What Is Truth?
Distinguishing Theories of Truth and
Tests for Truth
To ask, “What is truth?” is to address
the issues of theories (or models) of truth and tests for truth.
We will distinguish them here and reserve discussing tests for truth in the
next chapter, “How Can We Know Truth?” In distinction, how someone knows whether
a statement is true is one’s test for truth. To put it another way, a
test for truth is how one discovers whether a statement is true. By
contrast, a theory of truth is how one defines the terms true and
truth. It is the difference between defining truth and discovering truth.
Theories of Truth
Correspondence Theory of Truth. Not all theories of truth are created equal. While
there are several theories of truth that present themselves in our day, only
the correspondence theory of truth is the way truth really is. This theory says
that truth is correspondence to reality, which is to say, a statement is
true inasmuch as it aligns with or is in accord with what is actually the case.
Thus, the statement “It is raining” would be a true statement if it is in fact
raining in reality and would be a false statement if it were in fact not
raining in reality. Aristotle summarized it this way: “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.”[1]
The statement “It is raining” can be
qualified in a number of ways. It could be raining in one place and not raining
in another. Further, it could be raining in one place right now and not raining
in the same place sometime later. In fact, there are a number of ways a
statement can correspond to reality. One can use literal language, allegory,
metaphor, simile, analogy, symbols, hyperbole, phenomenal language, informal
language, synecdoche, or metonymy.
Sometimes critics of the Bible charge
the Bible with error because they miss these different ways that a statement
can truly correspond to reality. Examples include Mark 1:16: Jesus literally
walked by the sea and the disciples were literally casting their
nets. Galatians 4:23-24: Paul showed that the story of th bondwoman (Genesis
16) vs. the free woman (Genesis 21) namely, Hagar and Sarah, is an allegory of
the relationship of the old covenant (law) to the new covenant (grace). Though
some English translations use the term symbolic, it translates the Greek
word allegoroumena, from which we get the English word allegory.
Isaiah 55:12: Isaiah attributing hands to trees is a use of metaphor.
Isaiah 7:2: Isaiah likening the moving
heart of a person to the way the wind moves a tree is a use of simile.
Second Corinthians 5:7: Paul draws the analogy between physical walking
and spiritual walking. Hebrews 9:7-9: The writer of Hebrews explains how in the
first temple the fact that the priest could only enter the Holy of Holies under
strict conditions was symbolic—that the way of full access to the
presence of God had not yet been made manifest. Judges 7:12: The narrative
appropriately exaggerating (for the sake of emphasis) the military might of the
Midianites and Amalekites is a use of hyperbole. Matthew 5:45: The Bible
describing things according to their appearance (like the sun rising) is the
use of phenomenological language, sometimes called the language of appearance.
Joel 2:31 is perhaps even a better example when it says that the moon will be
turned into blood. This is clearly a reference to the fact that the moon will
have the appearance of blood because it will turn red. Numbers 2:32 compared
with Numbers 11:21: To round off numbers is to speak informally. Matthew
6:11: The use of a part for the whole is a synecdoche, like saying that he
“put a roof over our heads.” Presumably he provided an entire house and not just
the roof. Matthew 8:8 compared with Luke 7:6: To substitute the agent for the
instrument (or vice versa) is a metonymy. As emissaries of the
centurion, when the friends spoke to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf, that was
the same as the centurion speaking to Jesus Himself.
It is the same thing that happens when the
president speaks to a head of state of another country by means of his diplomats.
It is metonymically to say that the president spoke to that head of state.
The key here is that the correspondence
theory of truth does not say that a statement is true only when it corresponds
literally. It is true
that “the eyes of the LORD run to and
fro throughout the whole earth” (2 Chronicles 16:9) even though God does not
literally have eyes.
Pragmatic Theory of Truth. Other theories have adversely affected how some
understand truth. These inadequate theories have sometimes hampered people’s
ability to grasp reality with what they say. One inadequate theory of truth
that is increasing in popularity in our culture is the pragmatic theory of
truth. The pragmatic theory says that a statement is true inasmuch as it works
or is practical. The pragmatic theory gives rise to the notion that something
can be “true for you but not true for me.” The mistake of deciding by
pragmatism what is true (or even godly) is as ancient as the Old Testament
Israelites.
When God, through the prophet Jeremiah,
told the Israelites to stop their abominable practices of burning incense to
the “queen of heaven” and pouring out drink offerings to her, their defense of
their actions is telling.
They said in response to Jeremiah:
We will do everything that we have vowed, make
offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we
did, bot we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered,
and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of
heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and
have been consumed by the sword and by famine (Jeremiah 44:17-18).
