The True

I am hesitant to broach the subject of the True.  It is so divisive and I am frankly irritated by sloppy intellectual use of concepts of truth as well as angry and uncharitable ones.  I will first vent my irritation.

I wish we could stop thinking in categories of something being “true for me” and not for you.  This is the sloppy use of the concept.  If you think of what “true” actually means, the idea becomes nonsensical.  When building something, in making it “true” we bring it into an exact shape or alignment.  Either the structure is true or it is not.  It cannot be true for me and not for you.  But, the objection comes, that has to do with actual verifiable things that can be measured.  It is different when it comes to philosophical things or religious belief.  While I agree that there may be differing perspectives, the word “true” is not protean in its meaning.  Either Jesus rose from the dead or he did not.  It is either true or it is not.  It cannot be true for me and false for you.  (And don’t bring Schrodinger’s cat into the conversation.  While from a probability perspective the cat is both dead and alive, in fact he is one or the other.) Far better to use our words more carefully and say things like, “that does not make sense to me,” or “I don’t believe that.”  Here we are being honest and are not cheapening the meaning of the word True.

Irritation number 2 – The use of Truth as a bludgeon to hit people with.  This, sadly, is often the particular vice of Christians.  We cheerfully ignore St. Paul’s exhortation to speak the truth in love.  Truth and love together are powerful.  Like salt.  Sodium and chlorine, separately, each is toxic.  Together they preserve and bring flavor out of foods.  Truth without love is toxic (as is love without truth – sentimentality – a sweeter poison, but poison nonetheless).  I have heard the truth from people who have had an axe to grind with me.  It is easily dismissed.  I have also heard truth from those whose actions have clearly shown they love me.  Those words are hard to ignore.

My father had a profound respect for the truth and instilled in me the importance of telling the truth regardless of the consequences.  And I think that it includes telling the truth to others and to ourselves.  This latter is at least as difficult, for as Jeremiah reminds us, the heart is deceitful above all things.

But here I am making it sound like the truth is always bad news.  Of course it is not.  While the truth may be hard from time to time, the truth also affirms, blesses and encourages.  And Jesus says that the truth will set us free. 

Like the Good, the True in its glorious objective reality, is a thing to be loved.  It is reality as it is, the universe, both physical and moral, as God made it.  And as I recall, He thought it very good - thus worthy of our love.