What if Truth is a Person?

In building on my last post concerning proper religious dialog, I now seek to address how dialog partners should approach truth.

The Impetus for this Post

The impetus for this post again, begins with me. When I first became serious about Christianity I approached the truth as something to be sought out ruthlessly, quickly grasped and then immediately propagated. This resulted in me taking truth as an object, wielding it bravely and clubbing others over the head with it.

At seminary we often hear of the tendency (active since the Enlightenment and the advent of modern thought) to approach truth as if it could be completely possessed, controlled, manipulated and scientifically dissected. To a certain degree this is true. I can apply the rules of logic to an argument and identify fallacies. I can run a statistical study on the attendance of baseball games and come up with a pretty accurate picture of attendance on the average spring day. But can I approach religious, specifically Christian, truth in this manner?

While many religious people would say yes (especially fundamentalists who are profoundly influenced by a modernist paradigm); I answer no. This is because, for the Christian, truth is not primarily an object, but a subject. Truth is a person.

Truth is a Personal

More accurately, truth is a group of three persons in one Godhead: the Trinity. All Christians believe this, but many have not adequately let the implications of this doctrine guide how they approach truth and present it in religious dialog. If the truth is most essentially personal, that means that you cannot simply approach it like you would a book of distinct facts, that can be appropriated separately in any context. If the truth is personal, then one will not be able to grasp it by reading a book. One will actually have to enter into a relationship with the truth. In a substantive way, no one can fully realize Christian truth without it becoming personal. In short, if the truth is personal, then it cannot simply be related and appropriated objectively. Christians must have a more subjective approach to truth.

What does this mean for dialog?

If Christian truth is personal and must be received personally, this has clear implications for how we go about pursuing and presenting the truth in dialog. Below I have listed a few of these implications:

1-Revelation is not a textbook; rather, it is a witness to the Trinity.

Christians do not worship the Bible, they worship the persons whom the Bible gives witness to: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Bible is a revelatory account; written by those who witnessed the mighty acts of the Trinity in history. The Bible is a product of many relationships: (i.e. the relationships of faithful writers to God). The main purpose of the biblical text is not to provide Christians or Jews with a textbook on life. The main purpose of the biblical text is to introduce people to, and remind people of, the Triune God.

In dialog, this means the Bible is not wielded as a weapon. It also means isolated verses cannot simply be lifted out of context and appropriated as a premise in some theological argument. More work, and more engagement with the personal God of Israel is required.

2-At the center of Christianity resides two utter mysteries.

Christianity thrives on paradoxes. These are contraries held in creative tension. Blessed are the poor, yet we should continually work to eradicate poverty; the first shall be last and the last shall be first; in the Eucharist we eat the body and blood of Christ, yet the elements do not taste like flesh and blood. The two chief paradoxes of Christianity center on the Trinity. The first is the structure of the Trinity itself: 3 persons, 1 God. In an important way Christianity actually asserts that 3 = 1. Far from being shoddy math, this equation relates one of the central mysteries of Christianity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all part of one God, sharing the same substance but distinct in person.

The second central paradox in Christianity is the incarnation: when God became a man. Specifically one person of the Trinity, the eternal Son, descended infinitely and became a temporal man. God became a man and then died. God died, and for his enemies no less! This is a mystery beyond all clumsy modernist grasping.

What does all this mean for dialog? Simply put, it means we should approach truth claims with extreme humility. The existence of revelatory scriptures means we can talk about God. God’s mysterious nature means that here is much we can only assert with caution and much we cannot speak of at all. So in dialog, we can express our theological convictions, but we should be extremely cautious about what we essentialize and say we know with a high degree of certainty. Also, when we do encounter theological views that are deficient, we should be careful not to label adherents of these views as ignorant, irresponsible, illogical, etc . . . Also, we should realize that because God is so mysterious, there may be a range of acceptable theological positions. Not all inaccurate theology is harmful, and some errors only result in relatively minor harm. Consequently, some battles are simply not worth fighting, especially if fighting those battles will burn more bridges than it constructs.

In brief, the utter mystery and paradox at the very heart of Christian doctrine should instill in us a great humility and encourage us to pause before making any dogmatic claims to certain truth.

3-The Truth is a Community.

Christians believe that before anything else existed, the Trinity simply was for all eternity. The Trinity is an eternal community of three persons constantly giving and receiving love. This means for the Christian, the most basic fact of existence is not material, but moral. More specifically, the basic essence of all existence is love or loving community. Furthermore Christians believe that all people are created in the very image of this Trinity. Thus, it should come as no surprise that people are inherently communal beings and flourish most when they are giving and receiving love in community.

Christians also believe that people have fallen through sin. Essentially the majority of the biblical narrative is the story of God trying to bring all of humanity (and creation in general) back into the loving communion of the Trinity. Part of being a Christian is attempting to realize this loving communion now, as much as we can, on earth. This si the coming kingdom of Christ.

What does all this mean for the pursuit of truth in dialog? One thing I think it means is that the truth should be pursued both within community and in ways that promote community.

-Ideally, truth will be pursued from within community. This is why Christians should take seriously the insights of other denominations (through ecumenical dialog) and other times (through the rich Christian tradition). So many errors and poor examples of dialog result in a small group (or an individual) isolating themselves from the rest of the church universal.

-Ideally, truth will be pursued in a manner that builds community rather than tears it apart. At the very least we should be extremely suspect of any rhetoric that divides more than it brings together and builds up. Far too many times Protestants have sought to delineate differences where there are only misunderstandings, or have asserted major differences where only minor quibbles reside. To be sure, there are plenty of real differences to be found within the Christian fold. However, let us suspend our judgment and create a space where community might develop and apparent differences might dissolve.

Until next week . . . peace.