Truth

What is Truth? Epistemology?
Don’t worry Stephanie, I won’t make this blog quite as intense as the last one ;) Just for you.
Currently I am reading the book “To know as we are known, Education as a spiritual journey”. Thus far it has been a very reflective, insightful, contemplative book. Although sometimes it would seem that the author romanticizes about a lot of things, and is perhaps slightly idealistic in many of his notions but regardless I believe what he is saying to be true. And due to the fact that I am in my forth year, and hopefully graduating this year, this book has been helpful in looking over my past journey and realizing how my journey through my education has not only been a journey of knowledge about my surroundings (society and world) it has also been a journey of spirituality for me. INTENSE SPIRITUALITY. Too look back upon the person that I once was when I dawned the doors of Prov, to the person I am now as I am soon to be exiting the institution, I realize that the changes that have occurred within my own psyche are far beyond tangible means. I do not even know the weight of how much my world-view has changed, but I do know that it is significant and weighty, and that I will never be the same again.
As I am reading through this book, and reflecting on my own journey I stumbled upon chapter four (because we read in chronological order) to be bombarded with the title “What is Truth?”. I smiled to myself, this is becoming quite a familiar question to my being, and my surrounding world. As I stare at the empirical, and contemplate the things that are not empirical I realize this question has had serious impact on my life recently. My last semester consisted of all my meaning systems (aka my truth) being taken apart. This is utterly necessary (perhaps not for every human being, but it was for my journey), but I find myself still at a stage of not being able to answer this question. I have had various reactions to my meaning systems being taken apart, and will continue to have various reactions. When you have the very foundation that you rest your life one stripped from beneath you, it makes for some very uncomfortable times. A part of me wants to say simply that there is no truth, but us as humans form meaning systems out of the world around us in order to keep ourselves from falling into a state of anomie. This would be Karl Berger's the Sacred Canopy coming through (If anyone would like a good read, I would encourage this book to you). One of the things that we form is truth, or what we perceive as truth. Fascinating, the human ability to create is in fact us acting out the image of God in us, therefore this is a good thing. And maybe we don’t have everything right, but at least let us admit this!(TANGENT...sorry)

Is there such thing as absolute truth? This question doesn’t really resonate well with me, for some reason I think it misses a lot of what it means to be human. I do believe in truth, or at least I want to believe in truth. Out of all the meaning systems that people have formulated out of their surroundings, it would see the one that is the best to live out is that of love, that is the only way this world may become a better place in the midst of darkness and anomie. Therefore the Christian message, out of all the other meaning systems still is something of great significance in my life. But the problem with this message is that it is still fabricated in many ways by our culture and societal lenses. We preach a Jesus, construct him, commercialize him, institutionalize, bureaucratize, and abuse other through these teachings. My journey has been having to step outside of the things that have been constructed for me, and trying to find meaning behind them. Especially when it comes to Christ. I am completely unsure what to do with this message, nor am I entirely sure how to interpret it. It would seem that Christ has been distorted in my life as well, and now I am trying to take apart this fabrication. So what do I do with Christ?
Palmer (the author of the book I am reading) has room for me to exist in his teachings. He does not shove Christ down my throat, nor does he apologize for believing in Christ. In Chapter four he begins by stating that “Truth is personal”. He talks about Christ saying “I am…the truth”. Note: Jesus did not say, “I will speak true words to you” or “I will tell you about the truth”. His claim was an outright claim to the embodiment of truth. He offered himself and his life as truth. He goes on using the example of Jesus and Pilate. Pilate tries desperately to understand who and what category to put Jesus in. He tries to objectify Jesus by putting him the category of “king”. But Jesus does not allow Pilate to do such a thing, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” suggesting that Pilates opening question comes from impersonal caricature, not personal understanding. Jesus puts forward personal claims related to his birth and his reason for being. But Pilate cannot get it. He is incapable of knowing this personal truth because he holds the person at arms length, treating him as an object, a thing, a “what”. By reducing truth to objective terms Pilate places himself beyond the reach of truth.
This story therefore proposes that in Christian understanding truth is neither an object “out there” nor a proposition about such objects. Instead truth is personal, and all truth is known in personal relationships. Jesus is a paradigm, and a model of personal truth. In him truth, which is always understood as abstract, principled, proposition, suddenly takes on a tangible shape and form! (This is very exciting for those of us who are kinesthetic). Jesus calls us to truth, but not in the form of creeds or theologies or world-views. His call to truth is a call to community-with him with each other, with creation and its Creator! (This is very exciting for me!). If what we know is an abstract, impersonal, apart from us, it cannot be truth, for truth involves a vulnerable, faithful and risk-filled interpenetration of the knower and the known (page 49).
Jesus was announcing and incarnating a new understanding of reality and our relation to it. Truth-wherever it may be found in whatever form-is personal, to be known in personal relationships. The search for the word of truth becomes the quest for community with each other and all creation. The speaking of that word becomes the living of our lives.
This is what I will die for. Not a cold abstract reality, not a claim to have absolute truth, but a quest, a quest for relationship and community.
I will end on this quote:
“To say that truth is personal is to affirm the image of truth that lies within each person, regardless of creed or institutional affiliation. Indeed, if truth is personal, then creeds and institutions are only the objectified shells of the truth-seeking life that pulses in every human heart. We will find truth not in the fine points of our theologies or in our organizational allegiances but in the quality of our relationships-with each other and with the whole created world.”
I have room to exist on my journey of truth, as I seek the embodiment of it.
“Do you say this of your own accord? Or did others say it to you about me?”
I must find my own accord.
Therefore let us all quest for truth.

I am sorry Steph if that was too intense, I am trying!