Eternal Verity, Faithful and True

It does not seem possible that it is already time to write another newsletter, though I’m looking forward to a few days off to rest and recoup, Spring break beginning tomorrow. In any event, in the last issue, we spent some time talking about layers of truth, stimulating some lively discourse on the discussion forum (as well as via e-mail). If you have not already done so, you might wish to check out the two threads that resulted: the eponymous Degrees of Knowledge and also Truth & Dreams, which should be of interest to those whose curiosity was piqued with our brief aside on dreams and their interpretation. One thing that came to my attention through this interaction was a possible conflation of meanings when we speak about truth. It occurred to me that we would do well to strive for precision, solidly nailing down the three primary meanings of the word “truth.”

To ensure that we’re all on the same page, there are some formal definitions we ought to clear away first. A brief excursion to the dictionary reminds us that epistemology relates to the “theory of knowledge: the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, in particular its foundations, scope, and validity.” It is formed from the Greek word epistēmē, which means “knowledge,” from the Greek word epistasthai which translates “to know,” and literally means “to stand over,” which itself derives from another Greek word histasthai, “to stand.” (Do you suppose a similar conception is built into our English word “understanding”?) Put simply, epistemology is concerned with the question: “What is truth? How do we know that something is true?” We could, of course, take a much deeper look into the scope of epistemology and all the subcategories subsumed under this general heading, but for our purposes today, we need only understand that epistemology concerns itself with inquiry into the nature of truth and knowledge. Not surprisingly, the last issue of Le Penseur Réfléchit could easily be filed under an epistemological heading, for as the title suggests, we looked at Degrees of Knowledge and Layers of Truth.

With this said, on a recent discussion forum post, I made an attempt to distinguish between two different meanings of the word “truth,” employing an illustration in which there were two separate folding tables sitting side by side, the word TRUTH engraved on the first table and the words OUR UNDERSTANDING engraved on the second. My point was to clearly separate out the two concepts of truth by using an illustration that the imagination could visualize. By picturing any two objects—in this case, two folding tables—side by side, we would be clear that we were talking about two different meanings given to the same word “truth.” On the one hand, we have “that which can be known,” represented by the TRUTH table. But the thing that is knowable, TRUTH, is separate from the knowledge of the knower, the OUR UNDERSTANDING table. To the degree that the knower has an accurate perception of reality—to the degree that the knower truly knows—is the degree to which the knower can be said to have truth. Thus, the use of the word “truth” in the first instance refers to “that which is knowable,” the second use of the word “truth” concerns the (accurate) knowledge of the knower. This second usage is really a kind of shorthand, for what we really mean is that the knower can be said to have knowledge of the truth, we just normally leave the “knowledge of the” part out. If you didn’t before, do you see now why epistemology, which concerns itself with truth, is called a “theory of knowledge”? In order to possess truth, one must have knowledge (of the truth), whether that knowledge be intuited, reasoned out, Divinely revealed, or otherwise discerned. We turn now to the discussion forum:

But since we are making these distinctions about the various meanings of the word “truth,” let’s go ahead and use their technical terms and uncover a third division of truth while we’re at it. The TRUTH table refers, as we learned, to that which it is possible to know; it refers to that which can be known. If I hold an apple in the palm of my hand, it is something that we can study and come to know things about. Is it a red apple, a green one, neither? Assuming that our eyes suffer no defects that would prohibit us from being able to detect color, we can say that it is either red or green or neither (perhaps it happens to be a golden apple instead). The apple, then, refers to ontological truth. Looking at our trusty dictionary again, we see that ontology refers to the “study of existence: the most general branch of metaphysics, concerned with the nature of being.” And of course, we recently learned that in philosophy, metaphysics is not here used to describe strange spiritual doctrines but is rather the “philosophy of being: the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of the nature of being and beings, existence, time and space, and causality.” So, if we put these ideas together, we see that the apple is the thing itself, it is self-contained, it is what it is, it has existence. Thus, the existence of the apple is a cold, hard fact: it is the TRUTH table in our illustration, and it is formally called ontological truth. So that is the first category of truth: it is the truth of the thing itself: the truth of that which can, at least in theory, be known.

