Thoughts on Truth
"Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To th' end of reck'ning.
~Isabella
"Measure for Measure" Act V.i.48-49
Shakespeare
"'What is truth?' Pilate asked."
John 18:38
A few quotes from Teaching as Believing:
"Pluralism is our goal. We must arrive at an understanding that allows us to be open and accepting of a variety of points of view, not complacent or unjust" (157).
"People in the earlier stages tend to see faith in terms of blck and white: I am right and you are wrong, I in possession of the truth and you are goin g to hell. But in the fifth stage, what Fowler calls 'conjunctive faith,' we are open to the possiblity of other interpretations and other religious traditions, realizing that we don't have all the answers and thayt there may be validity of other traditions. And yet 'this position implies no lack of commitment to one's own truth tradition. Nor does it mean a wishy washy neutrality.' Rather, 'conjunctive faith's radical openness to the truth stems precisely from its confidence in the reality mediated by its own tradition and in the awareness that that reality overspills its mediation'" (167-168).
I agree that understanding other people epistomolgy's and accepting people for that epistomology is right. I do however think that of all the belief systems in this world that there is only one that is true. (I am not claiming that I have the one true truth, but I am claiming that not every single belief system is truth.) In fact I believe thaty there is only one truth. Richard Wurmbrand articulates my idea. He is a pastor in Romania who was imprisoned in a Communist prison for 13 years because of his Christianity. He says, "If I look at the cell from my bed I only see the window. If I look from where you're sitting, I see the door. If I look at the floor, the room has no ceiling. Every point of view is in reality a point of blindness, because it it incapacitates you totally from seeing points of view..." (In God's Underground 83).
Even though every point of view is a point of blindness there is still only one truth. Even though I can only see the floor does not mean that there is no ceiling. We may live in a pluralistic society and embrace the differences we all have, it does not eliminate the fact that there is only one truth, whatever that may be.
My last reamining thought is John 14:6. "Jesus said that I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father (God), but by me." I do not see any way around there only being one truth and that is believing that Jesus died for our sins and by believing this it is the only way to God.
1 Comments:
Wurmbrand seems to make an error. He says that looking at the floor, it seems that the room has no ceiling. This isn't really an accurate statement. It would be more proper to say that he can no longer see the ceiling any longer, and perhaps that he doubts it is still there. If he has no reason to believe there is a ceiling anymore, he has no reason to believe there isn't one either. The best he can hope to say is, "I don't know."
Even if he had only just come into the room, so that he saw the floor only at first, he'd have no reason to say that there was no ceiling. That is the equivalent of crossing the street and looking right and declaring that no cars are coming and then being surprised when you are hit from the left.
Knowledge is composite. While it is true that none of us knows anything, some of us certainly know more (and less) than others. Things that are true preclude their opposites from being true. But that doesn't mean one truth precludes all others. A room may have a floor and a ceiling; a room cannot have a floor and not have a floor, however. Knowledge of the floor does not actually preclude the existence of the ceiling.
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