Christians love to talk about truth. It’s one of the ways in which we defend our dogmatism, our focus on doctrine and how we are right while others are wrong.
I love truth too. I believe sound doctrine is important and I also believe bad ideas should suffer and better ideas should win.
Truth, however, is more than a weapon in our hands and it’s more than the cold “truths” we write into essays and doctrinal statements.
Much of truth isn’t so much in what is externally real, but to what degree we live or embody truth… how we incarnate truth in our lives.
This is something Kierkegaard reminds us. For Kierkegaard, truths we hold are only really true if we do more than say we believe them, but incarnate them, live them out and breath them as well.
What I believe is more than what I say, it’s also what shows up in my life.
Truth is certainly in propositions and logical theorems, but it is also in how authentically I relate to God and others. Truth is certainly objective, but it is also in how I manifest it in my everyday life – the subjectivity of my life. Truth is certainly about tangible things in front of me and holding correct beliefs, but it is also about my hopes, fears and desires.
Truth isn’t confined to a box.
Truth is reality.
Truth is objective and subjective.
Truth is logical and relational.
Truth is now and truth is later.
Truth is a big word.
“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.” – Søren Kierkegaard
