In the last edition of Truth For The Times, we looked into the question of whether Jesus was exceptional or typical, the likes of whom can be seen again and again in the history of the world. By way of summarizing the several issues covered so far, it will be right for us to deal with the issue of truth. The unique claims that Jesus made about Himself would not be worthy of any serious consideration of (i) truth criteria cannot be applied to them or (ii) they fail acceptable truth tests. Not surprisingly, Jesus anticipated the application of these criteria to His claims - while answering Thomas, His disciple who asked Him the way to wherever(!) He was going, Jesus steps right outside the purview of Thomas' question in introducing Himself as 'The Truth' (John 14:6). To the Gnostic environment of the churches to whom John was apparently addressing his gospel, this answer of Jesus would have been shocking. The intellectual climate in India so strongly influenced by Advaita Vedanta is not unlike the Gnostic backdrop provided by Greek philosophy. We will therefore do well to explore some of the aspects of Jesus astounding and profound answer.
The question of truth has been intriguing the minds of philosophers, scientists and the common man down through the centuries. Many people sincerely hold that truth depends upon one's own belief. They would say, "As long as you believe sincerely whatever you believe, it will be truth for you". The words of Jesus sound the death-knell to this approach to truth. As a historic real-life Person outside of His audience (the observer), He claimed to be the Truth. Jesus was implicitly stating that truth was objective. In one sense, this characteristic of truth is self-evident. For example, regardless of whatever I may believe or feel about my bank balance, the truth of the matter is recorded in my pass book and is independent of my belief or feeling. Sincerity of belief (or absence of it) does not contribute to the truth (or otherwise) o the basis of that belief. One has to necessarily investigate whether a belief-system has an adequate basis just as I have to verify my pass book to ensure that my belief about my financial solvency is justified. Therefore one should never confuse the reality of truth with one's belief (or unbelief) about it. truth and belief can logically be related in only one way - truth provides the justifiability on which one bases one's belief.
Jesus, in His reply to Thomas made it clear that He was the Truth. In other words Jesus was claiming to be universal and absolute. This again is self-evident. (I sometimes wonder whether this aspect is so simple that some of today's intellectuals inevitably miss it!). Truth in order to be truth has to be universal. What does it mean? Truth for you has to be truth for me. Now this is not something new. In every aspect of human life we take this as correct. For instance, a 10 rupee note which I possess will remain a 10 rupee note when I hand it over to you - it will fetch you goods worth 10 rupees if you present it at a shop. Now the value of the note remains unchanged as far as you and I are concerned and for both of us this is true and this is applicable wherever the Indian rupee is the currency. We can say the same thing about mathematical axioms, scientific laws or discoveries of medicine. Interestingly, when it comes to truth in religion, we seem to take a different approach. They are any number of learned tomes which take the plea that truth for one person can be different from truth for another person in matters pertaining to ultimate reality. This approach puts truth outside the purview of rational and historic investigation.

There are only three possible basic approaches to truth:
(i) All claims to truth are false. This is a very popular view held by atheists and relativists. However this approach self-destructs because this approach would also be false!
(ii) All claims to truth are equally valid. This is the common pantheistic position. However this approach cannot be valid because it will have to include view (i) as true which is impossible.
(iii) The only alternative that remains is that some views are true and others are false. The moment we make a comparison between two claims to truth, we are (consciously or unconsciously) positing an absolute standard to which the truer claim corresponds more closely. You cannot say A is taller than B unless both of them stand on the same datum which is independent of both of them. Birbal, Akbar's popular minister was once asked whether he could make a line (which was drawn on the ground) shorter without touching it. He accomplished the feat by drawing a longer line by its side! The only problem about this story from a philosophical point of view is that the idea of 'length' is governed by external criteria such as 'numerals' (2 is greater than 1, for example) and 'unit of measurement of length' (meter, foot etc.). Without these criteria, we can only say that one line is 'different' from the other, not 'longer' or 'shorter' than the other!

One of the saddest verses of the New Testament is John 19:38. Pilate asks the most important question possible, 'What is truth?' but does not wait for the answer from the One Who alone is competent to answer it in full and final terms. What provoked Pilate's question? Jesus had just told him (v.37) that 'for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me.' By making this statement, Jesus was delineating another aspect of truth, namely its exclusivity. He implied that those on the opposite side of the truth would not listen to Him. In our country, the Christian position of uniqueness of Christ is treated with disdain being labeled as narrow-minded fanaticism. It has to be recognised, however, that you cannot think with any level of intellectual integrity without being, in some sense, exclusive. For instance, this is a sheet of paper which you are reading now. When you identify this as a 'sheet of paper', you are excluding all entities which are not sheets of paper. In fact, we can confidently say that no sane thinking is possible without thinking exclusively. In John 14:6, Jesus made it clear to Thomas that no-one could come to the Father except through Him.
The exclusivity criterion is also necessary for purpose of verification. Throughout His life, Jesus presented Himself as a verifiable truth. He spoke in legal terms regarding His claim to being the Son of God. He told his audience, for instance, about the testimony of John the Baptist (John 5:33), of the Scriptures (John 5:39), of His miracles (John 14:11) and of His Father (the voice that came from heaven when Jesus was baptised - John 8:18 - it may also be noted that Jesus did not hesitate to refer to Himself as His own witness, a necessary corollary if He was absolute truth). One cannot help but notice that Jesus' claims were susceptible of investigation and He encouraged His disciples to satisfy themselves as to His authenticity. To the disciple who enquired about His abode at the beginning of His ministry, He issued an invitation to investigate - 'Come and see' (John 1:39). After His resurrection, the tomb and the grave-clothes were available for inspection by witnesses (John 20:1-9).
We cannot fail to notice that Jesus told Thomas that He was the Truth. Jesus transferred truth from a category of the merely conceptual to the personal. It would be best to define the adjective 'personal' before we proceed further. This word can be very misleading in the Indian context of Vedantic pantheism. Our philosophical systems encourage the thinking that truth is personal only in the sense that it is subjectively true for the person concerned. What Jesus meant here was quite different - He was saying to Thomas that truth was enshrined in Himself as a Person.

