Aristotle’s definition of truth (and falsity) is famous: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true” Aristotle’s perspective has typically been called the “correspondence theory” of truth. What is said is true when it corresponds with reality.
If that correspondence theory of truth strikes you as an exercise in the obvious, then hallelujah. You are not far from the kingdom of God, as Jesus said to the scribe. That simple, obvious understanding of the truth as speech and expression which connects to what is real has been distorted and confused in modern times. Perhaps the primary contender to the correspondence theory is a “pragmatic theory” of truth which claims that what is true is what works or is successful and thus changes according to what one desires to accomplish.
Scripture, particularly the writing of John, speaks much about truth, but offers no definitions or theories of truth. John in particular, though, shows us that truth is to be firmly grounded in what is real. Since the height of reality for the Christian believer is God’s love demonstrated to us in the person of Jesus Christ, truth and love are inextricably bound together and both are firmly connected to the facts about Jesus.
As I turn to II John this coming Sunday, which in the American secular calendar is Mother’s Day, we look at what John has to say to “an elect lady and her children.” While, as in the case of III John, the letter could be addressed to an actual individual, it is generally accepted that John is writing to a church, personified as a mother and her children. And John’s primary concern for that church, as is obvious in the first 4 verses, is its adherence to the truth.
Yet right alongside that concern for the truth is the note which John strikes over and over in what he writes, that truth belongs together with love, as we can see in the surprising ending to a greeting in verse 4 that otherwise sounds much like Paul’s greetings in his letters. The explanation for this constant conjunction can be found in I John 4:8 which says, “God is love.” If the ultimate reality, on which everything else is grounded, is love, then truth firmly based in reality must remain connected to love.
Later in the letter, verses 7-11 may suggest that John is really about something other than love as he asks the “lady,” i.e., that church, to refuse welcome to those who teach something other than the truth. That sounds harsh and inhospitable and contrary to a casual understanding of love. But the reason is that love must remain grounded in truth just as much as truth is grounded in love.
Falsehood must be confronted with truth as well as love, especially when the falsehood is about Jesus, as verse 7 indicates. If Jesus is not the God who demonstrated the highest love by genuinely taking on human flesh and dying for us, then we will be unable to discern either truth or love in reality. It’s only as we meet truth and love in Jesus Christ that we are able to see the world and ourselves for what they really are. But that means some sort of separation from falsehood which denies the truth about Jesus.
As I said last week, one way to deny the truth about Jesus is to behave in a manner inconsistent with His own love and care for others. But His truth is also denied when we reduce His life and work, His actual death and resurrection, to some sort of spiritual lesson or symbol extraneous to the physical world in which we find ourselves. The only way to keep truth and love firmly connected is for them both to be embodied in the world and that embodiment begins with Jesus. By His grace we then participate in His truth in love when we follow Him and “walk in” them, as John says.