What Is Truth?

Readings:
II Kings 14
John 18:28-40

Focus:
John 18:38:"Pilate asked, 'What is truth?'"

Truth is much in dispute in our time. Many people contest the very possibility of being able to know any truth at all. Others say that conflicting claims can both be true at the same time. To people like me, greatly inclined towards propositional logic, the thought of nonlogical truth contradictions is absurd and incredible, yet many disagree with me.

We also sometimes imagine that deep philosophical thinking is only a property of modern times, and that humankind has been evolving in its capacity for reasoning; the more recent the times, the deeper humans' ability to think philosophically. In Bible times, we often think, people were more primitive in their outlook.

And yet when Jesus spoke of truth before Pontius Pilate, the sophisticated Roman governor, Pilate said, "What is truth?" Pilate asked a philosophical question that we might have placed in the 21st century. Philosophical questions about truth and existence are not new to modern times, and existential thinking has not come about only relatively recently.

The great thing is that Jesus can answer these questions. He came to earth to die for us, and the eternal questions are answered for us by him. What is truth? It is embodied in Jesus Christ.