Christ, Subjectivity, and the Concept of Truth

I don’t believe that there is such thing as Objective Truth for human beings. In fact, I think much of the Evangelical jargon concerning Christianity’s possessing of the “The Absolute Truth” is dangerous and somewhat idolatrous. Unfortunately the first sentence of this paragraph already brings my discussion into the technical philosophical sphere, as I anticipate some readers will object to said statement as self-referential, or a performative contradiction (amounting to “The Truth is that there is no Truth.[i]”). This criticism would be warranted, if I were claiming to be offering the Objective Truth about Truth. Part I will expound upon this technical philosophical issue, while part II will elucidate why I believe Objective Truth to be deleterious to Christian faith, relying heavily on Kierkegaard.

A note to the reader: I feel I must warn you, the following section (part I) is dry, esoteric, and verbose. After a few sentences you may find your eyes beginning to dart quickly from sentence to sentence with the hope of finding more edifying subject matter. But you probably won’t, not in part I anyway. Part II is the heart of what I would like to say, so unless you have time to kill (or happen to be a philosophy major) you might just want to skip down to the second section. –If by chance Part II doesn’t do it for you either, don’t worry; just listen to the following Pedro the Lion songs: Forgone Conclusions, The Fleecing, and Whole, respectively. That will pretty much sum up what I am trying to say here.

I. The truth about Truth

“…All philosophers thus far have loved their truths.”

-Nietzsche

In the following section I shall somewhat regretfully make use of the terms “Modernity” and “Postmodernity”. I use scare quotes to emphasize the broad and inadequate strokes I will be painting with. I am not attempting an exhaustive study of Modernity/Postmodernity, nor am I seeking to argue for one over the other.[ii] (Indeed I believe both to have much we can learn from) Rather I am employing these terms heuristically, to facilitate my analysis of Truth.

The notion of Objective Truth is rooted in Western philosophical thought, particularly the Enlightenment preoccupation with epistemic certainty. Amidst the plurality of perspectives, opinions, and “truths” concerning the way things are, Modernity, beginning with Descartes, sought knowledge of the way things really are. That is, Objective Truth. Kierkegaard succinctly defines Objective Truth as “the identity of thought and being”[iii]. In other words, Objective Truth is when my knowledge of reality has adequation (completely corresponds) with reality itself.

Central to the epistemic paradigms of Modernity are the binary oppositions of appearance and reality, the subjective (fallible belief) and the Objective (Fact). Modernity’s penchant for moving beyond subjective, historically limited perspective of the world, to pure a-historical Objective knowledge of the world is not confined to Cartesian Rationalism. Indeed the notion of pure Objective fact is a prejudice throughout the majority of Western epistemology, culminating in the positivism of the early 20^th century Analytic tradition.

Much of the Modern rhetoric regarding “Absolute Truth” brings our knowledge claims to an epistemic either/or: either Objective Truth or relativism. That is, if our truth claims cannot be Objective or Absolute, then we are left with no means of adjudicating between competing truth claims, and thus succumb to relativism.

The Enlightenment has imparted many valuable contributions to our society- modern democracy, freedom of religion, human rights, to name a few. However, the Enlightenment has also bequeathed an epistemic hubris that (I believe) should be seriously questioned. More specifically, I believe we should challenge the Enlightenment prejudice that for knowledge to be true is must be Objective. -Enter “Postmodernity.”

In regards to Truth, Postmodernity is deeply suspicious of Modernity’s claim to Objective certainty. Firstly, Postmodernity recognizes that our experience of reality, hence all of our knowledge, is mediated by language. Concerning the linguistic nature of truth, Richard Rorty writes “Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot.”[iv] About a century earlier, Nietzsche made a similar point, claiming that truth is “linguistic legislation…The liar uses the valid designations, the words, to make the unreal appear real: he says, for example, ‘I am rich’ when the word ‘poor’ would be the correct designation of his situation.”[v]

Postmodern thought also elucidates the hermeneutical aspect of our knowing. As Human beings, we never have a pure, unmediated encounter with reality; rather we are always already interpreting the world. (Heidegger) Consider the following example: Upon waking in the middle of the night, I squint my eyes at a tall dark object near the door. After about thirty seconds of trying to discern what this object could be, I determine it to be a lamp. Had the light been on in my room, I would have glanced over by the door and simply “seen a lamp”; when in fact I had observed an object and interpreted it as a lamp. Because we are able to interpret objects so quickly, we are rarely even conscious of our interpreting of the world; that whenever we encounter objects we always have to interpret them as something. Precisely because our knowledge is always already interpreted, always mediated, we never have pure Objective knowledge of reality. Thus mediation always prevents pure ‘presence’ -to use Derrida’s idiom.