Sadly, they made their decision regarding what was true about reality based on the immediate practical results that followed and not on what God had told them through His prophet. Clearly, such pragmatism is inadequate to connect us with the truth about reality. What is more, one cannot even define the pragmatic theory of truth without utilizing the correspondence theory. This is evident when one observes how the advocate of the pragmatic theory would defend his position. Namely, he would find it impossible to avoid saying what the pragmatic theory is. But in doing so, he would be saying that his definition of the pragmatic theory corresponds to what the pragmatic theory is! Thus, he needs the correspondence theory of truth to define the pragmatic theory of truth.
Functional Theory of Truth. Another theory of truth, sometimes encountered in compromised views on the inerrancy of the Bible, is the functional theory of truth. The functional theory says that a statement is true inasmuch as it fulfills the purpose or function that is intended by the one making the statement. This is also known as the intentional theory of truth. It allows for a compromised view of biblical inerrancy (i.e., the Bible has no errors) by saying that a statement in the Bible might be factually false, but nevertheless serves a certain purpose or function. This approach is what allowed Daniel Fuller to maintain that the Bible is “true” even when (in his estimation) the Bible is rong about, for example, the mustard seed:
Although the mustard seed is not really
the smallest of all seeds, yet Jesus referred to it as such because…to have
gone contrary to their mind on what was the smallest seed would have so
diverted their attention from the knowledge that would bring salvation to their
souls that they might well have failed to hear these all-important revelational
truths.[2]
Thus, for Fuller, because the Bible’s
“truth” lies in its purpose or
intention, it can seemingly get the
facts wrong and still fulfill that purpose or intention.[3] One problem with this is
that Fuller’s claim that “the mustard seed is not really the smallest of all
seeds” only makes sense with the correspondence theory of truth. But with this
tacit acknowledgment of the correspondence theory, there is no need to employ a
different theory of truth to exonerate the Bible as being true or authoritative
while stating factual errors.[4]
In contrast to the functional or
intentional theory of truth, the correspondence theory of truth rightly
recognizes that the Bible is true in everything it affirms or teaches precisely
because the Bible tells us what really is the case. When we defend Christianity
as being true, we want to make sure that our hearers understand that we mean
that Christianity corresponds to reality.
[1] Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 7, 1011b26-29,
translation by W.D. Ross, in Richard
McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House,
1941), 749.
Other philosophers holding a correspondence theory of truth are Plato (Sophist,
240d; 263b); Augustine (Soliloquia I, 28); Thomas Aquinas (Truth,
Question 1, Article 1); René Descartes (Meditations on First Philosophy:
Third Meditation; Objections and Replies: Fifth Set of Objections (see John
Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, trans. The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes, vol. II (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1984): 26, 196; David Hume (A Treatise of Human Nature, II, 3, §X, III,
1, §1 (see L.A. Selby-Bigge, 2d ed. [Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 448, 458]);
John Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, II, §2-§5);
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, I, Second Part, First Div., Bk.
II, Chap. II, §3, 3 (Norman Kemp Smith, trans. [New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1965]: 220); Bertrand Russell, “On the Nature of Truth” in Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society (1906–1907), 28-49, as cited in The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards, ed., (New York: Macmillan, 1967),
s.v. “Correspondence Theory of Truth,” 232); and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein
(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 2.0211-2.0212, 2.21, 3.01). Philosophers
who hold the correspondence theory of truth differ as to exactly where the
“correspondence” obtains. Positions include that it obtains between a proposition
(or belief) and external reality (naïve realism), that it obtains in the metaphysical
formal conformity of the intellect and the thing in external reality (moderate
or scholastic realism), or that it obtains only between the idea of reality in
the mind and the thing in reality outside the mind (representationalism).
[2] Daniel P. Fuller, “Benjamin B. Warfield’s View of
Faith and History,” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 11
(Spring 1968): 81-82.
[3] Elsewhere, Fuller says, “This can only mean that all
the Biblical assertions which teach or rightly imply knowledge that makes men
wise unto salvation are absolutely inerrant” (Fuller, p. 80).
[4] Fuller’s thinking here anticipated, by about a
decade, the influential work of Jack Rogers and Donald McKim. They argue, “The
foundation of the doctrine of Scripture in the early church needs to be
recovered. For early Christian teachers, Scripture was wholly authoritative as
a means of bringing people to salvation and guiding them in the life of
faith…The interpretation of the Bible was influenced by the understanding of
its saving purpose…Early theologians accepted God’s accommodated style of
communication.” Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and
Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (New York: Harper &
Row, 1979), 457-458. Also see John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A
Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982).
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