I know it has been a while
since my last post. Since then I moved and changed jobs. I accepted
a position at a great justice-focused organization, HOPE CommUnity
Center (www.hcc-offm.org),
which I am sure I will be sharing more about in future posts.
But today's theme is
another. Its has to do with confusion around how we use the term
“truth” or “true.” In certain juridical or contractual
settings it is common to invoke the oath to “tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Some versions add as a
final phrase, “so help me God.” Usually in this setting, what is
being declared is a commitment to express what one understands to be
an accurate accounting of some observed event or set of facts. Not
living up to this commitment would involve failing to account for all
that one knows about the event or intentionally mis-representing what
one observed. In other words, it would involve giving false
testimony, telling a lie.
The same understanding is
employed when we say, for example, that a particular story is a true
story.
The suggestion is that the events or details involved literally took
place, that they represent a factually accurate accounting of the
incident. The contrast would be a fictional story, a story that is
about imaginary events or people; events or people that are not real.
Where
the rub appears for me is when the use of language I have just
summarized leads us to the equating fact with truth. As I have
expressed in earlier posts (see, for example, "A Strange Mix"),
there are many things in the Bible that I do not believe represent
literal facts. The creation story is one. The first chapter of Genesis describes a flat earth with a bowl-shaped dome over it, with moon
and sun traveling across the dome. As a person of the 21st
Century, it is impossible for me to understand this account as
representing accurate factual material. Similarly there are aspects
of the so-called “history” of the People of Israel in the Hebrew
Scriptures that from the perspective of modern historical research
would appear not to be based in a factually accurate accounting.
Similarly, between the Gospels we find contradictions in the account
of Jesus' life, suggesting that not all accounts are fully factually
accurate.
Now, the fundamentalism within which I grew up could not admit to any such judgments concerning scripture. Contradictions had to be explained
away. Thus the biblical survey courses at Moody Bible Institute were
titled “Bible Synthesis.” Claiming the over-all authorship of
God, God's self, passages were pulled from different authors and
places in scripture to seam together a single and allegedly
internally consistent narrative. Needing to counter “modernist”
claims concerning evolution, it was affirmed that the Genesis
creation is a literal factual accounting of how the world came into
being just a little over 5,000 years ago. The idea within
fundamentalism is that if we could have been witnesses as the world
was being created, we would have seen before our very eyes the appearances
of the various aspects of the earth and universe as God called them
out. We would have witnessed literally God taking up clay and
shaping a man, as well as surgically removing Adam's rib and forming
woman. And within the milieu of this biblical fundamentalism, to
claim otherwise would be regarded as undermining the truth
of the Bible. Similar glosses would be made to address other "difficulties" in the biblical narrative. Truth, according to this view, is to be understood in the sense of the “true
story” referenced above, as contrasted to falsehood or fiction.
"There are parts of the Bible I believe to be
factually inaccurate."
However, over the years I have come to the
conclusion that there is another way of understanding this and it has
to do with what we mean when we use the word “truth.” A helpful
distinction, I believe, is to separate our understanding of “truth”
from “fact”. There are parts of the Bible that I believe
to be factually inaccurate. Some sections, like the creation story, were
in my way of thinking never intended to be thought of as fact (in the
literal, scientific way we imagine today). This does not mean
however that these biblical passages are lacking in truth.
My
view is that for
something to be true does not require that it be grounded in fact or
that it be a factually accurate description.
At times I have used the story of Pinocchio as an example. I
suspect there are few of us who would claim that the story of the
wooden puppet who became a living boy and whose nose grew every time
he told a lie is an historical or factual accounting of events.
Nevertheless, the story being fictitious does not remove it's truth,
does it? Is not the truth of this story something about the
importance of being honest and the downside of being dishonest?
Similarly, concluding that portions of the biblical accounting of
Israel's history or of Jesus' life are not historically grounded or
factually accurate does not remove their truth value. Rather, we
must ask ourselves: what was the author wanting us to understand,
learn or grow in as we hear his narrative? Is it God's greatness
or faithfulness in the life of the Hebrew people? Is it a story to
help us understand the profound significance Jesus had in the life of
the early Christian community? These are the truths
in these accounts which stand independent of the facticity of the
account itself.
So when I hear someone talking about what is
true or what is required for something to be true, I find it helpful
to keep this distinction in mind. For me, factual accuracy is one
thing. Truth is something else. And the validity of the latter does
not depend on meeting the criteria of the former.