Truth. Seems like a simple enough word. When we look at it written down it is a short five letter construction that has no appearance of menace, no hint of the conflagration of debate it has the ability to set off. Yet, it is perhaps one of the most important words of our post-modern era.
I am deeply fascinated by truth. I think about it often, especially in the early morning hours when my inability to sleep has me pondering questions such as “Is it possible to formulate a singular and accurate description of reality?” I know that most people reading this may have just groaned or mocked me, but such questions occupy my head, and to be honest I enjoy them. The question of absolute truth is one that I come to again and again, and I believe it is an important one. Particularly for Christians this question is not one that can be taken lightly. Jesus does not allow us a laissez-faire option. He routinely made claims and promises that demand acceptance or rejection.
My goal in this foray of writing is not to get lost in a discussion about post-modernism, but it must be given at least an honourable mention. This slippery eel of a worldview has some very strong perspectives on our little word, truth. In its quest for tolerance it suggests that all truths hold validity in that they are truth to those who believe them. At the same time post-modernism, as I understand it, would also suggest that truth itself is a suspicious character that has emerged as a result of human construction, a social construct that is used to explain the mysterious world we find ourselves wandering about in. Without getting into a debate about tolerance vs. acceptance, let us consider the latter perspective for a moment.
As Christians we hold some very distinct beliefs about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These beliefs we hold to be bedrock truth, that is to say we consider them to be one hundred percent accurate descriptions of reality. For example: the Father spoke and the earth and the cosmos came into existence; Jesus Christ was born of a virgin; Jesus Christ died on the cross, and Jesus Christ rose from the dead; at Pentecost Holy Spirit was poured out and the very presence of God began to indwell men and women. Post-modernism’s suggestion that these, and the rest of the Christian belief system, are the results of social construction presents an alarming challenge to our faith. We come to the short yet complex question: Is the story of Jesus resultant of millennia of active social construction taking place over generations and across cultures or is it the truth? Our answer to that question is vital, for either we believe in what is a reality or we are living our lives according to an illusion.
I am not comfortable with the assertion that my friend and king Jesus is not truly alive and that he is, rather a mythical social construct that I am deluded in believing in. How much bolder can I make that statement? Either Jesus Christ is the son of God in truth (in the strongest possible sense of that little word) or he is not real. Post-modernism can keep its explanation of truth to itself: I want what is real, not something constructed that in the end is only illusory.
Of
course I believe in the truth of the Gospel, of the Word of God in its
entirety. This belief has grown over
time, with age and experience. I have
met the carpenter from Galilee and am fully convinced of his reality.
I’ve already written more about post-modernism than I wanted to, so I will leave it behind for now. What I really want to get at is the importance of knowing and believing the absolute truth(s) about who God is.
Lately, I have found myself becoming increasingly fascinated by God. Who is this guy? What is he like? I mean: What is he really like? We all grow up developing our own perceptions and opinions about him based on many varying sources. Our parents, our experiences, what life throws at us, what we’ve been taught, and what we’ve observed in others etc… All these influences weave together a paradigm, a lens through which we peer at this mysterious character who sits on the throne of heaven, and we relate to him according to our particular lens. The problem is that our views of him are not necessarily accurate, and when that happens we will, and do, misinterpret his words, his actions, and his motives. There must come a time in the believer’s walk with Jesus when they turn their attention to the paradigm problem and simply ask: What is the truth about who you are Father? Then seek out the answer that He gives, accepting it on his terms and as the truth about himself.
We are not without the resources we need to answer this question. God’s word reveals the truth about him. It tells us who our creator is, and what he is like. Jesus tells us that if we want to see the Father, to know what God is like, we need look no further than Jesus himself. Our friend and counsellor, Holy Spirit indwells us with the very presence of the Father and the Son, revealing to us who God is and what he is like. To quote the X-Files: The truth is out there, or rather it is out there and within us as well.
Now if you have read this far, you might have already asked the question: So what? This is old hat! Of course we need to know the truth about who God is, and who we are in Christ. Isn’t this part of Christianity 101? Well, yes and no. The problem is that we may know much of the truths about who our belief system says God is, but our paradigms are in such disrepair that we do not allow those truths to live and breathe as we relate to God. There is a prophetic aroma on the wind that is hinting at the importance of not only knowing the truth, but believing and living according to it as well. The paradigm problem needs to be faced. We need to allow God to begin reweaving and healing our paradigm lenses so that we begin to see him clearly, to hear his voice with clarity and understanding. Part of that healing is to say, despite a post-modern culture, there are absolute eternal truths about the character of God that will never change. He lives and he is consistent in who he is.
Let me end with a story of sorts. Recently, I have been walking through a season of life that has been extremely difficult for me on a personal level. I am not ashamed to say that it has been quite dark, frustrating, and a hard struggle. As I write this I am still in the midst of this season, and quite frankly I cannot see the end of it happening any time soon. There are two options that have lain before me from the outset of this season in my life. The first is of course to surrender completely to hopelessness, anger, depression, and whatever other negative words you want to add. The second, the more unlikely, is to be asking my heavenly Father just what the heck is going on? What good is this season? But, this, somehow, is what I have managed to do. And the answer has come back in a powerful way, not only an answer, but a transformation with it. I still feel somewhat confused by where I have ended up. Out of this dark and challenging time in my life I have inexorably come to the conclusion that God is Faithful. This conviction is so strong within my mind and spirit that those three words fill me with…well a feeling that is difficult to describe. I want to shout it from the roof tops, declare it wherever I am given a voice. Hear and know this truth: God Is Faithful. His faithfulness cannot and will not ever fail. In a recent sermon at my church I made the following statement without really thinking about what I was saying: “God is faithful! If a meteor should come crashing through this ceiling and crush me dead up here on this stage…God is still faithful!”
Afterwards I thought about that. Sounds a little nutty, but you know what? I can genuinely say to you that I believe that statement. It may be extreme, but for me the truth of God’s faithfulness really does go that far.
This is but one example of discovering on a far deeper level the truth about who God is and the difference that discovery makes in our lives. I now know that no matter how long the difficult season that I am in lasts, I will be able to endure and come out of it as an over comer, because I know that my Father in heaven is truly faithful.
The truth is important. Knowing the truth about our God and believing it is what allows us to answer the call of Jesus on our lives. We are meant to be the people of his kingdom. That should make us different; it should mark us as being strange in the eyes of the world. The world should look at us and be bothered because we believe in the truth of who God is and live according to that truth, no matter what happens. We know that he does not change. This is so important in a culture that is struggling to believe that there could possibly even be such a thing as real truth.
I’ll leave you with the words of a far wiser man than me. French theologian and writer Jacques Elul writes in his book The Presence of the Kingdom:
“To be the salt of the earth is a precise reference to Leviticus 2:13, where we are told that salt is the sign of the covenant between God and Israel.
Thus, in the sight of men and in the reality of this world, the Christian is a visible sign of the new covenant which God has made with this world in Jesus Christ. But it is essential that the Christian should really be this sign, that is to say, that in his life and his words he should allow this covenant to be manifest in the eyes of men.”
Part of being a sign in our world is to be those who stand up and declare the absolute truths about who our heavenly Father is and what he is really like.
Brad,
I think I took the either/or stance because I am trying to express in no uncertain terms that God's character is firmly rooted in reality. To put it simply: God is real, and he is who he is. The term 'social construction' to me suggests that humanity has attributed certain characteristics to God independent of truth and reality. Certainly God's character has come to be known through revelation over time and across cultures, but I think that the fact that he has revealed who he is to humanity is what is key.
I don't think you are describing post-modernity as it would describe itself. Instead I hear you saying that humans have been an integral ingredient in the process of the revelation of God's character. A process that reveals how much he loves to interact with us and involve us in everything he does. We owe much to those who have encountered him and left us a record of what he is like (as was His intent). We have not pieced together (constructed) idealized characteristics of what we as humans would want a Divine Being to be like, but rather he has, because he is gracious, revealed the truth about who he really is.
ehj
Posted by: ehj | July 11, 2006 at 08:18 PM
Thanks for this contribution, Eric.
One thing I look for when someone critiques postmodern thought is whether they give hints of whether they've returned to some of the brilliance of the pre-moderns like Donne, or if they are merely clinging to modernism, which has so miserably failed us.
Knowing that you are a poet and an anabaptist of the original type with a strong theology of the kingdom, I was a little surprised that you leaned so heavily on either/or at times. You triggered a question for me: is not salvation history, and indeed, the incarnation itself, a both/and of truth and social construction.
I.e. truth may be "absolute" somewhere in eternity in a kind of Logos, capital W-Word sort of way. But then the process of manifesting that Word as flesh involved quite a process that certainly involved social construction... not that the truth was socially constructed, but that our understanding of it developed in very definite contexts and cultures.
Our revelation of God as trinity did not get faxed from heaven (see, there was a grain of truth in the DaVinci Code!). Nor was it articulated as a non-negotiable creed during the time of Christ. This is not to say that it wasn't true, but that the theology of the truth was developed over centuries by people who thought and fought through very human filters, not plopped on us suddenly and finally.
So what I'm describing is a version of postmodernity that wants it's cake and eats it too. Absolute truth exists, but it is known (even by revelation) incarnationally (growing just as the man Jesus grew in stature and self-awareness)... a process that I don't think is unfair to call a social construction. So the revelation, not the truth itself, is discovered and developed and it is constructed (out of the truth) rather than created (out of our own ideas).
I'm still working through this, so thanks for triggering these thoughts.
bj
Posted by: Brad Jersak | July 11, 2006 at 08:45 AM