The Way, The Truth, and The Life

 The pursuit of truth is good, but what is it?

For a Christian, one criterion for an adequate notion of truth would be that it sheds light on what Jesus meant by calling himself "the truth."

A correspondence theory of truth, so far as I can see, fails this criterion. If you disagree, take it as a challenge: how is Jesus the ultimate correspondence with reality?

On the other hand, on a pragmatist notion of truth, Jesus being the truth is much like his being the way: he is the one who makes possible adequate navigation through life, especially as regards its ultimate problems.

On a pragmatist account, what we call truth is provisional: it is a manner of articulating reality which has enabled us to make our way through life the best. For a Christian, Christ is the truth because he is the center of how we navigate reality. This is quite similar to Lewis's comment about knowing the Son is risen as he knows the Sun is risen: by seeing all things through the light that brings.

This is no presuppositionalist question-begging. I am not suggesting that Christ can be known to be risen because that is a premise which bears itself out in argument--although that is part of it. Rather, there is a larger context here: living into and out of that story bears fruit in our lives, casts light on our relationships with one another, and becomes a centerpiece in the furniture of our minds.

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