Ophelia’s musings on the meaning of truth: What is truth? Are religious or spiritual beliefs different in kind from scientific or commonsense beliefs? Is truth absolute? (And if not, is that an absolute truth?)

It is interesting that every person who offers me an opinion on the question of what truth is does so by telling me what they ‘believe in’, religiously or otherwise. It is here that we see the intertwining notions of ‘belief’ and ‘truth’. They do not mean the same thing, but it would seem that they are in many ways co-dependant terms (for example, in order for something to be considered the ‘truth’ it must be believed to be true). There are important distinctions to be drawn between these two terms – just because I believe in something does not necessarily mean that that something is true (take, for example, Santa Claus). But if that something cannot be proved to be untrue, is it not plausible that, to me, it would represent the truth until it was proven to be false?    

Let us take a significant example. Some people believe that God created the universe. Others say that the universe was created suddenly in a Big Bang. Still others believe that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time and thus was never begun – and all of these people think that what they believe is the truth. And who is to say that it isn’t? How can we say that it is not the truth until we are certain that it is false? Humanity is not yet at the stage where we can definitively determine who or what created the universe, or whether it was created at all.

This brings us to the problem of certainty and proof. What is certainty? Many people would argue that certainty and proof can only be delivered to us through science and common sense, not religion. If religious (or spiritual) certainty does exist, it must by nature be a very different thing to the certainty of science and common sense, for it cannot be physically proved in the way that these can. In using these terms, I make the connection of science and common sense to the physical world around us, and religion to the world of the abstract and mystical (although we shall see that religion can too often become a corrupt social construct within the physical world). Philosophy is somewhere in between these two worlds – the best way to describe it seems to be that it seeks to explain the world of the abstract by relating it to the physical world around us. It links the world of science to the world of religion.

How does the notion of truth, then, relate to these different worlds? Are there different types of truth, gleaned from different types of experiences? Are there degrees / variations of truth – that is, the notion of truth is not black and white? Humphreys (1974:24) puts forward the view that “there is absolute Truth, which none of us will fully know until we rise in consciousness to its own level, and relative truth, which is all that most of us know about the Truth.” Bur if truth is relative, how do we know that we are all heading towards the absolute Truth (that is, the same truth)? And how can we be as sure as Humphreys is that an absolute Truth even exists?

The element of the question which deals with the notion of absolute Truth is paradoxical – that is, if the absolute Truth is that there is no absolute Truth, there will never be any resolution to either of these statements because they will eternally contradict each other. I would argue that such a situation mirrors the situation which competing belief systems face. The paradox of the question mirrors the paradox of a vast number of contradictory belief systems who all claim to hold the key to ultimate meaning – for if we have a number of groups all claiming that their belief is the only true belief, and that their way is the only right way (take for example Jesus’ “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”- John 14:6) an impossible situation arises. There cannot, in reality, be 10 ‘only ways’, for obvious reasons. This brings us again to the ever-present question of whether believing in something which has not been proven false can constitute belief in some sort of truth. And if this is the case, does this mean opposing beliefs on the same issue can be simultaneously true?

This predicament seems most aptly summed up by Bertrand Russell (1952:4), in his article, “Is There A God?” -  “If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold.”

The question of opposing beliefs can only be discussed (I refrain from saying ‘answered’!) when we examine religious, scientific, and commonsense beliefs, and the different ways in which they help us to form notions of truth.

First and foremost, we must decide what our terms refer to. We have established that, in the most general sense, religious beliefs relate to the abstract and mystical, whilst scientific and commonsense beliefs relate to the physical world around us. These distinctions have become somewhat blurred, however, with science increasingly seeking to explain the metaphysical world in recent years – such as Davies’(1992:40) mention of an attempt to explain the origin of the universe “within the framework of physics” – and religion (as a system) having always possessed an element of the social and political. Even within the realm of religious belief we will see that it becomes important to draw distinctions between personal religion (that is, belief in and worship of God(s)) and religion as a system.

