly) before any
answer is forthcoming. Henry’s method is to consult the Bible and
from it deduce that God is a spirit, infinite, eternal,
unchangeable. We cannot start with God; we must start with the
Bible. Why not say so first and then proceed to the theology the
Bible teaches.
Daane’s confusion at this point is
considerable. The premise of his inference is, “If to understand God
we must stand under, and submit to the terms by which he can be
known.” The reader stumbles at this premise even before he arrives
at the conclusion. How can one stand under or voluntarily submit to
terms before he knows what the terms are? Daane completely ignores
the problem of discovering the terms. To use his crude literalism, a
decision to stand under certain terms rather than others raises the
problem of how to select the terms. As Daane so well insists, “This
is no mere methodological quibble”; had Daane rather than Henry
“complied with this requirement, he might not have given us what is
in my judgment a quite [confused non‑]evangelical theology and
apologetic.” To state the point more clearly, Daane’s confused
premise cannot convince us of the truth of his conclusion.
Ideas and
Propositions
However, the basic and determinative
disagreement between Daane and the Henry-Clark view is the nature or
form of truth. To quote (page 27, column 3, bottom): “For Henry as
for Gordon Clark the nature of truth is that of an idea.”
Here a parenthetical clarification is
necessary. The term idea is too vague and in the Platonic sense
incorrect. In Thales to Dewey Clark argued against Hegel’s view, and
by implication against Plato’s, that reality consists of concepts or
Ideas. Daane is indeed right that this is not a mere methodological
quibble. It is no quibble: It is nonetheless methodological, and it
distinguishes Plato and Hegel from Augustine and any others who rely
on propositions or truths. So much for the parenthesis; let us now
return to the previous paragraph.
For Henry as for
Gordon Clark the nature of truth is that of an idea. Biblical truth
is what God thinks[…]. This ideational content of the divine
mind[…] became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. For Henry this means
that Jesus disclosed or revealed truth, but not that he is himself
the truth.
Presumably this is not a true statement
of Henry’s position, and it is certainly false in Clark’s case. The
last few paragraphs of the present article will explain in greater
detail why it is false. And if, besides, Daane’s statement was
intended as a conclusion of an inference, the inference is invalid.
Daane’s next sentence is also false,
unless it is unintelligibly ambiguous. The sentence is, “The fact
that this Logos became flesh does not mean that this becoming is
itself an essential ingredient of truth.” Since Henry and Clark
accept the Bible as infallible truth, and since the Bible says “The
Word became flesh,” we both accept the statement as an essential
“ingredient” of the truth – that is, as a particular and essential
truth in the complete system of truth.
The underlying point of contention is the
nature of truth. Although Daane quotes correctly, he does not seem
to understand the implications of Henry’s and Clark’s words. On page
28 at the top of column one Daane writes, “Henry agrees with Gordon
Clark that only propositions are the object of knowledge. ‘Only
propositions have the quality of truth,’ he says, explaining further
that ‘the only significant view of revelation is rational-verbal
revelation’ (430). He quotes with approval what Clark says: ‘The
word truth can only be used metaphorically or incorrectly when
applied to anything other than a proposition.’”
In Thales to Dewey (455) Clark, after
some pages of technical detail, arrives at the subhead “Propositions
and Concepts.” But the simplest reason why truth must be
propositional is that a noun all by itself can be neither true nor
false. Suppose someone says, without any implicit context, “Two,” or
“Cat,” or “Star.” No one could understand; neither truth nor falsity
has been spoken. Only when a predicate is attached to a subject by a
copula can the expression be true or false. “Two is an even number”
is true; “Two is an odd number” is false; but just plain “Two” is
unintelligible. Therefore, Clark insists that when a botanist says,
“A cactus has no true leaves,” he uses the word true in a
metaphorical sense, contrasting the spines of a cactus with the
ordinary leaves of an ocotilla or rose bush. What the metaphor
means, a good botanist can explain in literally intended
propositions.
