“Buy the Truth and Sell It Not:” Living as People of Truth in a Post-Truth World
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In the late nineteenth century, the modern philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche addressed the famous question that Pilate put to Jesus: “What is truth?” Nietzsche's answer is arresting: “truth” is nothing more than “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.” Truth, he says, is “a kind of error without which a certain species of living cannot exist.” “All that exists,” he says, “consists of interpretations,” and what we call “truths” are merely “illusions that we have forgotten are illusions.” So there are no objective “truths;” there are only claims to truth made by people who are out to get something. Anyone claiming truth is only exercising the “will to power.” In other words, when people claim that something is “true,” what they are trying to do is control a situation or dominate those around them. In the late twentieth century, the postmodern philosopher Richard Rorty echoed this sentiment when he said that truth is nothing other than “what your contemporaries will let you get away with saying.”
And then in the early twenty-first century, the celebrated Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote a very short book with a very striking title: On Bullshit. (Please pardon the language – it really is the title). People who produce bovine scat are not necessarily liars, Frankfurt argues. Instead, they are people who make all sorts of claims (usually to benefit themselves) without proper regard for the truth. In other words, their goal may not be to spread untruths, but they are going to say whatever they need to say to produce some desired end—whether or not what they say is true. Accordingly, truth and falsehood simply become irrelevant.
When I first read Nietzsche a couple of decades ago, his assertions struck me as the wild-eyed rantings of a frustrated academic. (And, truth be told, at the level of logical analysis his claims do not hold up well.) And after hearing Rorty try to defend his claims in a small room packed with analytic philosophers, I found it increasingly harder to take his claims seriously. As a Christian theologian, I could appreciate the inadvertent testimony offered by these atheists to the doctrine of original sin (after all, people will do all sorts of things, including make truth claims, in efforts to promote themselves and oppress others). But I couldn't find good arguments for their claims, and I struggled to see how widespread the impact could be.
However, when one observes the current state of socio-political discourse in the United States, it is sometimes hard not to think that the views promoted by Nietzsche and Rorty and described by Frankfurt have won. One side in particular seems to think that reality is largely socially-constructed and tends to view almost everything through the lens of power and privilege. In other words, the world is only what we say it is, and if we say it differently, then that makes it different. Indeed, even biological reality (e.g., sex) must be malleable enough to be conformed to socially-constructed reality (e.g., gender), and anyone who is not convinced that men can get pregnant or who denies that these pregnant men have a right to destroy the vulnerable humans in their wombs are at risk of being labeled and canceled. Many on the other side also seem to operate with no commitment to make claims that correspond to reality; instead, they just say whatever strikes them as politically expedient. In other words, if we don't like how things are going, we will just assert some “alternative facts”—so if we just brazenly say that Ukraine started the war with Russia and that the Ukrainian president is a dictator, we can get what we want.
Either way, all too often truth is a casualty. At best it is a quaint old notion—and we should view all claims to truth as expressions of the will to power. As Christians, we live in this world of politics and struggle, and we are not immune to political discourse. To speak plainly, we are always under pressure to conform. But we are told in Scripture to “not be conformed to this world;” instead we are called to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Rom 12:2). We are called to be people of truthfulness, people of the truth. And while the concept of “truth” in Scripture and Christian theology is deeply personal and thus cannot be reduced to propositional content, it is certainly not less than correspondence with reality. Thus the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms: “Buy the truth and sell it not” (Prov 23:23).
We live in a world in which information has never been easier to access. (As one friend of mine puts it, we basically have the Library of Alexandria in our pockets all the time.) But it is also a world teeming with mistaken claims and deliberate misinformation. Admittedly, it can be hard to get to the truth about various matters of importance. But for Christians, playing fast and loose with the truth cannot be an option. Thus we dare not confine ourselves to echo chambers that tell us only what we want to hear and merely reinforce what we already believe. These echo chambers—cable news, podcasts, social media, etc.—are alluring. In some instances, these deal in misinformation. And in all too many cases, they trade in selectively packaged partial truths and “whataboutisms” that effectively distract, terrify, and outrage us. But these echo chambers, however comfortable they may be, are also threats to the life of the mind and the health of the soul.
On the contrary, Scripture tells us to “buy the truth.” In other words: pursue it. Grapple with it. Let it unsettle us and challenge us. Let it set us free. And “sell it not.” In other words: don't surrender it. Don't give in to the pressures to conform. Don't be intimidated by the common threats. Don't look away from what is really happening. Don't change the subject or distract from whatever is inconvenient or troublesome for “our side.” Don't respond to serious concerns by saying, “Well, look at what the other guys did.”
The New Testament exhorts us to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Sometimes it seems as though we are tempted to one or the other side of this exhortation: sometimes we hesitate to say what needs to be said so that we do not offend, and sometimes we speak the truth in ways that are long on conviction but decidedly short on compassion. Either way, we miss the mark.
But make no mistake: this is our calling. Following the Christian tradition, we know that love entails (at least) two vital elements. First, to love someone or something (say, an institution) is to desire the flourishing of that person or thing. If I love my son, I genuinely want what is best for him; if I love my alma mater, I want what is best for the school. If I say that I love my son but show no concern for his well-being, then you will not believe me. And you shouldn't. Second, to love someone or something is to desire the proper kind of union with that person or thing.
In the current political climate, the pressure to conform can be powerful. Indeed, it can crush our convictions and suffocate our sanctification. We are told that we must simply accept certain things just to keep a “seat at the table” of political power. We are told that we should not challenge the wrong people; after all, if the people in power are “on our side,” then we need to go along with what is happening even if some aspects of it trouble us. We face many temptations: to believe what comforts us and reject what challenges us; to share the part of the truth that benefits us and “our side;” to shave or carve it down so that we can more easily “score points” or “own” someone in debate; to make things up or engage in “whataboutism” when we find ourselves without a satisfying answer to difficult questions; to compromise out of fear, or, alternatively, to use truth merely as a way of vanquishing our “enemies”—the very people whom we are called to love.
In a post-truth world awash in cynicism, a deeply Christian commitment to truth will stand out as an anomaly—and as a beacon of light and hope. Let us be people of the truth. In a post-truth world marked by toxic discourse where the purpose so often seems to be destruction and division, let us be people who speak the truth in love. Let us be people whose very patterns of speech demonstrate that we desire both the flourishing of “the other” and proper union with them.
The truth about the truth is that it will both humble us and give us courage. So let us pray for humility and courage—humility to admit what we do not know, courage to seek the truth; humility to share the truth as fellow-seekers who do not “know it all,” and courage to speak truth to power.
Thomas H. McCall holds the Timothy C. and Julie M. Tennent Chair of Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary.