Truth

?Introduction

Well, that was a couple of looong readings! But it’s appropriate on Good Friday that we get the whole story, and we pretty much have. I probably have less time than those readings took, so I can just concentrate on one small aspect of them. As you listened to them, I wonder what stood out for you? Perhaps take some time over the holiday weekend to look deeper at that. For me, it was Pilate's question “What is truth?”, so I'm going to offer some thoughts on that this morning.

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“What is truth?”

So, “what is truth?”. Let’s start with the simple truths first and work towards the more complicated ones.

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Tell the truth

When we say to very young children “just tell the truth”, we are usually asking them to give an account of their actions that will incriminate them. Children will often say what they believe the parent or adult wants to hear. “I was a good girl, I didn’t eat the cake.” the little girl said to the researcher, but the icing around her mouth told another story altogether. Each child had been left alone in a room and told not to touch the cakes and sweets. Some found temptation impossible to resist, most of those that succumbed told some sort of lie.

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Adults too

This is simply asking someone to relay an accurate, complete and pure record of some events that have taken place. We ask adults in court to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. But who takes any notice of that declaration any more! Or do I just watch too much crime drama?

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In the reading

We find this type of evidential truth in our reading, when John writes in 19:35 “The man who saw it (the sudden flow of blood and water) has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”

John’s telling of his truth has a purpose – ‘so you may believe’, just as this type of truth told in a court has a purpose – to get justice for someone.

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Simple Truths

These are simple truths, if we want to get to more wider truths, we will have to look elsewhere.

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Science

Perhaps science has the answer, after all describing the world we live in ought to be pretty straight forward, didn’t it?

Well, it turns out that this is not the case. Scientists have a concept known as ‘lies to children’ to explain science to either children or non-scientists to give them just enough to gain an understanding and encourage them to look deeper.

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Electricity

Let me give you an example. You can think of an electric current like water flowing through a pipe. The idea works well enough to explain volts and amps at a basic level, but when you begin to look at what’s happening to the electrons in the wire, the story is completely different – an electric current is not like water in a pipe at all.

Professor Kathy Sykes, of the University of Bristol said '...science is not about truth, but is about trying to get closer to the truth. This is important because, too often, people look to scientists as having the "truth". What we have is wrapped in uncertainties, caveats, and simplifications.'

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Other types of truth

So, science doesn’t really help us to get to the indisputable facts that easily. Perhaps we should be wary of bringing science into the discussion at all, there is no evidence that Pilate was specially interested in the natural world. Anyway, there are other truths that we need to think about.

?Definition

One definition of truth, with a capital T, is an “ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience”. This is getting closer to what Pilate was asking, I suspect.

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Psychology Today

The Psychology Today website tells us: “Truth is a property not so much of thoughts and ideas but more properly of beliefs and assertions. But to believe or assert something is not enough to make it true, or else the claim that ‘to believe something makes it true’ would be just as true as the claim that ‘to believe something does not make it true.’”

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Answering Pilates question

This begins to bring us closer to providing an answer for Pilate, because his question is in response to Jesus’ claims to be a king, but in a kingdom not of this world. Here’s what Jesus said, from 18:37

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”