That anyone should take umbrage at a
metaphorical use of the word truth is rather strange because both
the Bible and our ordinary everyday language contain frequent
metaphors. Yet when Daane’s next sentence says, “What then of Jesus’
claim, ‘I am the truth,’” he seems to mean that this could not
possibly be metaphorical. But does not Jesus’ sentence also contain
the phrase, “I am the way”? Surely way is metaphorical, for Jesus
was not a dusty road strewn with stones. If, then, way must be
metaphorical, why is it impossible that truth be so too? Yet, by way
of anticipation, truth in this instance may be literal in a sense
Daane has overlooked.
To proceed and develop this sense and to
compare Daane’s sentences with Scripture, note first that he says,
“The truth of the [Biblical] propositions is not that the
proposition is, say, the resurrection and the life[…]. Not to
acknowledge this is on the one hand to deny that Jesus is the truth,
and on the other to reduce truth to language, to verbal
propositions, to thought that can be written.” Here Daane both
contradicts Scripture and falls into systematic confusion. Scripture
says, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life”
(John 6:63). This verse is all the more conclusive because John’s or
Jesus’ word for words is rhemata, not logos. The latter could have
been interpreted in some metaphysical sense, such as is found in
Philo or Heraclitus; whereas rhemata carries the more literal
connotation of words, exemplified by two, cat, or
star– that is, as
sounds in the air or ink spots on paper. Not that Jesus actually
meant ink marks on paper, but that Daane’s insistence on literalism
is more embarrassed by rhemata than it would have been by
logos.
Obviously, Henry and Clark do not “reduce” truth to language,
especially not to sounds in the air and ink marks on paper. (See
Clark’s quotation from Abraham Kuyper in Language and Theology.)
Before truths or thoughts can be “written,” that is, symbolized on
paper, the thoughts must be thought. Different literal words can
express the same thought. For example, “Das
Mädchen ist schön,” “La jeune fille est belle,” and “The girl is
beautiful,” are three different sentences with all different words,
but they are the same, single, identical proposition. Daane’s
argument seems to be based on inattention to the distinction between
thoughts and their symbolic surrogates.
The Bible
With this misunderstanding of the
Henry‑Clark position Daane can say,
Henry’s
view[…] reduces the supreme, final, personal form of the Word of God,
namely Jesus Christ, to the same level as the Bible. Such a Bible is
not a witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is the ultimate and
final form of the Word of God to man, but is itself the ultimate
form and true nature of the Word of God. Such a view of the Bible is
the source of the insistence that the original Bible must be
absolutely inerrant. If the Bible as propositional is a higher form
of truth than Jesus, then the sinlessness of Jesus is less important
than the inerrancy of the Bible. (28)
This important
paragraph elicits four observations. First, Daane’s argument depends
on and seems to be initiated by a denial of Biblical inerrancy.
Second, it contains one or two unfortunate confusions. Third, one of
its inferences is a logical fallacy. Fourth, Daane nowhere explains
the so-called personal form of truth, which he opposes to the
Henry-Clark view.
First, like the Auburn Affirmationists of
1924, Fuller Seminary professors Jack Rogers and David Hubbard –
with the cooperation of World Vision’s Paul Rees and Berkeley
Mickelsen of Bethel Seminary in their book Biblical Authority, and
Dewey Beegle of Wesley Seminary in Scripture, Tradition, and
Infallibility, plus Jack Rogers again in a criticism of Carl Henry –
and now James Daane formerly of Fuller Seminary, have vigorously
attacked the truthfulness of the Bible. This current cooperative
effort – for the several contributors to Biblical Authority were
certainly cooperating, even if Beegle and Daane acted independently
– is noteworthy because nothing like it has occurred since the
Auburn Affirmation. In those days J. Gresham Machen
found few to support him in his defense of Scripture, the virgin
birth, the miracles, the atonement, and the resurrection. Today, in
defense of the truthfulness of the Bible, there stand about a
thousand members of the Evangelical Theological Society, a recently
formed committee in which James Boice of Philadelphia is prominent,
and a few individual authors such as Carl Henry and Harold Lindsell.
