In the Lindisfarne Community, one of our sayings is that “all truth is God’s truth.” A friend asked me, “So you think there is such a thing as truth?” It set me wondering. My answer is that, yes, I do believe that there is truth — I would even want to capitalize it as Truth, in the sense of “ultimate truth.” Without this, I am not sure what education, nor indeed, the spiritual quest would be about. Further, I have believed with Plato that truth is fully knowable, but not fully known. The Christian neo-Platonists of the first few centuries spoke of the ultimate realties of “goodness, truth and beauty.” There can be no ultimate explanation of why these are ultimate reality — it is a matter of faith. Faith is the courage to live as if these were true.
Yet, it does raise the question of: what is truth? Let us suppose that ultimate Truth (capitalized) we might call the logos; and that contingent truth (not capitalized) we might call the mythos. It is through mythos that we catch glimpses of logos. Pure logos is impossible to explain in human words and human categories, though logos can be experienced. In fact, it is the experience of logos that necessitates the attempt at explanation in human terms, in mythos. Human language tries its best to approximate to that which is experienced as logos. It only partially succeeds. It is why religious language is only ever partially helpful. It can never express or explain the inexplicable. If, like the apostle Paul in mystical experience of the Spirit, you are “caught up to the third heaven,” how do you begin to explain that! Yet, the mythoi (the partial truths contained in metaphor, for that is all we have) are necessary as pointers, hints, and guideposts to help us along the way.
The great danger is that having glimpsed the logos we pretend that our mythos is an exact correspondence At best it is a partial sight. To believe “we have the absolute truth” lies the road of intolerance, hatred and violence.
So all truth is God’s truth. Do we truly know it? I suspect not.
+ Ab. Andrew
Yet, it does raise the question of: what is truth? Let us suppose that ultimate Truth (capitalized) we might call the logos; and that contingent truth (not capitalized) we might call the mythos. It is through mythos that we catch glimpses of logos. Pure logos is impossible to explain in human words and human categories, though logos can be experienced. In fact, it is the experience of logos that necessitates the attempt at explanation in human terms, in mythos. Human language tries its best to approximate to that which is experienced as logos. It only partially succeeds. It is why religious language is only ever partially helpful. It can never express or explain the inexplicable. If, like the apostle Paul in mystical experience of the Spirit, you are “caught up to the third heaven,” how do you begin to explain that! Yet, the mythoi (the partial truths contained in metaphor, for that is all we have) are necessary as pointers, hints, and guideposts to help us along the way.
The great danger is that having glimpsed the logos we pretend that our mythos is an exact correspondence At best it is a partial sight. To believe “we have the absolute truth” lies the road of intolerance, hatred and violence.
So all truth is God’s truth. Do we truly know it? I suspect not.
+ Ab. Andrew