When we start looking at the apple more carefully (and we are again assuming that our eyes are working properly), we can tell whether it is a red apple, a green apple, or a golden apple. If we are well studied in apples, we can know whether it is a Jonathan, a Granny Smith, or some other kind of apple. We can think to ourselves, if we wish to be facetious, that it is larger than the average Adam’s apple, but considerably smaller than the Big Apple. Thus, when we come into an accurate knowledge of this apple, we are now said to have logical truth from the Greek logos which means, among other things, “word,” and what are words if not containers for meaning? Thus logical truth does not refer to truth obtained exclusively by logic (though reasoning is a valid method of acquiring it); it refers to an accurate knowledge of that which is knowable. So then, logical truth is the OUR UNDERSTANDING table, the only pair of eyeballs from which we have ever peered out into our world. The knowledge of the apple is also called “truth,” just as the apple itself is called “truth.” But the apple is the thing itself; the knowledge is the accurate assessment of the thing itself. Thus, we can have logical truth about ontological truth; we can have knowledge about that which can be known. But we mentioned a third kind of truth. If there is the thing known and the knowledge of that thing, what other possible divisions could there be when we use that seemingly simple and innocent little five-letter word “truth”?

Thus far, in the case of our apple, the truth has not left my hand or your head. We have talked about an apple in my hand and we have talked about your accurate knowledge of that apple. But we have not talked about your communicating to me or another person this knowledge of that apple. When you speak or when you write, to the degree that you have knowledge—logical truth—and to the degree which you accurately communicate that knowledge, you are said to have moral truth. Of course, this is a somewhat specialized use of the term moral truth, for we generally mean something from the realm of ethics—rightness and wrongness—when we speak of moral truth. But it is not actually as far off from that meaning as what we might first think. If I have an accurate knowledge of something, I am said to have verity of knowledge. If I express that knowledge to another person, I am said to have veracity of speech. This term veracity also has much to do with the truthfulness of a person and in a Scriptural sense is tied to the idea that out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Thus, when one walks in the full light of truth, one’s very words match this inner reality and the result is an outward reality working in concert with the inner one—indeed, there is no real division between the two. This results in a truly moral life: harmonious, not hypocritical. Further, truly moral lives are not lived in a vacuum, and as the German playwright Bertolt Brecht reminds us, “[T]he smallest social unit is not the single person but two people. In life too we develop one another,” or as the Proverbs suggest, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Brecht on Theatre 197; Proverbs 27:17). This observation raises a new question: “Can morality exist alone?” For even within the individual heart, two are still present: the creature and its God.

Perhaps we are beginning to gain a new understanding of why accurately communicating logical truth—truth known to the knower—would be termed moral truth. In distinctively theological terms, all truth comes from God. Thus, He is the essence and the source of ontological truth. To the degree that we know God and have an accurate understanding of His creation, we can be said to have logical truth. This knowing, of course, is not solely restricted to intellectual knowing, as the term logical might tend to confuse us into believing, for we said earlier that “[i]n order to possess truth, one must have knowledge (of the truth), whether that knowledge be intuited, reasoned out, Divinely revealed, or otherwise discerned.” We may in turn communicate this accurate knowledge as the moral truth of God. Like logical truth, this moral truth extends far beyond our merely verbal pronouncements into virtually every other aspect of our communication as well—“actions,” as we have all learned, “speak louder than words.” At its epitome, moral truth is the fullest communication of the commandment to love the Lord our God with all our body, heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves: the communication and expression of the one flows quite naturally into the communication and expression of the other. Thus, we see the various layers of truth converging on multiple levels; ontological truth (God Himself) becomes so effectively emblazoned into our very being that logical truth (intimate knowledge of God) naturally issues forth as moral truth (communication of the intimacy of God back to God and to our fellow man) so that we are in complete harmony with ourselves—no hypocrisy. Recall that in Degrees of Knowledge and Layers of Truth, Chip Brogden writes that: “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” (The Prophetic Savant—emphasis in original). In sum, we become new creations, not merely nicer people.