In evaluating Daane’s article on “What is Truth?” one must keep this
larger scene in view.
Second, there is some lack of clarity
when Daane speaks of different forms and levels of truth. At least
five times on page 28 he uses the term “form.” These five instances
may differ slightly in their connotations, but in two the phrase is
“a higher form of truth,” and in one “a lesser form of truth.” Since
propositional truth has the form of subject- copula- predicate, which
Daane considers the lesser form, his higher form must be devoid of
subjects, copulas, and predicates. The difficulty with a truth that
has no subject becomes a major consideration in point five below. If
Daane had said, a higher truth and a lesser truth, instead of a
higher and lesser form, and if by these phrases he had meant that
one truth may be logically subordinate to another truth, and
Euclid’s tenth theorem is subordinate to his fifth and to his
axioms, there would have been no confusion. No matter how
subordinate a theorem may be to another, they not only have the same
form, but they are also equally true. Hence when Daane accuses Henry
of implying that “the Bible as propositional is a higher form of
truth than Jesus,” a reader stumbles at the confusion, for Daane
never explains what this strange form is.
In the third place this confusion, not
unexpectedly, leads Daane into a fallacious inference. If the Bible
is a higher form of truth, he says in effect, then the sinlessness
of Jesus is less important than inerrancy. How Daane gets from his
premise to his conclusion is by no means evident. Nor is the meaning
of his word “important.” Whether a statement is more important than
another depends on its particular application. A principle of
engineering is more important for an engineering problem than a
principle of organic chemistry, but the latter may be more important
for cancer research. In any case, the only method by which we could learn that
Jesus was sinless is the method of Biblical revelation. Neither
Josephus, nor Tacitus, nor some “personal truth” tells us that Jesus
was sinless. And if the Bible contains errors here and there, as
those who deny inerrancy hold, we cannot trust the Bible’s
assertions of Jesus’ sinlessness, for these could be some of its
errors. If those who reject inerrancy claim that these verses are
not errors, we ask, How do you know? By what epistemological
criterion do you distinguish between the Bible’s truths and the
Bible’s mistakes? For if the Bible makes false assertions, there
must be a criterion independent of and superior to the Bible by
which its assertions must be judged. We challenge our opponents to
state their epistemological criterion. Unless we know their method
first, we cannot accept their theology.
The four points indicated above are all
closely related. Points two and three, confusions and fallacies, are
together exemplified at the top of column two, page 28: “This
reductionism is the consequence of a theological method which first
decides the nature of our knowledge of God and then decides that God
must be of such nature to be knowable by us.” The idea here, a
confusion and an invalid inference condensed in the term
“reductionism,” seems to be that the Clark-Henry method requires one
to determine first, apart from any revelation, the nature of
knowledge and then, again apart from revelation, to conclude that
the nature of God must conform to it. Not at all; the actuality is
completely different. One of the frequent criticisms against Clark,
even by those who accept inerrancy, is that he restricts the scope
of knowledge by limiting it to what “is either expressly set down in
Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from
Scripture” (Westminster Confession, I.vi). Did Daane fail to notice
this rather prominent thesis? At any rate, when a man begins to read
the Bible, he finds that it contains many propositions –
propositions about the stars, about Abraham, the Levitical law, the
conquest of Canaan. He cannot go far, however, without learning
something about God and man. He learns that God is a rational
Spirit, a God of truth, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. He learns that man – in contrast with the animals – is a
rational creature, that man sinned, and that God has
provided a method of atonement.
But to return to the main subject: What
one learns first from the Bible and what he learns second and third
varies from man to man. One person begins with Genesis; another
begins with Matthew. Similarly, a man may learn several propositions
about God without reflecting on the method by which he learned them.
