The Language of Truth

Don: The Truth personified in Jesus is a living, vital, transforming Truth:

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4:17-24)

This is not a Truth that we act upon; it is a Truth that acts upon us. It is not a Truth that we can change; it is a Truth that can change us.

The “word” in the passage:

Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17:17)

…is not the word of a language. It is the living word; the Word that became flesh:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John *testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14-17)

In God’s original plan, Truth was to remain as God personified. The Tree of Life represents Jesus, who said “I am … the life”. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, however, is dangerous in the hands of a non-omniscient being such as Man. That does not make it a “bad” tree; in fact it is pleasing to the eye and “good for food”:

Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)

How can it be good for food, yet toxic?

“…but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)

Paul talked about the danger of knowledge; of abusing it to gain leverage over others:

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. (1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

The medium of knowledge is language, and the medium of language is words. Before the Baylonians built their Tower…

… the whole earth used the same language and the same words. (Genesis 11:1)

Knowledge was uniform. The Babylonians used it to approach God; in the making of bricks to build a Tower to the heavens, in the use of fire to harden them, in the adoption of tar as mortar. In the Garden, God said that nothing Mankind wanted to do would be impossible for them; which sounds a lot like “Now Man has become like one of Us, knowing good from evil.” It seems the quest for God based on knowledge leaves Mankind to assume God-like characteristics and then, through Inquisitions and Crusades and jihads perpetrated in the name of Truth, to exercise them.

The confusion of language in the Tower of Babel story might be understood as the confounding of knowledge, of altering it in order to thwart the quest for God. But the reversal of this can also be found in scripture, at Pentecost, when the personal presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit unified the words into a uniform language and a uniform Truth:

But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: …“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. … Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. … Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:14;22-24;33-36)

Peter clearly stated that Truth was both the mission and the message of Jesus. It is not simply a concept or doctrine or belief; it is a comprehension of the mighty works of God:

…we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” (Acts 2:11)

This was more than just a reversal of the confusion of language, of words, of knowledge; it was more radical and fundamental than that:

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching [i.e., to knowledge] and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, (Acts 2:42-46)

The unity achieved at Pentecost was far more than unity of tongue and shared knowledge. It was the creation of a radical community of people who gave up their individual possessions for the common good.

Taking these scriptures together—the story of Truth in the Garden, the original intention of God with regard to Mankind’s possession of Truth, the observation that truth based on knowledge empowers and propels Mankind towards discriminating action that presumes God-like authority, the apparent dis-assembly of knowledge and community by God at Babel and its reversal at Pentecost—what does it all tell us about Truth and perhaps the arrogance of small-t truth versus the humility of capital-T Truth?

Charles: I don’t view Babel as Man trying to get closer to God; rather, it seems to me more Man trying to make himself God. It’s almost laughable that Man thought he could build a tower to heaven. What seems to concern God is that the Babylonians (Mankind) sought to make a name for themselves and to deflect onto themselves the glory that belongs to God. It reflects the sin of pride and is emblematic of the fall and our separation from God. It fits the idea that God always knew this would happen, even from before the Creation. Following the judgment of the Flood, God allowed the earth to be repopulated on the understanding that it would be united in following his will; but prideful Man decided to stay put in Babel rather than populate the earth and to glorify themselves rather than God. God was showing the ultimate futility of Man’s efforts to do their own will rather than God’s.

With regard to Truth: Philosophers have theorized that by definition, any kind of truth must (1) correspond to reality—it has to be verifiable or falsifiable and (2) be coherent—there can be no systemic contradictions within it. It has to answer four questions: (1) How do we come to be, out of nothing? The answer “God” is irrefutable because it is both correspondent and coherent. One may choose to disagree with it but it passes those tests; (2) What is the meaning of life? If the atheist is right then there is no point of reference for a meaning to life; we are doomed to roll the rock of Sisyphus forever because there is no top to the mountain—which makes no sense. If the religionist is right that God exists, then (re)establishing a relationship with God makes sense. (3) How do we tell right from wrong? Any moral authority that is not a singularity ultimately degrades into relativism and into every man being an authority unto himself, with at best only ephemeral value in community authority. We see this playing out at all levels in society today, from the individual to entire societies, where relativism has led to “truths” that most rational people surely must find abominable; (4) What happens after we die?

To discuss Truth, we need first to discuss a worldview that incorporates answers to the four questions: Origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. For me, the Christian worldview is rational and True because it offers clear answers to each of the four questions, corresponds to reality, and is coherent in its totality. That does not translate into a mandate to impose this Truth on others, though some take it to do so; but if other worldviews cannot produce rational answers to these questions—and to be rational they would have to be the same as the Christian answer (at least, there can only be one origin and one morality). If by virtue of adopting the Christian worldview one finds contentment, then it doesn’t matter if the worldview is wrong and there is no meaning to life and no future, etc. But to hold the atheistic worldview entails the real loss of meaning to life and re-establishment of a relationship with God.

Big-T Truth is God and Christ because Man needed to have something to relate to. Scripture says clearly that Jesus existed before the foundations of the earth. Truth that coalesces in a person—and a person is something Man can relate to—answers the questions and meets the tests of correspondence and coherence beautifully.

Jay: So did Truth exist before Christianity, before the incarnation of Christ, but only became apparent afterwards? How could Truth be defined in terms of the four questions before Jesus?

Charles: The answer is tied to the trinity. I think it’s important to recognize that Jesus was the Truth in eternity past and will be Truth for eternity future. It is a singularity, an exclusivity, that provides correspondence and coherence. The creation story does not report that God said: “Let there be Jesus” or “Let there be a Holy Spirit.” Christ antedated our concept of Truth.

From the moment of the Big Bang, evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics by going from chaos to order, which the very opposite of the entropic dissolution from order to chaos mandated by the 2nd law. All of reality, as we understand it, is really flowing upstream toward its ultimate source! This is against the natural order, the natural law, science. But what applies to the whole may not apply to the parts. The atheist latches onto the small parts, insisting that if it applies to the parts, then it must apply to the whole; if entropy will inevitably destroy the parts then it must destroy the whole, so there can be no ultimate purpose to or meaning in life.

David: Is Pentecost meant to be taken literally, with the Pentecostals actually speaking in multiple languages simultaneously? Or is it a metaphor for the communication of the Holy Spirit to others? The latter offers a common point of reference for all human beings, no matter their religion or lack thereof. To me, everyone has the spirit within them.—including some atheists, Jews, Buddhists, Daoists, Moslems, and Hindus I personally know who seem to me to be at least as good and moral as the many religious people who commit immoral and violent acts in the name of their religions.

I have seen people at Pentecostal church gatherings speak in so-called tongues. Unfortunately, my tongue was not included, so I couldn’t understand them. I think they are at best delusional, mainly because I think the meaning of Pentecost is metaphorical, not literal. The day may or may not come when we all speak Chinese and Russian and Tagalog (automatic language translation technology might get there one day) but the time will certainly come when we all speak with the same spirit. Since we all already have some spirit inside us, all of us already can have a valid view of Truth.

Charles: Pentecost was focused on Truth, church, and faith. Faith was prerequisite, before believers could receive the gift. To me, therefore, spirit is a gift to those who have faith—very specifically, to those who have faith in Christ’s church. Pentecost is the temporal manifestation, in the fullness of God’s time, for drawing his people to himself in faith. Of course, that means that they accept God’s will and God as the ultimate moral authority, even though they may sin. Perhaps the story of Pentecost is more about the hearing than the speaking of tongues.

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