What is truth?

What the Bible says

The question "What is truth?" is asked as John's Gospel nears its climax. The Roman governor Pilate stands before Jesus. Jesus has said that his kingdom is not of this world, and then he says why he came.

For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.

John 18:37

Pilate's answer is short.

What is truth? Pilate asked.

John 18:38

He does not wait for a reply. Whether this was a sneer, a tired sigh or a real question, the text does not say. But John set the scene deliberately: before the man who asks what truth is stands, in John's view, Truth himself.

John has been saying this from the start. The Word became flesh and lived among us, "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). And on the last night Jesus says:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 14:6

Truth as a person means that truth is not only a collection of correct sentences but someone to be met and followed. Jesus also joins truth to freedom: "the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). He prays to the Father:

Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.

John 17:17

The Spirit is called the Spirit of truth and guides the disciples into all truth (John 16:13).

Truth must also be kept in word and life: the Lord hates lying lips and delights in those who deal faithfully (Prov 12:22). Paul writes to the church:

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another.

Eph 4:25

He also says how to speak it: "speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself" (Eph 4:15). Love "rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor 13:6).

Yet the Bible is wary of boasting that we hold the truth. Paul says, "Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face" (1 Cor 13:12). And he warns, "The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know" (1 Cor 8:2). The Bereans "examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true," even when Paul was the teacher, and Luke praises them for it (Acts 17:11). And the reason for our hope is to be given "with gentleness and respect" (1 Pet 3:15).

The church's witness

The church has received truth not as something we own but as something given from God's side. The Nicene Creed confesses the Son as true God from true God The Nicene Creed. The one who is truth is not only a teacher who speaks correctly about God but God himself.

On John 14, Augustine says that everyone understands truth and life, but not everyone has found the way, and adds:

And the Word of God, which is truth and life with the Father, by taking upon Him human nature, is made the way. Walk by the Man, and you will arrive at God. For it is better to limp on the right way, than to walk ever so stoutly by the wrong.

Augustine

Hilary draws the comfort out of this: "nor does He who is the truth deceive us by falsehoods" Hilary. To trust the truth is also to trust that we shall not be deceived.

On Pilate's question, Matthew Henry says Pilate "put a good question." Then he adds: "But many put this question, who have not patience to preserve in their search after truth; or not humility enough to receive it" Matthew Henry. The question is good, but asking it is not enough.

In the original languages

The New Testament word for truth is alētheia (ἀλήθεια). It is often explained as a negative prefix joined to a root meaning "to be hidden" (or "to forget"), hence "what is not hidden." How far that etymology shaped the word's actual use is disputed, and etymology does not fix meaning. In John the word carries both agreement with reality and the faithfulness of God; John 3:21 even speaks of doing, or practicing, the truth (John 3:21).

Behind it stands the Hebrew emet (אֱמֶת), which means "reliability" and "faithfulness." It comes from the same root as the verb aman (אָמַן), "to be firm, to trust," and the "amen" we say at the end of prayer comes from it too. In the Old Testament truth is first what you can lean on, what will not give way. To say God is truth is close to saying he can be trusted.

Common objections

"Truth is relative. We never see the world except through our language, culture and interests, so everyone has their own truth." This objection should not be dismissed. Cultures differ in what they hold to be right, and the powerful have often called their own opinions truth. The Bible also agrees that our knowing is partial and seen from one place (1 Cor 13:12). But the sweeping claim, "all truth is relative," has a problem: it claims to be true for everyone. If it too is relative, it is true only for the speaker and gives no one a reason to agree. The humbler claim, "everyone sees from somewhere," does not undo itself, and Christians can accept it. Yet seeing a mountain from different places assumes there is a mountain, which is why we can correct one another's view. In matters of taste people really do differ, but the Bible speaks of how things actually are with God, the world and ourselves. And that we do not know all the truth is not evidence that there is none; it may show that truth is bigger than we are.

"Claiming to know the truth is arrogant and leads to violence." History bears this out. It is shameful but true that the church has sometimes persecuted dissenters in the name of truth and taken up the sword. That contradicts Jesus, who said "My kingdom is not of this world" and did not defend it by force (John 18:36). The truth Christians speak of is not "I am right" but "I have received." If truth is given by grace, there is nothing to boast of. Paul tells us to correct opponents "gently" (2 Tim 2:25). When Christians ignore the call to speak truth in love, they serve themselves and not the truth.

"Christians themselves disagree about what is true." They do. On baptism, the Lord's Supper, predestination and the end times the church is divided, and each side believes its view fits Scripture. But not every disagreement weighs the same. The core in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the triune God, Christ as true God and true man, his death and resurrection, has been confessed by the church across nearly every age and region. On the rest, we need the humility to hear each position at its best and to say "I do not know." See Why are there so many churches and denominations?

Going further

"What is truth?" is still a live question. The Bible answers it not with information but with the face of a person. Whoever receives that answer does not own the truth but stands before it. That is how confidence and humility can go together: confident, because he is the truth; humble, because our knowing still sees in a mirror.

You might ask yourself: Do I want to know the truth, or do I want to be told I am right? Do I let small lies pass in daily life? How do I react when someone says I am wrong?

To read further, see Is Jesus the only way? and Can the Bible be trusted? Reading John 18:28 to 19:16 slowly, from Pilate's place, is a good start.