Musicians and painters usually produce good works of art before they
understand the theory. Hence in temporal psychology a knowledge of
God precedes a knowledge of method. But to explain this process an
apologist ought to start with the methodology. For while the
unreflective reader may be unaware of the methodology – he may not
realize how he does what he does – he nonetheless uses the method.
And for Clark and Henry the method is Scriptural.
Suppose a reflective and intelligent
person begins with Matthew. He comes across the words genealogy,
Abraham, begat, fourteen, and so on. He will then perceive that
every sentence, indeed every word, in the Bible depends on the
logical law of contradiction for its intelligibility. Without this
law every word would have an infinite number of meanings: David
would not only mean Moses and Judas, it would also mean sling,
stone, atom, and typewriter. And God would mean devil. Apart from
logic, a noun would mean what it does not mean; and if a word means
everything, it means nothing. In order to mean something, a word
must also not mean something. There is no meaning without the law of
contradiction. Hence, in acquiring the knowledge that God is
knowable, God’s rational creature – so far as he can escape the
misunderstandings and fallacies of the noetic effects of sin – must
use the laws of logic. Dr. Daane should try to answer the question,
How can we know that God is knowable, or that he is omniscient,
without using the rational laws of logic? If we did not (first) use
the laws of logic, how could we know anything about God? And first
is the wrong word, for knowing God and using logic are the same
identical act.
We now come to point four where the
unintelligibility of Daane’s criticism is most evident. Daane
utilizes a sort of theory of two‑fold truth. It is not precisely the
medieval theory of that name, but rather derives from Kierkegaard,
Buber, Brunner, the Neo-orthodox, and
existentialists. But Daane does not give us much theory: He is
satisfied to assert a great difference between propositional truth
and personal truth. Two points should be made: First, personal truth
is unintelligible; and, second, Daane seems to have no clear idea of
what a person is.
First, one can easily state and explain
the form of propositional truth. As said above, it consists of a
subject connected by a copula to a predicate. By a clearly defined
method we can arrange propositions into valid syllogisms and easily
distinguish them from invalid syllogisms. But what is the form of
personal truth? Are there universals and particulars? Are there
valid and invalid inferences? Presumably not, for no one has ever
derived twenty-four valid personal syllogisms nor 232 invalid ones.
Personal truth can have no subjects, predicates, or copulas. What is
it then? How does one distinguish between a personal truth and a
personal falsity? When with Brunner one says that God and the medium
of conceptuality are mutually exclusive, one makes God completely
unknowable. If we talk about God, we are not talking about
God. This
is not what the inerrant Bible teaches.
Then, second, underlying the above is a
deficient or completely lacking concept of a person. For Plato a
human person was a soul who knew the Ideas. The World of Ideas was
itself a living mind, as he explained in The Sophist. For Aristotle,
the soul was the form of the organic body, and its individuality
depended upon its unknowable matter. Locke made the soul an abstract
idea, a spiritual substance, also unknowable; he called it
“something I know not what.” Hume “reduced” the person to a
collection of sensations and memory images – a collection which,
according to Kant, had never been collected. For it, Kant
substituted his transcendental unity of apperception – also
unknowable. Which of these does Daane prefer? Or does he have a
different theory? I am afraid this is unknowable too.
In 1 Corinthians 2:16 Paul says “we have
the mind of Christ.” The word mind is nous. How is it possible for
us to have Christ’s nous, unless his mind is the truth? We have
Christ’s mind insofar as we think his thoughts. Of course we are not
omniscient; we do not think all his thoughts; and worse, we think
some false propositions too. We are what we think,
just as Christ is what he thinks. His doctrine or teaching saves us
from eternal death (John 8:51). He is the truth! Is this not what
Scripture teaches? Christ is the Logos, his rhemata are truth; he is
God’s Wisdom; and 1 Samuel 2:3 says, “the Lord is the God of
knowledge.” Daane’s theory seems to imply that these propositions
are some of the errors in our untrustworthy Bible. Henry and I
believe that the Bible is trustworthy. (Though Henry and I are in extensive agreement, I do not intend to
bind him to any of the above material beyond what he has explicitly
stated in his publications.)