Similarly Postmodernity recognizes the perspectival nature of our knowledge. Perspectival means that we always encounter reality from a particular location, or perspective. As a finite, situated human being, my view of the world is limited by my local horizon, which may change as I move, but is always nevertheless limiting my perspective. How could my knowledge ever be Objective, that is, represent reality as it is in itself, if I am always encountering reality from a particular local perspective? To know the Truth about reality (that is, reality as it is in itself) would be to know it sans perspective, from “Gods eye-view”. As finite human beings, located in time and space we are always interpreting the world as it appears to us from our particular perspective. We never see the world sub specie aeternitatis (under the aspect of eternity) because we are not God, because we have horizons, limits to our perspective, spatially, temporally, historically, and linguistically. Kierkegaard anticipates the postmodern hermeneutical shift from Truth (epistemic adequation with Objective reality) to truth (finite human perspective of reality) when he writes “Every subject is an existing subject…therefore this must be essentially expressed in all of his knowing and must be expressed by keeping his knowing from an illusory termination in…certainty”[vi].

Here one may ask, “Are the postmodernist claims against Objective Truth themselves True or a just a perspective? The answer: they are a perspective, but that does not mean that they are not true. The question itself has a very Modern prejudice, an epistemic presupposition that conflates perspectivism with relativism. However perspectivism does not mean that we must hold every perspective to be as equally valid as every other perspective. Postmodernists do in fact believe that some perspectives are in fact better, or truer than others. Therefore we can argue quite consistently that Postmodernity offers a better, truer, perspective than that of Modernity. As Christian Philosopher Merold Westphal observes “…In denying our access to Truth, postmodernists are not saying we should abandon the distinction between truth and falsity…they are only denying the metaclaim that our truths are Truth.”[vii]

“If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the one and only ever-striving drive for truth, even with the corollary of erring forever and ever, and if he were to say to me: Choose! – I would humbly fall down to him at his left hand and say: Father, give! Pure truth is indeed only for you alone!”

-Lessing

II. Truth and Christianity

“What is truth?” – Pontius Pilate

“The modern age, which has modernized Christianity, has also modernized Pilates Question…”

-Kierkegaard

Two ways of dealing with Pilate’s question: to be objective- to engage in speculative analysis of the concept itself, or to be subjective- to engage in existential relation to the question. Part I dealt with the concept of Truth via abstract philosophical speculation. Even though my conclusion was opposed to Objective Truth, the analysis itself was purely speculative, and objective insofar as it dealt with the notion of truth conceptually and philosophically; eschewing the issue of the individual’s appropriation of, and subjective relation to the truth. The second way of addressing Pilate’s Question is subjectivity. Subjectivity evades abstract speculation, and attempts to give primacy the individual’s relation to, rather than the conceptualization of, the truth. Instead of asking the objective epistemic question “Can humans ever have knowledge that meets the standard of Objective Truth?” we must ask the subjective question “What does it mean to relate oneself to the truth?”

However if we are to speak of the truth as it relates to subjects we must begin with the subjective individual, as opposed to the knowing subject. What does it mean to be subjective? To be subjective is to allow oneself to become immensely interested and conscious of ones own existence, of ones purpose, of ones salvation. To be subjective is to ask along with Heidegger, why have I been thrown into existence? It is to ponder with Kierkegaard, “Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks…of human beings? And if I am to be involved, where is the manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?”[viii] To be subjective is to be mindful of the mystery, finitude, and apparent contingency of ones own existence. Subjectivity leads the individual to the question of existential meaning, purpose, and ultimately to the question of God.

What does it mean for me to know God? The Greek word for knowledge used by Plato and Aristotle is episteme. This is where we get the word epistemology-the philosophical theory of knowledge. However, as Bruce Benson points out, when St. Paul writes about knowing God he does not use episteme but ginosko. Benson writes, “To know (ginosko) God is not to have episteme. It is to have a relationship with God in which he bears witness to us of his being and character.”[ix] What if this distinction is not merely accidental? What if St. Paul chose very purposefully to use ginosko rather than episteme? What if he meant to communicate the relational and hence subjective nature of knowing God as opposed to speculative knowing? To know relationally is to know someone, and the point is to be subjective; that is, to be interested, passionate, affected by the relation. To know speculatively is to know a proposition- an object of inquiry, and the point is to be objective; that is, neutral, disinterested, and dispassionate- lest ones subjectivity/emotion inhibit the inquiry.

“What inclines even me to believe in Christ’s Resurrection?” asks Wittgenstein.