Truth is often confined to the world of ideas. Now ideas have a way of titillating the intellect because the mind is designed to revel in speculative imagination. Much of the progress in science and philosophy has come about by the creative interplay of ideas and hypotheses. But when one deals with questions of ultimate truth to which the human race is expected to respond, it will have to be conceded that additional dimensions beside the purely cerebral have to be allowed for. The mind that we possess is just one part of our total personality. The search for truth needs to engage every part of our being and that which satiates the longing of the human soul has to be necessarily comprehensive and multi-dimensional. The veracity of this statement is not far to seek. From the moment of entry into this space-time world, our understanding stands defined not mentally alone but by relationships - with ourselves, with others and with the world around us. It is therefore eminently reasonable that the One Who claims to meet us at the point of our deepest aspirations should offer His Person as the Truth.
We could incidentally consider an additional aspect of truth in the Indian context. It is all right for anyone to claim that he is the truth but how can I be sure of the claims of Jesus Christ? In the words of Dr. Ravi Zacharias, "Is there a God and if so, has He spoken?" Our religions are replete with oral traditions. The Vedas are considered to be eternal but were put down in writing probably about 20 centuries ago. In many traditions and cultures, truth was passed on by word of mouth before writing skills were developed. In some others, owing to a weak sense of history, preference was for oral transmission despite the availability of a written language. This method suffers from obvious dangers of distortion and corruption in the process of transmission. If God is Truth and He is interested in inerrantly communicating with His people He would cause that truth to be inscripturated. It would thus be permanentised and safeguarded from distortions it was being passed on from generation to generation. It is therefore not a coincidence that both the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ are called the Word of God. One is the written Word and the other the Incarnate Word. We cannot escape noticing the fact that Old Testament Scripture was constantly attested by Jesus both by His teaching and by the fulfilment of prophetic passages in His own life. Further, all future verification of the truth claims of Jesus Christ has been rendered practicable only due to the availability of authentic documents.

I would now invite your attention to a point made in TFT 3 regarding truth as the characteristic of a proposition. In this essay, we have progressed beyond the prepositional to the personal. In TFT 4 we had observed that the ultimate communication from God to the human race had to be incarnational. We shall now see how the Christian doctrine of incarnation avoids the pitfalls of the avatars of Vishnu (the personal finite god of preservation) in Hindu mythology.
For one, avatars are held by some scholars to be illusions although some may hold that they were real but temporary. In other words, the avatar ceased to exist after completion of his task. (Hinduism is silent about Vishnu's existence during the avatars). Jesus, however, assumed His humanity as a zygote in the womb of Mary never to lay it down again. By doing so, He not only affixed His seal of approval on the sanctity of the human race but declared His ultimate commitment to union with redeemed humanity. The mysterious marriage of the Lamb and the Church is between two constitutionally compatible partners - the Bridegroom is God made Man; the Bride is human made participant in the Divine Nature (II Peter 1:4).
Secondly, we have to wrestle with the issue of contradiction incipient in any claim to incarnation. This issue is conveniently skirted in mythological incarnation claims in all religions of the world. Christianity however, addresses the issue squarely. Is it possible for Jesus to be completely Man without ceasing to be completely God without contradiction? In the opening chapter of the Bible we are told that Man was made in the image of God. It is this truth which has been distorted in pantheism into man being part of the divine essence. The Bible on the other hand makes it clear that man is part of creation but bears the image of God. Thus man in one sense is a subset of God. When God intends to become man, He limits Himself (Philippians 2:7) but does not have to change Himself constitutionally as Mankind reflects Him in a special but finite way. Thus the contradiction is averted. We are only left with the sacred mystery of the Divine and human natures unified in the God-man, Jesus Christ. It may also be noted in passing that God as Trinity accounts for the integrity of the Godhead in the incarnation (particularly the death of Christ), an issue that Vishnu had not anticipated!
How shall we respond to Jesus, the Truth? I believe that our response has to be as comprehensive as His revelation. It has to be at every level and dimension of our personality - intellectual, emotional and moral. Only then will we be able to authoritatively communicate the Person of Christ to a lost world.