*************************
TRUTH Past biblical
scholars often overgeneralized about distinctions between Greek and Hebrew
conceptions of truth, claiming Greek philosophical tradition understood
truth to be static, timeless, and theoretical, in contrast to the Hebrew
view of truth as practical and experiential. They maintain that, though
Hebrew understanding predominates in the Bible,
the contrasting Greek view is represented in the NT, especially in Johannine literature.
The tide has
turned against this idea (see A. Thiselton, “Truth” in The New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology). Increasingly, scholars now
recognize that major biblical words translated “truth” (Hb. emet; Gk.
aletheia) have a wide range of meaning, as propositional, personal, moral,
and historical truth. Emet frequently does mean “faithfulness,” OT writers
using it to describe God’s word and deeds. His word can be trusted because
He is faithful and because it is true. The genius of biblical teaching is
that all truth is unified and grounded in the faithful and true God.
Truth as Truth Telling The most common meaning of biblical words refers to
statements accurately reflecting facts, such as accurate and trustworthy
witnesses (Prov. 12:17; cp. 1John 2:21). Lying is the opposite of truth
(Jer. 9:3; cp. Gen. 42:16). The people of God are to speak truth to one
another (Zech. 8:16; Eph. 4:25). Jesus stresses the authority and certainty
of His message in saying, “I tell you the truth” (Luke 9:27 HCSB; cp. Luke
4:24; John 16:7). John stresses he is telling the truth about Jesus (John
19:35), and Paul emphasizes he is not lying (Rom. 9:1; cp. 2Cor. 7:14; 1Tim. 2:7; Acts 26:25).
For Moses the covenant God does abound in truth (Exod. 34:6). His truth is
eternal (Ps. 117:2). Human testimony can swear to truth by nothing higher
than God (1Kings 22:16; Isa. 65:16). Since God is true, so is His word (Ps.
119:160; cp. John 17:17; 2Sam. 7:28; Pss. 43:3; 119:142,151). Scripture is
this very word of truth and thus should be handled carefully (2Tim. 2:15).
The gospel is equated with the truth (Gal. 2:5,14; Eph.1:13), and the truth
is equated with the gospel (Gal. 5:7).
Other Uses of “Truth”
Because God’s word is truth, it is ultimately real and not ephemeral, as
opposed to all else, and liberates men (John 8:32). Satan and men lie (John
8:44; Rom. 1:25) and enslave. Jesus is Savior because He is Truth incarnate
(John 14:6; cp. 1:14,17; Eph. 4:21). Now the Holy Spirit indwells believers,
guiding them into all truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; cp. 1 John 5:6).
Yet people resist truth. Jesus implied this, “Because I tell the truth, you
do not believe Me” (John 8:46 HCSB). The Bible teaches that believing truth
is not a mechanical psychological function but is related to the human will.
People choose the lie rather than God’s truth (Rom. 1:25; 2Tim. 3:8; 4:4;
Titus 1:14).
More than half the uses of aletheia and cognates occur in
Johannine writings (John 16:7; 1John 2:4,21,27). John uses it to refer to
reality in contrast to falsehood or appearance but does not reject OT
teaching on truth. Nor does John have a Greek mind-set. In fact, John 1:14
describes Jesus in His incarnation as “full of grace and truth,” a reference
to the OT concept of covenant loyalty/faithfulness (chesed), now
seen firsthand in the Logos as the genuine reality of God. In John 14:6 Jesus
describes Himself as “the way, the truth, and the life,” combining a number
of concepts. Jesus is the true way leading to life, and men should not come
to Him seeking truth but,
because He is the end of the search, the revealed reality of God.
Ted
Cabal; Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary; 2003; p1631
[6/9/24]
