Degrees of Knowledge and Layers of Truth

Well, spring is fast approaching (at least on this side of the equator) and it does me good to see the sunshine and hear the birds singing again from the treetops. It seems that much like the coming to life of the sleepy winter world without, the awakening world within has experienced an influx of fresh ideas and old, familiar ones dusted off again. This flowing together nicely of that which is old with that which is new has included, among other things, the reemergence of Dr. Jerram Barr’s 10-part video series Building Up Bridges, Tearing Down Walls. When we watched it the first time, it confirmed many things I had intuitively understood about the nature of Christianity and how it speaks to the world; as we watch it now, I see how these ideas not only work on the surface level upon which they are presented, but also have a deeper transformative element to them. We have often spoken about how truth has many different layers and how each level speaks to all other levels: that if an idea is true on one level, it will simultaneously be true on many other levels as well. And the knowledge of the truth will set us free because the truth frees us to be authentic in the truest sense of the term. That is the nature of truth. It has singularity; it is falsehood that gradates further and further away from the truth. Along these lines, The Radical Academy reasons:

Yes, there are many layers of truth, but not many degrees of truth. The use of the terms “layers” versus “degrees” may sound like splitting hairs, but it is not the terms we are interested in so much as the concepts to which they point. If we were to put it another way, truth is singular and never self-contradictory; all truth harmonizes with all other truth and in this way forms the layers of which we speak. Along these very lines, we listened in on a conversation between my pagan friend Jonathan and myself once before written while I was still employed at the factory.

Each of these layers represent truth, and each, if you like, stack on top of the others, just as in order to have three dimensions, you must first have two dimensions, and to have two dimensions you must also have one dimension: in order to learn to spell you must first know your ABCs. There is nothing contradictory at all about each of these layers; each coexist in perfect harmony, for truth never contradicts itself. Each of these layers are of a singular nature cascading down from the Single Source that unifies them all and that meets them at both ends, the Alpha and Omega, the Ancient of Days and the seed reaching fruition nine months later in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Yes, there are different layers of truth, but truth does not itself contain degrees of truth. The degrees, as we learn above, are degrees in the relative purity of the mixture between truth and falsity: when the mixture is expunged of the remaining falsehood it is no longer a “degree” at all—an “approximation of”—for it has arrived at the thing itself. So then, degrees of truth speak to the relative purity of truth in the midst of possible error, but layers are descriptive of the relative complexity of truth—perfect unity and cohesion from the microcosmic to the Infinite.

Those who seek after truth generally know it, whether it proceeds out of the mouth of the Adolf Hitlers of the world or much more respectable personae, for truth stands upon its own two feet no matter who might be speaking it or how infrequently they do so. Not long ago there was someone who had said something to me that did not entirely persuade me, yet I felt the idea nonetheless had some degree (notice the term) of merit. Later turning around in my mind what he said, I first told myself, “Consider the source,” for he is a younger man who does not always speak with wisdom. “Consider the source,” yet I quickly added as further self-admonishment, “but consider the message as well.” So then, if we wish to seek the truth, the message and the messenger are both to be evaluated, and when one does so as realistically as possible, one can often sort fact from fiction with ever increasing accuracy. If we know the relative strengths and weaknesses of the speaker, we will not as likely be taken in by the well-intentioned but not always careful friend or automatically disregard the often malevolent but sometimes poignant enemy. Truth—and error—can proceed out of the mouths of either: if we know the source and know it well—both its strengths and its weaknesses—then when we turn our attention to the actual message, we can so much the better evaluate it. Yet even if we know next to nothing about the messenger, we can always ask, “Is this true?” or “To what degree is this true?” if it seems to have something more to it but can’t quite be swallowed whole. So then, we should consider the source to be certain, but we should also consider the message as well.

In the video series by Jerram Barrs, there is no overt mention (that I recall) about any cascading layers of truth or of evaluating message and messenger alike. But what Barrs does do is patiently remove many layers of false guilt that are so often present within our Christian communities and in its place communicates a message of hope, healing, and restoration. And since what he suggests is plainly true and wise, it happens to harmonize nicely with what we’ve already examined, as truth is wont to do. If we were to put it in brief, Barr’s series embodies the sage admonitions of the Apostle in Colossians 4:5–6: “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of every opportunity. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.” We spoke about these verses and their application in Bible study this past Thursday night, noting that verse six ends by suggesting that if we are gracious and our speech is pleasant (like a well-seasoned meal tantalizing to the palate), we may “know how we ought to answer everyone.” In other words, the implication almost seems to be that if you make it a point to be gracious in your speech, you will learn a sort of wisdom in the process that will in turn inform all your other interactions. You see, knowing how to properly answer everyone is a hands-on sort of learning, which in a sense is the very substance that comprises wisdom, for wisdom brings knowledge and experience together to bear on the here and now.