So then, when we lay out side by side by side ontological truth, logical truth, and moral truth we see that there really is no separation (for if there is a breakdown, it is not found in the presence of truth but rather in its absence); we see that these layers all harmonize one with another and form together into the singularity of the whole. We have taken these different layers apart so that we might better understand them, but they belong together and in the end, when we speak of “truth,” we speak of all three without contradiction or apology: three strands of a cord are not easily broken. Of course, when it comes to communion with God, these distinctions are even further overlapping, for how does God reveal His truth? Since we are talking about a Personality and not merely an Object, when God communicates His truth to man, it is a form of moral truth: the communication of truth, whether through His actions (creation) or through His revelation. In other words, it is not so much a case of us discovering God, but rather of Him revealing Himself to us. If He were our own discovery alone—if it were solely up to us to discover Him in the same way one might a rock or a twig—it would happen on the level of logical truth. But since He communicates to us even as we reach out to Him, it happens on all three levels of truth at once for truth is not three but One: Truth is Three-in-One. In God we find all the various kinds of truth: ontological truth in that He is who He is; logical truth in that He knows Himself utterly, and moral truth in that He reveals Who He is to man in all that He does, whether by the splendor of His creation or by the special revelation of Mind to mind, Deep to deep. So now that we know what is, what about what is not? It is interesting to note that while truth can be divided up into three parts, falsehood can only occur on two levels. As The Radical Academy reminds us:

Carrying this back over into the realm of theology, all that God created was good. The only capacity for evil was found not in the material realm, but in the realm of sentient choice. Thus, a thing is simply what it is. But a sentient creature has the capacity to lead a lie, denying the truth of God and living in an illusion. He cannot change the ontological truth of his own existence (not even by suicide), much less the ontological truth of God’s existence, but he can live in denial of the truth.

All that God created—all ontological reality—was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But of course that does not mean that God thought that everything that resulted afterward by the choices of sentient creatures was “very good,” just that His material creation and its potential for goodness was “very good.” Thus, ontological truth (and logical and moral truth when they accurately correspond to ontological truth) is very good, but evil is not very good. (And of course, if logical and moral truth do not correspond to ontological truth, they are not truth at all but rather logical and moral falsity: a misrepresentation of ontological truth.) When evil breaks down that which is good, the breakdown does not occur on the level of ontological truth—for that is the very level being denied in the first place—but on the logical and moral levels where misrepresentation is possible. In our attempt to deny ontological truth, we might very well alter ontological reality so badly that it is no longer recognizable like mutilating someone’s face with a razor blade. But to even mutilate the face in the first place, it requires a face to mutilate. We can defy and deny ontological truth, but the face we mutilated is still a face that has been mutilated and nothing will change this ontological truth no matter how many layers of logical and moral falsity we pile on top of it. Is not it interesting that falsehood can only exist in (mis)representations and not in reality; that it can only exist in mind and not matter?

What of the question “Does not even the foundation of evil rest on goodness; does it not require the hand that gently feeds it in order to be able to bite that hand? Would it not die if that hand were removed?” We then looked at the nature of truth which can stand on its own two legs and the nature of the lie, which to be effective must disguise itself, parading around as if it were the truth. A lie falls apart when it is not believed, but truth stands whether anyone believes it or not. A lie cannot stand apart on its own two legs, but rather requires the mind of the deceived to be incubated and kept alive; it cannot exist in the realm of ontological reality on its own two feet, for it is not a “thing” at all, but rather the denial or perversion of a thing. Thus, in this example alone, we see that a lie is a parasite of truth, relying on the hand that feeds it in order to have strength enough to bite that hand. The same is true of all forms of evil; not one of them can stand on their own without piggybacking or impersonating goodness in some way. Why? Because what is, is. There is no ontological falsity. But there are misrepresentations of ontological truth, in the form of logical and moral falsity. The choice is always between acknowledging or living in denial of ontological truth; the choice is between living in reality or leading a lie. If a man lives in this kind of denial, he becomes fragmented and cut off from himself, for he must rely on ontological truth in order to deny ontological truth. He can only choose to accept or deny that which is. Since his life is itself a lived contradiction (living in ontological reality all the while he denies it), we cannot expect that moral truth will be fully reflected in his speech or his actions.

