In his thought-provoking sermon, Handley Stevens tells us that there are two kinds of truth. First, there is the truth based on reliable, objective evidence, suited to describing the natural world and to giving evidence in a court of law. Secondly, there is the truth which comes from engagement with a particular thing or person. This inevitably varies between people, who engage with the same thing in different ways so that (Stevens comments) no two perceptions of God are the same.
Those, then, are two distinct kinds of truth. Are there any more? Well, yes: there is a third one “performative truth”, described by the philosopher T.L. Austin, in his book How to Do Things with Words (1962). Austin pointed out that there is a form of utterance which is more than just descriptive; it brings something into existence. “I will”, “I bet”, “I promise”, “I curse”, “I bless”, are “performative” utterances of this kind; they bring to existence (e.g.) a contract, or a marriage, or a bond, or a dissolution. A contract exists because of words you uttered (and perhaps wrote down as well); a marriage exists and achieves a quality because of the various sorts of utterance (and actions with meaning) made, not just at the start, but throughout the whole of its lifetime. Austin’s insight is a reminder that truth is not just descriptive; it can be active; it can be creative or destructive. Our religious observance and rituals are full of performative utterances. The Eucharist, above all, is a performative utterance; it is not a mere metaphor: it makes something happen.
The rituals that we perform, then, contain many layers of truth, and so far we have encountered three of them:
1. Material truth. This is Stevens’ objective truth: there are undoubted objective realities in the Gospels.
2. Implicit truth. Here is the truth that comes from Stevens’ “engagement” with a particular thing a person, or a thing, or a craft and the truths derived from that engagement differ from person to person.
3. Performative truth: the truth that is brought into being by an utterance.
Then there is fourth kind of truth: narrative truth or metaphor: a story (e.g. Pride and Prejudice), both fiction and “true to life”; Elizabeth Bennett’s story can neither be dismissed untrue nor accepted as true; it is in the middle ground. It communicates a message, but thinking of it as a metaphor can be laboured; it is the story itself that matters.
These layers of truth are all intrinsic in our observance as Christians but we cannot approach the matter with truth alone for, sooner or later, we will run into self-denying truth. This is truth which contradicts itself and kills itself off as soon as it is uttered. The most direct form of this is the paradox associated with the famously loopy statement of the Cretan Epimenides: “All Cretans are liars”. It is “loopy” in the sense that it loops back to contradict itself however you understand it. Try it! (Tip: remember it is a Cretan who is speaking).
But what do all these layers of truth mean for our fundamental statements of belief and value? If you agree with Stevens’ sermon and, still more, if you agree with my elaboration of it to the point of recognising that there are many kinds of truth, where do you stop? Are there any fundamental principles to which you can give your heart? Well, the deepest principles, those which identify you as a person who thinks and believes, are not actually assertions of truth; they are a statement of faith, axioms which don’t have to be explained or defended. They are just there, features in the landscape of your identity. They are not to be evaluated in terms of whether they are true, but of who you are. Without that essential identity, there is no you to engage with truth at all: you cannot engage with implicit truth; you cannot sympathise with narrative truth nor achieve performative truth. You might even find it hard to see the point of material truth, which is reduced to useless data, littering and clogging the mind.
So there is a paradox here which is richer than Epimenides’ Liar Paradox, but arises from it. Our ability to encounter truth rests on foundations which depend on faith in the principles which give each of us an identity and make each of us a person. Faith beyond reason is the condition of a reasonable encounter with the truth.
David Fleming
PS If anyone else feels inspired to take up this debate about the nature of truth (how many other parish magazines round the country deal with this subject I wonder) more contributions would be welcome.I feel that another interpretation could be put upon the second limerick whereby God is seen as the only guarantor of truth and reality – the tree exists, whether we are there or not, because God maintains it in being. Our route to a truth that is objective ( able to be shared) and authoritative (bound to be shared) is therefore to be found in God through the use of reason and revelation (authoritative, inherited narrative) and love (the attraction of what we sense to be the way of shared fulfillment). But perhaps more of this anon unless you collectively cry ‘Hold, enough!
Stephen Tucker
Respose to sermon of 6th November
David Fleming