There is an illustration that can be drawn from homeopathic medicine. Now certainly not everyone greets this medical approach with a friendly gaze, but personally I believe that we do well with a blend of East and West, in much the same spirit as I believe that each of the various traditions within Christendom has something to teach us about the composite Christian picture as a whole. In Western medicine, one attends the university to study medicine and is taught to proceed by employing the scientific method; that is, one is taught to proceed using empirical tests that function as much on the process of elimination as on the identification of positive symptoms. By contrast, Eastern medicine tends to be very personalized; it proceeds by tactile touch and by a system that might be deemed more intuitive by Western standards. Now we should quickly note that this does not mean that the Western doctor cannot develop the wisdom of tactile touch nor that the Eastern healer turns a deaf ear to all things Western. But what I wish to highlight comes from Eastern medicine, for it involves the literal “laying on of hands”—the tactile touch and the ability to train one’s body to be receptive to the needs of the body of another. In like manner, martial artists also learn by this mind-body wisdom: learning proceeds in pairs, the tori (who applys the technique) is paired with the uke (to whom the technique is applied) and then these roles are often reversed to learn the opposite half of the lesson. Or perhaps to cite a more familiar example to many (though not to yours truly who never cared to learn the art), it could be thought of like dancing lessons in which you learn to flow with your partner’s movements, your body responding and complementing their body and vice-versa. For that matter, we could even broaden our example to include the marital bed where the partners gradually, over time, learn more and more about each other’s bodies and how best to intimately satisfy and please the other. Each of these examples, then—Eastern medicine, the tori and uke, the dance partners, the marriage bed—suggest that there can be a sort of “mind-body wisdom” acquired in which one learns by doing, by repeated practice, by participation in something that could never be taught merely by textbook application alone: wisdom, not mere knowledge.

Now then, the verse in Colossians would seem to suggest that while learning the theological points of the Scriptures might be a wonderful thing, such things are best learned with a real-world blend where one learns by practice. If one practices speaking with gentleness and respect, in the process one learns a sort of wisdom that can only be gotten by practice. Thus, by practice, one learns how one ought to answer everyone. This process then is at the center of the Christian life: it is relational, practical (in the sense of proceeding by practice). It does not proceed by the letter of the law but by the living, breathing interaction of Christ living in us and through us as we daily interact with the world around us. Along these lines, a friend recently penned me a note inspired by Morning Mass:

She is exactly right, of course: when we show someone else through our actions that we forgive them fully and accept them freely, we have effectively become the very message we bear. It is precisely this idea that Chip Brogden conveys in the poignant though somewhat romanticized article The Prophetic Savant: “After many seasons of God’s dealings he [the prophetic savant] finally perceives that this is what the Lord has sought for all along, not just to GIVE him a Message, but to MAKE him a Message; to gain for Himself a Messenger and capture him completely, embossing the Message into his very being” (emphasis in original). This then, is the value that we find in Colossians 4:6: by practicing gracious speech, we acquire a wisdom that then becomes a very part of our being and when we live in this way, we are in complete agreement and full participation with the Spirit of Christ that resides within us. Thus, when one “considers the source,” one is also considering the message (and vice-versa), for message and messenger are one and the same. There is complete unity—no hypocrisy.

Turning our attention now a few verses earlier to Colossians 4:2–4, we encounter these words: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned: that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.” This passage immediately reminds us of one almost identical to it found in Ephesians 6:18–20: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

A friend and I fell into conversation on our way to dinner last week and he was describing to me how, for example, if he were alone and lost in St. Louis and came to a junction much like the one at which we were then poised, he would pray and ask God which way to turn. But, he went on, it would be much more conversational than that. It was important to him to communicate to me that this was not just any kind of prayer, but more like a running dialog that he had going on in his mind all the time between himself and God. He wanted to make clear that this happened all the time: that this was not what one might often think of as prayer, that rather this was little different than a conversation one might have with anyone, though of course a bit different in its own way, as his expectations of God are going to be a little grander than they might be with another mortal being. I had to smile at his earnestness and quickly assured him that not only did I fully understand, but that my own life operated along much the same lines. In fact, as I laughingly told the Bible study group later as I was recounting this tale, these sorts of running dialogs have become so much a part of my life that sometimes when I am in the act of sinning, I catch myself asking God to gratify my carnal desires before I even realize I’ve been praying! Talking to God becomes a habit.