“I think, therefore I am.” Davies (1992:34) notes that Descartes’ statement of the irrefutable reality of his existence contains within it a paradox which stretches throughout the history of human thought. “Thinking is a process. Being is a state. When I think, my mental state changes with time. But the ‘me’ to which the mental state refers remains the same.” Davies argues that this same paradox can be seen to occur in the world around us – although it is constantly changing over months, years, centuries, milleniums, the world itself continues to exist. He argues that “the present fades into the past, and the future ‘comes into being’: the phenomenon of be-coming. What we call ‘existence’ is this paradoxical conjunction of being and becoming.” Davies cites this as the vital reason that people turn to religious beliefs – “People come and go, trees grow and die, even mountains gradually erode away, and we now know the sun cannot keep burning forever. Is there anything that is truly and dependably constant?” When faced with the lack of dependability in the physical world, many people feel that the best thing to believe in is something mystical and abstract, something transcendent. McGrath (1999:29) notes that many people define religion as “local culturally-conditioned responses to the same basic transcendent ultimate reality.” Such a view could be said to relate to Voltaire’s comment that, “If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.” Although probably intended in a different sense, Voltaire nevertheless indicates the fact that people turn to religious belief because they need to believe that there is something greater than themselves. They cannot accept that their own flawed and fallible selves are the ultimate reality, so therefore must either attempt to elevate themselves to the status of a higher being (for example, Buddhism) or believe that they will be saved by a higher being (for example, Western Christianity and Islam).

McGrath (1999:44) claims that one of the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves when dealing with the fields of science and religion is: “Are the insights of science and religion contradictory or complementary?” I would argue that they can be both. Davies (1992:23) states that “science demands rigorous standards of procedure and discussion that set reason over irrational belief.” In this way, scientific beliefs could be said to be in complete opposition to religious beliefs. However Armstrong (1994:200) makes the point that “science demands the fundamental belief that there is a rational explanation for everything; it also requires an imagination and courage which is not dissimilar to religious creativity.” Armstrong (1994:269) further states that “today many people in the West would be dismayed if a leading theologian suggested that God was in some profound sense a product of the imagination. Yet it should be obvious that the imagination is the chief religious faculty. It has been defined by Jean-Paul Sartre as the ability to think of what is not.”  Davies (1992:28) notes that “the key to major scientific advances often rests with free-ranging imaginative leaps or inspiration” rather than logical reasoning, that is, scientific beliefs are often founded on the ability to think of what is not. William James, in his lecture “The Reality of the Unseen” (p13) expresses this phenomenon most clearly: “instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.”

Such a description must also apply to what we call commonsense beliefs, since they are not formed through logical deduction or formal experimentation, but are those beliefs which appear to come naturally to us, often through our everyday experiences. Davies (1992:23) states that “what we call common sense is the product of thought patterns deeply embedded in the human psyche, presumably because they confer certain advantages in dealing with everyday situations, like avoiding falling objects and hiding from predators.” Davies (1992:27) uses the rising of the sun as an example of a common sense belief (or inductive reasoning) which is only true because of the “dependability of nature.” However, who is to say that nature could not change its course? Therefore, according to Davies, “on the basis of induction [common sense], we may conclude only that it is very probable that the law will hold the next time it is tested.” Common sense, therefore, is based only on the way the world happens to be at a certain point in time, whilst science is intent on finding out how all the parts of the world work together and why they work the way they do. If common sense is acceptance, science is inquisition.

We must return to the notion of truth, however, and again we also return to the distinction between the notions of truth and belief. As outlined, scientific beliefs and religious beliefs could be said to be similar in many ways. But this does not mean that scientific truth is the same as religious truth – in fact these two notions could be said to be complete opposites, since one must be proved, and the other cannot be proved. This takes us to a discussion of the relative merits of cognitive knowledge and conative (experiential) knowledge. Stan Rosenthal, in his introduction to the Tao Te Ching (p14) maintains that experiential knowledge is far superior to cognitive knowledge, because “when we seek cognitive knowledge of a thing, that is, understanding of it, the knowledge we gain of that thing is understanding only of its manifestations, which is not knowledge of the thing itself.” Rosenthal is of course speaking about understanding the Tao, and such a concept could be said to represent the essence of personal religious worship (not collective religion). However, such a statement begs the question: is scientific truth more valuable than religious truth? That is, is cognitive thinking (or deduction) more valuable than conative (inductive) thinking? Kung (1996:xxi) asks, “Can we not doubt everything except mathematics and what we can observe, weigh and measure?” This brings us to the issue of doubt and certainty.

