Truth in the process of reading

and interpretation: don’t take it

personal
By Ronald de Jong, 19 November 2022

Introduction
The meaning of truth has not been easily taken for granted lately. Debates and discussions
about realist or anti-realist conceptions of truth (arguing respectively that truth is that which is
or is not real, ‘corresponding to reality’) or simply the question if truth is something to strive
for. The discussions and claims about truth not always start from the same definition of what
truth precisely is – with some calling it an ‘event’ (whatever that might mean), other a set of
true propositions, and others even referring to truth as someone or Someone. All the
underlying questions and presuppositions can seem to make it near impossible to have a
proper and clear discussion about the relevance for truth in respect to reading and
interpretation. This is made even more complex when Christians interpret truth not
propositionally, but personally: truth is a Person, namely Jesus. Hereby arguing from John
14,6, where Jesus states that He is “the way, the truth and the life”. Taking truth as something
personal instead of propositional complicates the discussion about reading, knowledge and
truth quite a bit, and so it is helpful to investigate if Jesus’ statement has any epistemological
relevance for the act of reading and interpretation.
In this paper, I will therefore investigate three things. First, the meaning of truth, or ἀλήθεια,
in John 14,6. Second, to see in what way this personal definition of truth functions. Third, the
question if this meaning of truth can in any way contribute to the process of reading and
interpreting texts (PRIT), granted that (i) reading is a source of knowledge, i.e. a process
through which we acquire knowledge, and (ii) the classic notion of knowledge as justified true
belief.
To find out the meaning of ἀλήθεια, two steps are required. First, the broader picture of John
14, in which Jesus talks with (or rather to) His disciples immediately before his crucifixion.
Jesus talks about the house of His Father, to which He goes. The disciples “know the way”.
Unto which Thomas asks how they can know the way. On this question Jesus replies by
saying He is the way, the truth and the life. Second, the exegetical focus on verse 6: why does
Jesus take way, truth and life as combination, what do they mean separately and combined?
To find out the (possible) contribution to PRIT, it is important to investigate if this meaning is
even relevant.

John 14,1-14
John 14,1-14 is part of a longer conversation between Jesus and His disciples, immediately
before His crucifixion. Jesus reassures His disciples and emphasizes again that He and the
Father are one. Jesus’ departure is necessary in order to prepare a place for them in the
Fathers’ house. Jesus assumes His disciples know where that place is and which way leads to
that place. Thomas, one of His disciples, does not and asks what the way is, unto which Jesus
says that He Himself is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except
through me. ”To have seen Jesus is to have seen the Father, because He and the Father are
one.

John 14,6 and the meaning of truth

Zooming in on verse 6, it becomes clear from the Greek that ‘way’ is the primary predicate,
explained by ‘the truth’ and the ‘life’.1 This way is not literal, but pertains to a course of
behavior, as a ‘way of life’.2 This ‘way’ also has clear connotations of the Old Testament,
where Gods commandments serve as ‘way of (or: towards) life’. In Psalm 86, the psalmist
prays “Teach me thy Way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy Truth” (Ps. 86,11). The juxtaposition of
way and truth, therefore, is in line with the ethical juxtaposition of Gods way (i.e. His law) as
life.3 Thus, ‘way’ and ‘life’ can be thought together, but what about ‘truth’? Schnackenburg,

1
Raymond Edward Brown, The Gospel According to John. XIII-XXI, 1st ed., The Anchor Yale Bible 29A (New
Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2008), 621.
2
Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and William Arndt, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 691.
3
For an outline of the meaning of ‘truth’ in Greek and its Hebrew cognates, see: Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey
William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids (Mich.):
Eerdmans, 1995), 232–47.
in one of the best commentaries written on the Gospel of John, writes: “In other words, by
revealing the truth that leads to life and by communicating true life to those who accept and
realize it in faith, Jesus leads everyone who believes in him to the goal of his existence, "to
the Father", and thus he becomes the "Way".” 4 The meaning of Jesus’ statement, then, is this.
Jesus uses the Old Testament phraseology and applicates it to Himself: He reveals the truth,
i.e. the way towards true life, towards the Father, thereby serving Himself as the way towards
the Father.

Personal truth
What can be meant with the statement that truth is a Person? 5 It does not necessarily exclude
the notion of truth as a propositional one. But, the type of claim made by proponents of this
statement use it apologetically. The motivation behind such a statement is to enable an
encounter with Jesus, the incarnated Truth. This claim is not meant to be epistemic, but
apologetic and theological
But, does it make sense? If truth is a person, can that explain the trueness of situations or
propositions? Does the proposition ‘It rains outside’ become true insofar as it relates to Jesus?
It is hard to see how the truth of that proposition relates to the person of Jesus. If truth is
equated with the person of Jesus, then what exactly do proponents of this view have in mind
when it comes to epistemic truth? It seems that by shifting truth from an epistemological
concept to a theological one, a proper (epistemological) understanding of knowledge is lost.
An epistemology of reading, of acquiring knowledge about texts, and in its wake the
epistemic concept of truth ceases to be meaningful.

PRIT and John 14,6?

It is time to look whether (i) the meaning of truth in Jesus’ statement in John 14,6 epistemic
significance and (ii) if it can contribute to PRIT. Regarding the first point, it becomes clear
from the wording in John 14,6 that Jesus’ usage of ‘truth’ is explaining His main claim that
He is the Way towards the Father. ‘Truth’ is not propositional in this sense, but juxtaposed
with the ‘way of life’ that God commands His people throughout the Old Testament. ‘Truth’
has no epistemological meaning in these verses. The claim that ‘Truth is a person, not an
4
Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium. III Teil, Kommentar zu Kap. 13-21 von Rudolf Schnacken-
burg, 4th ed., Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder, 1982),
73.
5
An exemplar of this position is Sean McDowell. Brief position taken from: “Truth Is a Person—Not Simply An
Idea,” Sean McDowell, accessed November 19, 2022, https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/truth-is-a-person-not-sim-
ply-an-idea.
abstract set of ideas’ fails to (i) make clear how this holds up against the intertestamentary
meaning of ‘truth’; (ii) relate to truth as correspondence to reality; (iii) account for a
verification or falsification of even very basic claims in life. As to the second point, one
should try to imagine how reading and interpretation can function with a personal concept of
truth. Possible ways of how this can function remain unconvincing. How does acquiring
knowledge work when the classic notion of knowledge is replaced for this personal one? It is
hard to imagine how truth as a Person can serve as definition of knowledge, as knowledge is
bereft of its epistemic qualifier and instead is given a theological and personal qualifier. It is
therefore difficult to see how acquiring (textual) knowledge works if its epistemic basic is
replaced by a non-epistemic one. When the epistemological leg is pulled out from under the
chair, it is difficult to make sense of reading and interpreting texts.

Conclusion
I started with the observation that truth has not been easily taken for granted. This becomes
even more so when truth is interpreted Personally, referring to Jesus, instead of realistically,
referring to (claims) about reality. The common argument from the Bible, John 14,6, has been
put to the exegetical test of whether it can properly function as an argument for their case. I
have tried to show that it cannot. Instead, any possible contribution of a personal concept of
truth to PRIT fails to make sense of knowledge as a justified true belief and remains
unconvincing.