Just hours before the crucifixion, Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" (Jn. 18:38). His question carries heavy irony--just hours before, Jesus had asserted to his disciples, "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." (Jn. 14:6). I think that many people today have found themselves repeating Pilate's question, wondering what truth is, and why they should care about it.
Since the Enlightenment (and, in many ways, earlier), most Westerners have thought of truth in terms of abstract propositions that correspond to reality. I won't dispute that fact--reality is as solid as the chair I sit on, and it bombards us continually with absolutes, like hikers in a hailstorm. Given the nature of truth, post-Enlightenment thought has demanded that we seek out some neutral ground from which to view the world; reason became a precision instrument, used to dissect reality. Today, calling something true is essentially the same as calling it correct.
Again, I won't dispute the idea that truth corresponds to reality. However, how useful is that understanding of truth? Have we really found an objective, neutral view of reality in our rational capacity? Does being right necessarily make us true? In other words: reality is out there, but how accurate are our mental concepts of that reality? Are we wasting our time trying to be right, when we ought to be striving for truth? Is there a difference?
It seems that the Bible offers a powerful critique of the Enlightenment understanding of truth. Here are some fascinating facts to consider...
In Hebrew, the same word (yada) refers both to knowledge, and to sexual intercourse. So, "Adam knew (yada) Eve, and she conceived..." (Gen. 4:1); and, "Samuel did not yet know (yada) the Lord..." (1 Sam. 3:7).
The Hebrew word that we translate "truth," emeth, can also be translated "firm, reliable, faithful." Further, emeth is closely linked with another Hebrew word, hesed, which often translates as "steadfast love," but can also refer to faithfulness, especially covenant faithfulness. Passages like Micah 6:8, and Hosea 6:6 essentially equate hesed and emeth, and link both to God's demands towards his covenant people.
Thus, the Old Testament presents a strange picture of truth as being strongly related to faithfulness to a loving, covenant relationship. Knowledge is as intimate as sex; truth is as relational as a friendship.
This picture only intensifies in the New Testament, where we find Jesus claiming, not just to speak the truth, but to be the truth personified. In a letter, John reflected that, "God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God in them" (1 Jn. 3:16). We know God most intimately (cf. Jn. 15 for an explanation of "abiding in God") when we love.
Based on the assumptions that seem to underlie the Hebrew (and, I would wager, Christian) understanding of truth, I think we can make a broad statement--love is not superior to knowledge, but is in fact the highest form of knowledge.
Take a moment to let that statement soak in...Doesn't it make a strange kind of sense? Doesn't a man who has loved a woman intensely for a year know her better than an insurance agent who has memorized reams of information about her over the course of a decade? Doesn't true understanding require empathy?
This understanding of love as knowledge completely deconstructs the Enlightenment longing for a neutral perspective. True knowledge does not come from objectivity; true knowledge requires the active pursuit of empathy, driven by steadfast love. Some insist that "love is blind"; I would rather assert that, until I loved, I never truly saw.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Writing about writing
The first moments of any new experience are always accompanied by a certain measure of awkwardness: this first blog has all the hesitation of a first date, all the insecurity of a first day at work, all the promise of a new home. I'm a novice blogger, I will admit, but I'm terribly excited about this new space (more to come later on the mental gymnastics that have enabled my generation to conceive of mass-less bursts of electricity that drift between computers as "cyberspace"). I don't quite know what to tell you to expect from it--I hope to include interesting anecdotes from my life (after all, the blog is replacing my weekly update email), reflections on passages from the Bible, and thoughts on literature, philosophy, history, aesthetics, politics, and anything else that catches my attention. Some (if not most) posts will bore all but a few; I hope that a good many will seize on something within you.
I sense that I should begin this journey with a somewhat tasteless (at least, unfashionable) move--by explaining why I'm bothering with a blog at all. I say unfashionable only because I have a general sense writers and artists no longer explain their actions in terms of definite motives or established purposes. I rarely act on a whim: whether that puts me on a rock in the stream, or at the crest of the wave, I leave for you to decide. IfJesus could tell a parable to explain the reason for his parables (Matt. 13, "the sower"), and if Socrates could give his Apology, then I can spend a few bytes on my own purposes.