“If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man…In that case he is a teacher like any other and can no longer help; once more we are orphaned and alone. So we have to content ourselves with wisdom and speculation. We are in a sort of hell where we can do nothing but dream, roofed in, as it were, and cut off from heaven. But if I am to be really saved, - what I need is certainty- not wisdom…or speculation- and this certainty is faith. For it is my soul with its passions…that have to be saved, not my abstract mind. Perhaps we can say: Only love can believe the Resurrection.”[x]

Therefore it is only as subjective existing individuals, faced with the reality of our own finitude, mortality, and immense need that we ask “what does it mean to relate myself to Christ as the truth?” Hence to relate myself to the truth of Christ is not simply to affirm a proposition and be done with it. As Kierkegaard notes, if Jesus is truth “…then truth is inward deepening and is not an immediate and utterly uninhibited relation…to a sum of total propositions…”[xi] To truly relate myself to Christ in subjectivity is to confront my own immense need for salvation and redemption. Wittgenstein writes, “A man is capable of infinite torment therefore, and so too he can stand in need of infinite help. The Christian religion is only for the man who needs infinite help…”[xii] Objectivity asks: did a man called Jesus really exist in the 1^st century, and did he really say and do the things recorded in the synoptic Gospels? To be objective here means to treat Jesus as an object of inquiry- to be examined under a microscope as it were, through detached and disinterested analysis. What is the result of approaching the truth of Christ objectively? -The Historical Jesus; a neutered Savior, who as Wittgenstein says, can no longer help.

The truth of Christ is not black and white; it is a paradox. -Fully man and fully God, God born of a virgin, God killed by his own creatures, God raised from the dead. Thus the truth of Christ can never be transparent to me. My lack of certainty is not quantitative, but qualitative, and therefore I do not relate to God by gaining more knowledge or more certainty, but by faith and faith alone. To have faith is not to affirm a proposition with objective certainty. Objective Truth is cold hard fact, disinterested, and dispassionate. (If it were to become passionate and interested, it would thereby cease to be objective) Faith on the other hand is infinitely interested and infinitely passionate. To have faith is to say, “I do not know with objective certainty; rather I trust, I believe, I cry out to Jesus ‘I believe, help my unbelief!’”

Thus to relate oneself subjectively to the truth of Christ is to have neither objective epistemic certainty nor skepticism regarding status of ones belief. Rather it is to hold fast to the existential import of the person of Christ. It is to allow oneself to be subjectively shaken by Christ’s wholly subjective question- “Who do you say that I am?”

Kierkegaard likens the faith of the Christian believer to a man out in the middle of the ocean, with 70,000 fathoms of water beneath him. “…However long he lies out there, this still does not mean that he will gradually end up lying and relaxing onshore. He can become more calm, more experienced, find a confidence that loves jest and a cheerful temperament- but until the very last he lies out on 70,000 fathoms of water… To be joyful out on 70,000 fathoms of water, many, many miles from all human help- yes, that is something great! To swim in the shallows in the company of waders is not the religious… The religious seeks no foothold in the historical…”[xiii]

Pascal noted that if Christianity is true then I have everything to gain. Thus my relation to Christ as truth is a subjective relation to an objectively uncertain truth that has infinite existential import on my life. Because it is objectively uncertain, I struggle; I wrestle with its truth. I have moments of anguish and despair, like that of the Psalmist, or Job, when I question God. But through wrestling, through relating myself in passion and earnestness to its truth, I gain the certitude of faith. That is, I personally appropriate the truth of Christ; I come into primordial relation with it at the core of my being. Thus the certitude of faith is qualitatively distinct from the objective certitude of propositions. Kierkegaard notes that it is possible for something to be true, even affirmed as true, and yet have no affect on the individual who affirms it. “…One may have known something many times…one may have willed something many times…and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart’s indescribable emotion, only that will convince you what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you- for only the truth that builds up is truth for you.”[xiv]

---

[i] Merold Westphal’s idiom from Appropriating Postmodernism

[ii] Here the question already arises whether Postmodernity is the dissolution or perpetuation of Modernity.

[iii] Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p.196 (Henceforth cited CUP)

[iv] Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p.5

[v] Friedrich Nietzsche The Portable Nietzsche p. 44

[vi]CUP, p.81 -emphasis mine

[vii] Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology, p.83

[viii] Soren Kierkegaard, Repetition, p. 200

[ix] Bruce Ellis Benson, Graven Ideologies, p. 225 –emphasis mine

[x] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p.33

[xi] CUP, p.37

[xii] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 46

[xiii] Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, p.444, 470

[xiv] Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or II, p. 354 –emphasis mine