What is Truth?

Posted on 8/27/2008 No Comments
Labels: Gospel of John, truth

"What is truth?"

The famous, final query of the official interrogation of Jesus by Pontius Pilate in John 18.

The quintessential "postmodern" question, asked some 2,000 years ago.

And Jesus, famously, gives no answer.

Why?

Lotta reasons. One is that Pilate was not really on an open-minded, truth-seeking mission, and it didn't take Jesus long to figure that out. Pilate wanted to know if Jesus thought of himself as a king. Jesus tried to explain the nature of His kingship: "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews." Pilate's response? "A-ha! So you do think you're a king!"

I had a similar experience once. A man who was vehemently opposed to church, etc., commented to me that he would never allow himself to be so "controlled." I tried to bust out a Jesus-before-Pilate type response, saying something to the effect that we are all controlled, that the important issue is not whether we are controlled but by what or by whom, and that I didn't mind submitting myself to the "control" of the Creator and Lover of the universe. His response? "A-ha! So you admit to being controlled!"

I couldn't (and didn't) say much after that.

But the primarily reason Jesus didn't answer Pilate was because there was no context for Pilate to hear the answer. John has already testified about Jesus' answer to that question to his disciples: "I am the truth." But his disciples had a context to understand that answer. Whether or not they were capable of understanding it, right there and then, is another story. But they at least had the framework, the categories, the context to "get it." They had "been so long" with this man such that when He said "I," they knew what that meant.