Armstrong (1994:1) states that “there is a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and a faith which enables us to put our trust in them.” Any belief in a transcendent reality or being requires a leap of faith, for we cannot be certain (in any mathematical or scientific way) that such a reality exists. But is faith a different type of certainty? A conative certainty rather than a cognitive certainty – not ‘knowing’ but ‘understanding’? In his article “Wittgensteinian Fideism and Religious Skepticism”, Matt Talbert (p17) quotes Wittgenstein as saying, “The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty” – that is, we must be certain of our own beliefs to doubt someone else’s. But what happens when we doubt our own beliefs? Armstrong (1994:218) notes that “[Islamic philosopher] Al-Ghazzali was as aware as any modern skeptic that certainty was a psychological condition that was not necessarily objectively true.” In matters of religious belief this notion is particularly apt, as there is no objective way of proving beliefs (in a scientific sense) and thus any beliefs held are highly subjective. Kung (1996:xxi) notes the problems that this creates when he states that “many are at a loss between belief and unbelief; they are undecided, skeptical. They are doubtful about their belief, but they are also doubtful about their doubting. And there are many who are even proud of their doubting. Yet there remains a longing for certainty. Certainty?”

Pascal [in Kung (1996:61)] states that, “If we must never take any chances we ought not to do anything for religion, for it is not certain. But how many chances we do take: sea voyages, battles. Therefore, I say, we should have to do nothing at all, for nothing is certain. And there is more certainty in religion than that we shall live to see tomorrow. For it is not certain that we shall see tomorrow but it is certainly possible that we shall not. We cannot say the same of religion. It is not certain that it is true, but who would dare to say that it is certainly possible that it is not?” 

Like the notion of truth, certainty is a relative notion. Perhaps the question of whether there is absolute Certainty is just as relevant as that of whether there is absolute Truth. And of course it must be noted that these two notions intertwine. Finding the absolute Truth (if such a thing exists) would provide us with absolute Certainty – for how can anything be more objectively certain than that? Until we are able to know Truth and Certainty, however, we must accept that, in many ways, religious beliefs are often used as a tactic to allay doubt rather than to create certainty. This brings us back to the issue earlier discussed of believing in a transcendent reality only to escape the triviality and imperfection of our own flawed existence. It is this fear of our own mortality which has allowed religious leaders over the centuries to corrupt and control. We shall soon see that the truth achieved by personal worship is an entirely different thing to the ‘truth’ offered by religious systems, the leaders of whom seek to use their power in ways completely contradictory to the ‘beliefs’ which they represent. For we have already seen that truth is a relative notion.

Smith (1963) describes the way in which the meaning of the Latin word religio changed over time, originally representing concepts such as piety, reverence and worship, whilst the modern term ‘religion’ has greatly deviated from this interpretation to mean a belief system which preaches set doctrines. As an example of this, Smith (1963:28-9) cites the title of St. Augustine’s book, De Vera Religione. “Modern predispositions are betrayed in any impulse to translate the title as ‘On the True Religion’, and to suppose that the writer, since he is known to have been a Christian, would believe that the true religion is Christianity. In fact, this would be a misrendering. A closer translation would be ‘On True Religion’; the idea is the order of ‘On Proper Piety’ or ‘On Genuine Worship.’” The book itself makes little mention of Christianity, but strongly emphasises “a warm, reverberating and sustained affirmation of a personal relation to [a] transcendent God.”

Similar ideas on worship were in practice long before St. Augustine’s time and indeed long before the time of monotheism, however. Armstrong (1994:109) states that in the Roman Empire, “people worshipped the gods to ask for help during a crisis, to secure a divine blessing for the state and to experience a healing sense of continuity with the past. Religion was a matter of cult and ritual rather than ideas; it was based on emotion not on ideology or consciously adopted theory.” These ways of worshipping are in keeping with ideas of relative belief and truth. One can hold their own beliefs and worship in their own way without persecution. We could say that personal religious worship is an affirmation of (conative) certainty for believers. Unfortunately, religious systems throughout the ages have often twisted the notion of truth, and have used followers’ fear and uncertainty as powerful weapons against humanity.  Religion as a system, in the wrong hands, can achieve the opposite of what it purports to strive towards.

