Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 4.2
What you will learn
- Describe the main theories of truth: correspondence, coherence and pragmatic.
- Explain why interpretation is unavoidable and what the hermeneutic circle means.
- Distinguish knowing truth from knowing it perfectly.
- Show how these questions bear on reading Scripture.
The big idea
To say that a statement is true is to say that things are as the statement says they are. Most Christian thinkers hold some form of this correspondence view. Postmodern thinkers press a fair point, which is that no one reaches the truth except through language, culture and interpretation. The difference between knowing something truly and knowing it completely lets a student accept the point without giving up truth. Interpretation is real work, and it can be done well or badly.
Key terms
- Correspondence theory of truth
- The view that a statement is true when it matches how things are.
- Coherence theory of truth
- The view that a statement is true when it fits consistently into a whole system of beliefs.
- Pragmatic theory of truth
- The view that truth is what works or what would be agreed in the long run by inquirers.
- Epistemology
- The study of knowledge: what it is, how it is gained and how far it goes.
- Hermeneutic circle
- The observation that readers understand the parts of a text through the whole and the whole through the parts, and so must move back and forth.
- Perspectivalism
- The view that all knowing is from a standpoint. It is compatible with truth if the standpoints can be compared and corrected.
- Critical realism
- The view that there is a real world that can be known truly though partially, and that human accounts are open to correction.
- Linguistic turn
- The twentieth century shift in philosophy toward the study of language as the key to questions of thought and meaning.
Background
Philosophers have asked about truth since Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle wrote that to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true. Aquinas gave the classic medieval form, that truth is the conformity of the intellect to the thing. Modern philosophers added questions about how a mind could reach the world at all. Kant argued that the mind shapes experience, and later thinkers asked how language and history shape what can be thought.
In the twentieth century, philosophers in both the continental and the analytic traditions argued that meaning depends on use in a community of speakers (Wittgenstein) and on interpretation within a tradition (Gadamer). These arguments have been used by some to defend relativism. Many Christians have used them to describe a humble but still truth-seeking way of knowing. The result is a live debate among believers.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Three views of truth
On the correspondence view, the sentence snow is white is true if and only if snow is white. This seems to many people to be common sense, and it is the view that most Christian philosophers hold. It does not claim that anyone knows all truths or that people are never mistaken. It claims that when a person is right, he is right because of how things are.
On the coherence view, a statement is true if it fits with the rest of what a person believes. Defenders say that people never compare belief with bare reality, only with other beliefs. Critics say that a coherent fairy tale would then be true. On the pragmatic view, truth is what proves useful in inquiry. Critics note that a useful falsehood is possible. Many philosophers combine elements, using coherence and practical success as tests of what corresponds to reality.
Step 2: Why interpretation is unavoidable
Every statement is made in a language, by a person, at a time and in a place. To understand an old text, a reader must bring his own questions and assumptions, and he may learn to see their limits by meeting the text. Gadamer described this as a fusion of horizons. This holds for the reading of Scripture as for any other writing.
The point does not show that all readings are equal. A reading can be tested against the words, the context, the author’s purposes and the reception in a community. Some readings are plainly wrong, as when a poem of lament is read as a recipe. Interpretation is a skill with standards, as well as an art.
Step 3: Knowing truly without knowing completely
A person can know that a friend loves him without knowing everything about his friend. A person knows a city by living in it and still knows only part. Critical realists, such as the theologian N. T. Wright and the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in different forms, say that this is the shape of all human knowing: it is real, partial and open to correction.
Paul puts it this way: now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). The verse does not say that believers see nothing. It says that they see in part and look to see in full. This fits the humility that postmodern writers rightly ask for.
Step 4: Truth and Scripture
The Bible speaks of truth as faithfulness and also as correspondence to reality. A prophet is false if what he predicts does not happen (Deuteronomy 18:22). A witness is false if he says what did not occur. Jesus says that he came to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37), and Pilate’s question, what is truth, has been quoted by skeptics since.
At the same time, the Bible is a collection of literary forms and requires careful reading. Poetry, parable, history and law have different rules. A tradition of interpretation, in the church, guards against private fancy and brings the experience of earlier readers. Disagreements remain, and they should be treated as disagreements about reading, not about whether truth exists.
- What would make this statement true, and how could I find out?
- Am I confusing not knowing everything with not knowing anything?
- What assumptions do I bring to this text?
- Is this reading checked by the words and context, or does it only suit me?
- Who in the community of readers might correct me?
- Does the person who denies truth claim that his own denial is true?
