What is truth? What do we mean when we talk about the truth? How can we get hold of it? And is truth knowable? These are questions that humanity has wrestled with for ages, and I would like in this brief reflection to outline the key issues involved in the discovery of truth.
The first thing we realize when we examine the meaning of the word “truth” is a complex term. We can easily distinguish four layers of meaning, or four types of truth: empirical truth, transcendental truth, subjective truth, and objective truth. Let us take them one by one and try in this brief exploration to make sense of these separate but interrelated shades of meaning.
Empirical and Transcendental Truth
Empirical truth involves statements about physical objects and historical events. It can be ascertained by either experimentation or critical examination. Take for instance the statement regarding the person and nature of Jesus. Is Jesus a historical person? Well, this question is clearly open to rational examination. Is Jesus coeval with God? This is a claim about transcendental truth that cannot be demonstrated by any rational argument or material evidence. The claim relies completely on the biblical account. Those who affirm the divinity of Jesus do that because they believe that the Gospels are the true word of God. Those who deny it point to issues of authenticity and interpretation. For example, they argue that the explicit claim of divinity of Jesus is found in the Gospel of John. A Gospel that appears 100 years after Christ and the account it provides differ significantly from those of the other three Bibles, which share a similar message, and for that reason, are called the synaptic Gospels.
The most important questions about human existence do not belong to empirical but transcendental truth; I mean the truth about metaphysical reality. Questions like what lies behind the material world? Is the world created? And if so, who created it and how? Is there a purpose to life? And if there is what is that purpose? Greek philosophers insisted that God can be known through rational arguments; they argued that God is the first cause, and that He is above human petty concerns and that he is not therefore interest in humanity. Muslim philosophers and theologians also thought God’s existence could be rationally ascertained and agreed that God is the source of the universe and developed the design proof of God. They, however, rejected the claim that God’s essence is knowable through reasoning. The Muslim philosopher al Ghazali went further to show that human reasoning cannot ascertain any metaphysical object. Ibn Khaldun advanced Ghazali’s conclusions further by pointing to the impossibility of establishing correspondence between the mental concepts abstracted from the physical world and the objects of the metaphysical world. In modern times, Immanuel Kant demonstrated that human reasoning has no access to transcendental reality.
Subjective and Objective Truth
Let us now turn to address ideas of subjective and objective truth. Truth is always born in human subjectivity, in the consciousness of the individual. This kind of truth can be realized through contemplation, critical analysis, and social experience. Subjective truth does drive individual action but cannot, however, be the ground of public or collective action. To support collective action, subjective truth must survive cross-examinations and overcome counter claims. In other words, it must be accepted by other individuals, particularly by the scholarly and scientific communities. The truth about the metaphysical world does not rise to the level of objective truth, but only to the level of intersubjective truth, due to limited rationality of human beings. For this reason, claims about the transcendental world, the metaphysical world, is ultimately rooted in grand narratives rather than individual reasoning. These categories subsume all the grand narrative offered by world religions.
Truth Criteria
So how do we sort out the contradictory claims of the various religious narratives? How do we know which one is true? Here where subjective truth becomes so important? The Qur’an and the Gospels provides some criteria for distinguishing true from false narrative:
- The argument from coherence: “And for any example they bring to you, we will bring the truth and a better explanation.” (Quran 25:33) So the best narrative is the one that provides a more satisfying explanation for the human condition.
- The argument from sublimity: “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
So transcendental truth must be found subjectively within the self. It draws closer to objectivity, as the same subjective truth finds home in the consciousness of many people. But you may ask: if truth is born subjectively in the human consciousness, why would we need an external truth? The simple answer to this question is that humanity has no other means to distinguishing truth from falsehood than interrogating the grand narrative that has been passed down to us by previous generations. We need to seriously examine the major claims made by prophets and philosophers who spent their lives examining and promoting truth, particularly the Prophets who claim a divine origin of their narratives, beginning with the long line of prophets who affirmed the Abrahamic faith in a knowing and caring divine.
Monotheistic rationalists have maintained that humans have the capacity to know the Truth because a spark of the divine spirit resides within them. We are made in the image of God, or rather we are made of the spirit of God. Human nature recognizes the truth by what it demands from us. If the narrative demands complacency with injustice and selfishness and arrogance, this disqualifies it from being truth. And if those who proclaim the truth use their knowledge and power to enrich themselves at the expense of other human beings then this cannot be a divine truth.
This points to a third criterion of truth, let us call it the ethical criterion. It is a criterion that has been provided repeatedly in the Qua’an and the Bible. Here are two examples:
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:26-27
Set thy face upright for religion, in the primordial nature upon which God originated mankind—there is no altering the creation of God; that is the valuable religion, but most of mankind know not. (Qur’an 30:30)
In the final analysis we must find our truth within and reaffirm our inner truth by engaging the world in discussion and debate, and by acting out our inner truth, so it would then appear in the world though individual characters and public institutions.