In any case, my friend brought this topic up for other reasons, namely because he knew I have in years gone by spent some time in the study of dreams. My friend was troubled by the apparent lack of such communication he experienced in his dreams: there seemed to be no such running dialog there between himself and God. Having heard accounts that death will be much like passing into a dream state, it concerned him that he might be missing out on communion with his best friend, if we might use this wholly inadequate term to express the intimate and dependent relationship he shares with his Lord. We shan’t go into any extended discussion here about dreams—interested readers are directed to Psychologists Explore the Dream by Morton T. Kelsey; St. Augustine: Between Two Worlds, also compiled by Kelsey; and Concerning Dreams by Synesius of Cyrene (370? – 415? AD)—except to say in passing that dreams are primarily an emotional language; emotional honesty is the one area in which we have the hardest time being truthful even with ourselves, but dreams don’t care one whit for what we claim to believe; they are immune to our charades and subtle subterfuges; they keep right on pestering us until we’re healed. I am also convinced that they tend at times to pair previous experiences with current emotional states: if something in our past made us feel exactly as we have recently, it may well become part of the symbolism in our dream, representing that emotional state much more than its accompanying intellectual content. But now we have gotten Eric completely distracted and if we don’t reel him in soon, he may very well write a whole ’nother newsletter on the subject of dreams, something we would probably much rather he didn’t do, at least not here, not now.

Where were we? Oh, yes. My friend was telling me of the running dialog between himself and his Lord. And moments before that, we were talking about the Apostle’s admonition to “pray at all times in the Spirit,” or as some translations suggest, to “pray without ceasing.” By this time we had arrived at the restaurant and carried our conversation inside over sandwiches, side orders, and beverages of choice: he with some kind of dark soft drink and me with my coffee (though we both share the love of tea). I suggested to him that if someone were to ask him, “Do you pray often?” his immediate reply would probably be “No, not nearly often enough and rarely for the right reasons.” But you see, his running dialog with his Lord has become so routine and commonplace that he discounts it out of turn. Do you see why? It is because he has become the message the Apostle preaches; it is because he is becoming the message the Apostle preaches. Perhaps you have never considered how often you pray, but I would dare say that if we were to count all the running dialogs and fragments and whispered pleas between the dashings here and there, we would find we pray a good deal more often than we think we do. Now do we always pray as we think we ought? Well, probably not. But how is it that change takes place? Is it through our own self-effort, or rather does the sap flow only when the branch is connected to the Vine, the Vine in complete and utter control of this transfer at least insofar as the branch is receptive? No, the important thing is that we do pray; that we know we have a Father in heaven who we can trust and who hears our faintest cry and who will answer by and by. And if we thus stay in communion with Him, we might find, if our prayer life needs a tune-up, that a strange longing begins to well up in our hearts. You see, we don’t have to force it; we don’t have to endlessly critique ourselves. We just have to trust and to heed what we hear and repent when we don’t.

We spoke earlier about truth having many layers and about hands-on learning as a form of wisdom in which the messenger becomes the message. We said just moments ago that the Vine is the source of our growth and that we cannot force fruit from our own branches. Could there, might there possibly be, many different layers when we consider that wisdom also grows on the Vine? Proverbs 1:7 reminds us that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;” Psalm 111:10 closely follows by noting that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” We are told to “pray at all times in the Spirit”—“to pray without ceasing”; what is prayer if not a running dialog between ourselves and God in our innermost parts—our thought lives—that keeps us anchored to the very Vine from which all fruit derives? Granted, one can pray with folded hands and upturned face, one can pray sitting, standing, kneeling. But prayer is so much more than that: prayer is conversation. When my friend and I were engaged in dialog, I was respectful, but I did not have to close my eyes to shut out distractions, for I was focused on what he had to say and could hear him clearly. And, occasionally, when I was distracted or unable to hear, I merely asked him politely what he had said and he was happy to repeat himself. Do you suppose that when our Lord spoke often about us being as little children, He had something in mind along the lines of:

It would seem that there are indeed many layers to truth. And yet, the funny thing about truth is that what is true on one level will simultaneously be true on another as well—and vice-versa. In fact, we might even find sometimes that the simplest truths are the most profound of all.

“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.”

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