What is truth?

The question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus of Nazareth is still asked today (John 18:38). What is truth? Is it mere facts, supported by empirical data and accumulated observation? Is it based in law or reason? Can feelings also be a kind of truth? Is one’s personal experience simply a personal truth or is it the whole truth about a matter?

Truth cannot simply be a fabrication--a man-made construction based on convenience, preference, or delusion.

Is truth reality? Or is reality just a perception?

Jesus said you can know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8:32).

But how? Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus proclaims Himself as the one bringing the truth, being the truth, and speaking the truth. In fact, he told Pilate that he (Jesus) was born with the purpose of bringing truth to the world (John 18:37).

In His final words to His disciples, Jesus told them that He was the Truth (John 14:6), and that He would send the Spirit of Truth to guide them into all truth (John 16:13) when he left them bodily.

Believing such a claim requires some faith, but also some discretion. Not everyone crying “Lord, Lord” is truthful. The Scriptures themselves warn of false Christs.

Note this: Christ’s integrity was never in question as he underwent trial by his accusers. Before the high priests who initiated the arrest of Jesus, he reminded them that all of his teachings and actions were done publicly (John 18:20-22). No covert operations. No clandestine conspiracies. When he was struck in the face for his remark, he challenged them to reveal any evidence that what he had ever said had been wrong, had ever not been the truth (John 18:23). They could not. Not then. Not later. Not ever.

At first, followers failed. Peter denied Jesus that night. Judas betrayed him. All but John abandoned him at the cross. But never once was Jesus Christ found to be anything other than what He professed: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His resurrection removed any doubt from the disciples' minds: they all died a martyr's death for their belief in His truth.

So when I discuss “truth” with my students, what I am really often discussing is man’s various perceptions of truth or his levels of understanding and coping with his realities. These are debatable. Temporal. Earth-bound and situational. Cultural and frequently circumstantial.

Borrowing from the wisdom of Solomon, “Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart” (Proverbs 17:3), I believe much truth is discoverable by man over the process of time and testing, but that the ultimate revelation of truth cannot be attained apart from God who knows all and sees all.

Therefore, the pursuit of truth cannot be fully realized without spiritual knowledge. It is the secularized mind that is not fully enlightened.

Can I, flawed and limited, know truth? According to Christ’s own words, yes. But as the Apostle Paul wrote, right now we know only in part, although one day we will know everything completely, just as God knows now (I Cor. 13:12).