The category of truth–is it still a viable concept? 
“You have your truth; I have mine.” Truth isn’t an objective reality. “There is a tree in front of us.” “No, I don’t believe in trees.” Is either right or wrong?
Yes. Either there is a tree there or there isn’t. Both perceptions of reality can’t be right at the same time. It doesn’t matter what ‘my truth’ is or what ‘your truth’ is the tree is, or isn’t.
Does God exist? This is exactly the same thing as the tree. It can’t be true and untrue at the same time. It’s not ‘my truth’ vs. ‘your truth’. It’s just true or not true. Most people believe in God. Like 95% of Americans.
But what kind of God do we believe in?
If God has no objective reality; only the projection of my own God-wish, then whether or not he exists is completely irrelevant. Who cares!
But if there is the category of truth–a tree is or isn’t there at this particular point on the space-time continuum–then God can’t be simply what you or I want him to be. He is–interestingly God actually calls himself “I AM” the Being One. And since God has objective existence.
Which means, obviously, that some things about God are true. And, some things about God aren’t true.
And there’s the rub. We simply don’t like anyone telling us what God is like–maybe not even God himself. Why? Because I have to accept him on his terms instead of shaping him according to my preferences. (Do you see where I’m headed?)
Since God is what he is I am faced with the (unpleasant?) necessity of fitting myself into his reality instead of fitting him into mine. I can no longer be God. I’m stuck with being subordinate to him. He’s God and, therefore, I’m not.
It’s a long way down from the throne of heaven to earth. But it beats living in a slowly imploding fantasy.
There is a kind of theological grammar that Christians need to learn; a kind of logical ordering of the faith, if you will. There is no truth “about” Jesus: Jesus is the truth. The truth is a person who is both fully divine and fully human, with both of these realities fully sharing (but not mixing) with one another (lest we repeat the Nestorian heresy).
Traditional theology also says that God’s existence is identical with God’s essence — it is only God’s creation that has an existence not identical with its essence (i.e. our essence is that we are made in the image of God and called to fully participate in Christ by the Spirit but this differs from our actual existence because of sin). Thus, if God’s existence has any kind of objectivity, it is only known by the truth which is faith in that truth — Jesus Christ — itself. This is why people cannot begin to understand: either they have no faith in Christ at all, or they think that there is some sort of truth “higher” than the person of Christ which makes Christ just a “good example” of something “true-er”, so it’s really “all subjective” anyway.
This is why I never believe any of that modern gnostic Da Vinci Code rubbish: because they always claim to have some truth about Jesus, which I hope I have demonstrated, is a bit absurd.
It is essential that this truth is also identical with love, for God is Love. I would also argue that God is the unity of truth, goodness, and beauty which is also love, but that is another discussion…
Thanks for this post, Pastor.
Peace,
Eric
Good insight Eric. Are you saying, then, that truth is fundamentally relational? Can objective, propositional statements be made about God which are not un-true?
Of course this immediately forces us to recognize the inadequacy of language to convey accurately ‘the mysteries of God’. So, I suppose, while a propositional statement might be accurate, it is never complete.
Thanks for thinking with me.
Hmm… the way I might put it might be something like this:
If truth is fundamentally relational, then it is so only because God is Triune and thus fundamentally the mutual exchange (perichoresis) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The point being made is that what is “relational” has a distinct bit o’ content and not just “relationality” in general.
Oh yes, language is always finite!
Peace,
Eric