Examples
Two readers, one letter
Two people read a letter from a friend that says he is fine. One knows that the friend always hides trouble and reads sadness between the lines. The other takes it at face value. Both are interpreting. Later they learn that the friend was in trouble, and the first reader was closer to the truth. (A constructed example.)
A map
A map of a city leaves out much and distorts some features, such as flattening hills. It can still guide a person truly to a street. A good map is judged by whether it corresponds, in the ways that matter, to the city. (A constructed example of critical realism.)
A self-defeating claim
A speaker says that no one can know truth because all knowledge is perspective. A listener asks whether that claim is itself only perspective. The speaker answers that it is an insight. The exchange shows why the strong claim is hard to state. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic philosophy in the tradition of Aquinas holds that the mind can know reality and that truth is the conformity of mind to thing. John Paul II in Fides et Ratio defended the human capacity for truth against skepticism. Many Catholic thinkers also accept that interpretation is a historical and communal act.
Orthodox
Orthodox theologians say that the truth is first of all a person, and that it is known by participation in the life of the church. They also say that language about God is always inadequate. This allows them to value the limits of concepts without giving up the claim that Christ is the truth.
Protestant
Protestants hold a range. Reformed thinkers such as Cornelius Van Til argued that all knowing depends on God, and Plantinga argued that Christians may hold their beliefs as basic. Some Protestant theologians, such as Kevin Vanhoozer, argue for a hermeneutics that respects the author’s intention and the community’s reading, against the claim that texts have no stable meaning.
Secular and scholarly views
Pragmatists such as Rorty deny that truth is a correspondence to reality and say that the talk should be of what can be justified to one another. Realist philosophers, religious or not, reply that this cannot account for why some beliefs succeed in guiding action. The debate over truth is open in philosophy.
Why it matters
To say that Christianity is true is to make a claim about reality. If truth is not a meaningful idea, the claim is empty, and so is every claim that it is false. At the same time, believers must admit the limits of their knowledge and the possibility of misreading. This lesson holds these two together.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: If every view is shaped by perspective, no view can be true.
Correction: Being shaped by a perspective does not make a claim false. A view from a standpoint can still report what is there, and different perspectives can be compared.
Misunderstanding: To believe in truth is to claim to know everything.
Correction: Believing in truth means that statements can be right or wrong. A person may hold true beliefs and know that he has much to learn.
Misunderstanding: Interpretation means that a text can mean anything.
Correction: Readings are tested by the words, the context and the community. Some are better supported than others.
Misunderstanding: Pilate’s question shows that the Bible regards truth as unknowable.
Correction: The Gospel of John presents Jesus as the truth (14:6), and Pilate’s question is asked without waiting for the answer.
Knowledge check
State the correspondence theory of truth and one objection to it.
It holds that a statement is true when it matches how things are. One objection is that no one can step outside his beliefs to compare them with reality itself. Defenders reply that beliefs can be tested against experience and against each other, and that the possibility of error presupposes a reality that can correct people.
What is the hermeneutic circle?
It is the point that a reader understands the parts of a text through the whole, and the whole through its parts, so that interpretation moves back and forth. It also applies to readers: prior understanding shapes what is seen, and the text can correct that understanding. It does not mean that every reading is equally good.
What is critical realism?
It is the view that there is a real world that can be known truly but not exhaustively, and that human accounts of it are always open to correction. It tries to hold together the humility about perspective that postmodern thinkers urge and the confidence that some beliefs are better than others.
How does 1 Corinthians 13:12 bear on knowing truth?
Paul says that now believers see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, and that now he knows in part. The verse affirms real but partial knowledge. It teaches humility about present understanding while looking to a fuller knowing, which fits the view that people can know truly without knowing completely.
Think it through
- Which theory of truth do you assume in daily life?
- When has a reading of Scripture that you once held been corrected?
- How can a community help a reader avoid private fancy?
- What is the difference between humility and doubt?
Independent assignment
Testing a reading
In your notebook, choose a short passage of Scripture. Write down your first reading, then check it against the surrounding chapter, a note in a study Bible or commentary from your tradition, and one from another. Write 300 to 500 words on what you learned about your own assumptions and what the checks showed. Do not send it.
Further study
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hermeneutics Read for the history of interpretation theory.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae See the question on truth in the first part.
- Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief Read selectively for the discussion of knowledge and basic belief.
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read the passages on memory and time for a classic account of the limits of knowing.
- John 18:37 Jesus says he came to bear witness to the truth.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see through a glass, darkly.
- Deuteronomy 18:22 A test of a prophet’s word.