What is truth?

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.