Many have argued that a symbolic, rather than literal, interpretation is the only way that religious texts can be relevant to a contemporary audience, however, it becomes obvious that lateral symbolic interpretation can, in the wrong hands, be an extremely dangerous tool. Armstrong (1994:449) notes that “Compassion is a particularly difficult virtue. It demands that we go beyond the limitations of our egotism, insecurity and inherited prejudice.” Unfortunately such a thing has proved impossible for the human race. From Joshua’s 6^th Century BCE ‘reformation’ of the Canaanites and their pagan religions (smashing shrines and idols, killing and burning priests) to the Holocaust, “the idea of a personal God, like one of us write large, is fraught with difficulty. If this God is omnipotent, he could have prevented the Holocaust. If he was unable to stop it, he is impotent and useless; if he could have stopped it and chose not to, he is a monster.” (Armstrong,1994:431)

Confucius (Trans. Raymond Dawson, 1993:6) says, in Book 2:3 of the Analects,

“If you lead them by means of government and keep order among them by means of punishments, the people are without conscience in evading them. If you lead them by means of virtue and keep order among them by means of ritual, they have a conscience and moreover will submit.” The keyword to note here is ‘virtue’. Many systems are able to disguise their evil under the veil of ‘virtue.’ Weil (1979:9) describes this on a personal level: “There were some saints who approved of the Crusades or the Inquisition. I cannot help thinking that they were in the wrong. I cannot go against the light of conscience. If I think that on this point I see more clearly than they did, I who am so far below them, I must admit that in this matter they were blinded by something very powerful. This something was the Church seen as a social structure. If this social structure did them harm, what harm would it not do me, who am particularly susceptible to social influences and who am almost infinitely more feeble than they were?” (Weil, 1979:9)

A similar situation arises when we look at the way Copernicus’ and ultimately Galileo’s research into the structure of the solar system was condemned by the Church because such research contradicted their Scriptures. According to Kung (1996:9), “what had to be defended was the legally assured supremacy of theology in the hierarchy of the sciences, the authority of the church in all questions of life and finally – purely and simply – blind, obedient submission to the church’s doctrinal system.” Surely such behaviour could only be seen as an attempt to stem the progress of knowledge and truth, rather than to nurture it – an attempt seen time and time again in the history of organised religion.

In the face of the doubts, the criticisms, the permutation of religion (personal worship) into corrupt social structure, the incompatibility of multiple systems who all lay claim to being the ‘only true’ system – is the idea of an absolute Truth impossible? And even if it was possible, in accordance with Wittgenstein’s idea of the ‘language-game’ and its limitations as discussed in Talbert, the absolute Truth (if there is one) may be something entirely beyond our cognitive comprehension. In this case we could not describe, but only experience it. Perhaps I am experiencing it now, in this very moment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, K. 1994, “A History Of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam”, Ballantine Books.

Dawson, R. (Trans) 1993, “Confucius: The Analects”, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Humphreys, C. 1974, “Exploring Buddhism”, George Allen & Unwin, London.

James, W.  Lecture 3, “The Reality of the Unseen” from “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature” (WWW)

http://human-nature.com/reason/james/chap3.html

Kung, H. 1996, “Does God Exist?” SCM Press, London.

McGrath, A. 1999, “Science & Religion: An Introduction.” Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

Rosenthal, S. “The Tao Te Ching: An Introduction by Stan Rosenthal” (WWW)

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttcstan2.htm

Russell, B. 1952, “Is There a God?” , taken from “The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament 1943-68″ (WWW)

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/rusisgod.htm

Smith, W. 1963, “The Meaning and End of Religion”, Macmillan, New York.

Talbert, M. “Wittgensteinian Fideism and Religious Skepticism” (WWW)

http://www.ai-studio.com/meteorite/pdfs/2.Wittgensteinian.Fideism.pdf

Weil, S. 1979, “Waiting on God”, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.