In a previous semester, we were reading Milton’s great epic poem Paradise Lost and the comment was raised by several in the class that Milton’s Adam and Eve at times seemed more like modern men and women who had already fallen than creatures of utmost purity and innocence. The discussion wound around to the realization that life comes in pairs of opposites, such as the child in our example above and the wicked man. Freedom of choice necessitates the ability to choose between one of two categories: (a) the choice between two or more things, or, (b) if only one thing is involved, the ability to accept it or reject it. Whatever the case, true choices consist of two or more options: to be or not to be, as was the case with Hamlet as he contemplated suicide with pardonable eloquence.

Now then, if Adam and Eve were given a choice, what was it? Was it between good and evil? If so, did God create evil? We have already examined this question in some depth in That Which Is and the Negation of Nature. Our conclusion was that indeed, all things do come from God but that evil is not a “thing” per se. Evil only occurs from the choices of sentient beings, and choices, as we have just noted, imply that there must be two or more options from which to choose. If evil is not a thing, then, but rather a result of free will making wrong choices—if God did not create it—then what was the choice that was presented to Adam and Eve? It surely wasn’t between good and evil, at least in terms of both good and particularly evil being self-existing realities. Rather, the choice fell into our second category. There were only two things that existed: (1) God and (2) creation. Adam and Eve were part of creation which leaves only God: nothing else exists besides Him and His creation. Therefore, if God, the sole thing that exists (“thing” 1) aside from His creation (“thing” 2) is to give his creation (“thing” 2) a choice, that choice must be between himself (“thing” 1) or nothing (no thing). In other words, the only choice presented was to obey or disobey God, to accept or reject him. Sin is an attitude of the heart [logical falsity] manifested by outward actions [moral falsity]: the actions themselves are merely the outward workings of the inner condition.

Thus, we see many far-ranging repercussions from the fact that there is no such thing as ontological falsity. (Even false teeth are false teeth, false whiskers, false whiskers.) There can be logical falsity where something like false whiskers or false teeth is mistaken for the real thing, there can be a denial of the truth, but there can be no actual ontological falsity. There can also be moral falsity, for we can either purposely mislead or mistakenly misrepresent logical (and by necessary extension ontological) truth, but there cannot be any ontological falsity. So then, we can see all the much more the connections with the last issue Degrees of Knowledge and Layers of Truth:

Archive note: See also the discussion forum thread regarding this newsletter.

What we have effectively done in this issue of Le Penseur Réfléchit, then, is to pick up Degrees of Knowledge and Layers of Truth where we left off, taking the idea of the various layers of truth a level deeper and examining the nature of falsity, its fragmentation, and its inevitable demise, for it works against itself even as it attempts to bring truth to its knees. In the end, about all you can say is that we often live in denial because we are living in denial: if we had the truth, we would know that denial is not what we want, not what will make us happy. But fortunately for us, the source of all ontological truth is not deluded and He has long been calling our name. Putting our hope and faith in Him is not turning our back on reason, but simply acknowledging the propensity for error that exists in all of our lives. The more error that exists, the less we will see the truth that we so desperately need to see to be free. But the One who is not deluded can lead us into all knowledge and truth if we will but place our hand in His. We will never, ever be happy until we learn to live and embrace the truth. But when we do, perhaps for the first time ever, our lives will be rich with meaning and purpose. Like stubborn oxen, we can kick against the pricks all day long, but whose flesh do we tear open with each rebellious kick if not our own? How much better to simply take His yoke upon us, for His yoke is easy, His burden light, and His name Faithful and True.

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’”

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