The most superficial reason for writing, I stated above--to enlighten the interested few as to my comings and goings. However, I have deeper reasons, which bear mentioning only so that you (the reader) will know what you're getting into. Very often, vanity is why I write (I am indebted for this insight to George Orwell's clever essay, "Why I Write"). Writing involves the public mastery of difficult ideas and unruly language--in terms of showiness, this blog is little different than a juggler's act.
Even when vanity has lain down to rest, another motive squeezes words out of my thoughts onto paper (or 0's and 1's): the itch. Plato would have called it eros, the longing for completion, for fulfillment. I am ceaselessly questioning things around me, sounding the depths of every thought, making connections among seemingly unrelated ideas--I could as well decide not to breathe as keep all of that bottled within me. For those of you who surf, it's that urgent whisper to go faster, to drop in deeper, to take the biggest wave of the set.
Well, as always, this has gone on longer than I expected (take that as a given for every post, I guess). I'll close with a couple interesting stories from the last couple weeks.
The missional community (I shamelessly steal, and misapply, the clever names that Jon and Co. think up for Origins elements) that we are forming has begun to come together. We are a ragtag bunch: many of us were strangers a couple weeks ago, and many more have spent eight months scattered across the country. It will be wonderful to grow in intimacy, as we seek to cultivate the values of truly authentic community in our midst (more on how that looks, and why we should bother, later).
Work is going well--I haven't made it to a roof, yet, but I had a good time last week hanging out with McKee's resident handyman, George, helping him to remodel the Von Herbulis' (who own the company, and are some of my oldest friends) beach house. By the end of the week, I felt like Maverick's butler--I knew something was seriously wrong when George asked me to put their garbage out by the side of the road. I enjoyed painting and pressure washing, but I'll be thankful not to mix business and pleasure this week.
That should do for now--look out tomorrow for (I think) a discussion of Leviticus. Cultic laws, covenant, and narrative theology--it doesn't get any better.
Christ is risen!
I sense that I should begin this journey with a somewhat tasteless (at least, unfashionable) move--by explaining why I'm bothering with a blog at all. I say unfashionable only because I have a general sense writers and artists no longer explain their actions in terms of definite motives or established purposes. I rarely act on a whim: whether that puts me on a rock in the stream, or at the crest of the wave, I leave for you to decide. IfJesus could tell a parable to explain the reason for his parables (Matt. 13, "the sower"), and if Socrates could give his Apology, then I can spend a few bytes on my own purposes.
The most superficial reason for writing, I stated above--to enlighten the interested few as to my comings and goings. However, I have deeper reasons, which bear mentioning only so that you (the reader) will know what you're getting into. Very often, vanity is why I write (I am indebted for this insight to George Orwell's clever essay, "Why I Write"). Writing involves the public mastery of difficult ideas and unruly language--in terms of showiness, this blog is little different than a juggler's act.
Even when vanity has lain down to rest, another motive squeezes words out of my thoughts onto paper (or 0's and 1's): the itch. Plato would have called it eros, the longing for completion, for fulfillment. I am ceaselessly questioning things around me, sounding the depths of every thought, making connections among seemingly unrelated ideas--I could as well decide not to breathe as keep all of that bottled within me. For those of you who surf, it's that urgent whisper to go faster, to drop in deeper, to take the biggest wave of the set.
Well, as always, this has gone on longer than I expected (take that as a given for every post, I guess). I'll close with a couple interesting stories from the last couple weeks.
The missional community (I shamelessly steal, and misapply, the clever names that Jon and Co. think up for Origins elements) that we are forming has begun to come together. We are a ragtag bunch: many of us were strangers a couple weeks ago, and many more have spent eight months scattered across the country. It will be wonderful to grow in intimacy, as we seek to cultivate the values of truly authentic community in our midst (more on how that looks, and why we should bother, later).
Work is going well--I haven't made it to a roof, yet, but I had a good time last week hanging out with McKee's resident handyman, George, helping him to remodel the Von Herbulis' (who own the company, and are some of my oldest friends) beach house. By the end of the week, I felt like Maverick's butler--I knew something was seriously wrong when George asked me to put their garbage out by the side of the road. I enjoyed painting and pressure washing, but I'll be thankful not to mix business and pleasure this week.
That should do for now--look out tomorrow for (I think) a discussion of Leviticus. Cultic laws, covenant, and narrative theology--it doesn't get any better.
Christ is risen!
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