In the Gospel according to Saint John, Pontius Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).
The philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard asked, “Can we learn the truth?”
Kierkegaard was reflecting on a teaching by Socrates, as relayed by Plato, that the soul is in possession of the truth but (being a person who believes in reanimation) that between lives the soul “drinks the waters of forgetfulness” and once reanimated in a new life must relearn, have brought to the new physical surface, that truth within itself through the guidance of a teacher who knows the truth.
Ultimately, Kierkegaard determined that yes, we can in fact learn the truth. He goes on to explain that Christ is the ultimate teacher and will teach us the truth, answering Kierkegaard’s own question, and teach us what truth is, answering Pilate’s question.
How then does it happen?
First, in a small similarity to Plato-Socrates, the truth is within our souls. Unlike Plato-Socrates, it is not there going through endless reanimations. The truth is in our souls because God put it there.
We are all, every single human being, a creation of God – created in the image of God. Even now with the effect sin has upon each of us – we all still retain at least a fragment of that image of God. That image of God, even when marred, contains the truth of God. That we are capable of good and proper living at all is evidence of what Thomas Aquinas calls the “natural grace” of God.
That natural grace not only assists us in proper living but allows us to see that we are not fully what we are meant to be. We can be more, we can error less, we can live more righteously, is something we are aware of through natural grace. Aquinas argues that this natural grace, this portion of the truth that God imprinted on our souls, serves to motivate us to strive for its fullness – to live as designed and created. To do so, however, requires what Aquinas then deems “supernatural grace.” God must overcome the gap between the truth within us that we can grasp naturally and the truth, now hidden, that can only be re-revealed by God.
So what is truth, and can it be learned? If so, who is the wise teacher Plato-Socrates says we must have how capable of explaining the truth to us?
The New Testament is filled with examples of Jesus teaching. The Bible further records that Jesus is such a profound teacher that those He taught were amazed at His teachings. Among His teachings, Jesus teaches us that He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
Jesus is the fulfillment of the truth of God. He, in His incarnation, is what we were created to have – the fullness of God’s truth. He, in His incarnation is the teacher of the truth that He himself is.
Much like the understanding that Jesus is both our High Priest making the sacrifice for us and that He is the Sacrifice itself, Jesus is the both the Teacher of the Truth and the Truth that He Teaches.
The truth within us that sin has suppressed –
The Way to the Kingdom of God
The Truth that God loves us and wants to, in His love for us, restore us to our fullness
The Life more abundant that we were created to live
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6).
Listen to the Teacher of the Truth who is the Truth He Teaches.
Buen Camino,
Fr Steve
Steven G Rindahl, DMin STM