“Seek and you will find." "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Really? Is there any truth in religion? Different religions and some secular disciplines (e.g., Freudian psychoanalysis, education theorists) make the same claim.
Do the statements correspond with the facts? The concept of truth associated with this approach is called "the correspondence theory of truth.
Questions of fact
Did the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna told in the Gita actually occur?
Which version of the Ten Commandments did Moses actually give the Israelites?
How accurate are the New Testament records of what Jesus said and did?
Did an angel really tell Mohammad what to write?
Limits to the correspondence theory
Some factual claims can't be checked.
Sometimes language is used symbolically, not literally; the truth intended is not on the level of fact--e.g., "You must be reborn." Or a story (mythos in Greek) is told which is not meant to be taken as a report.
Is it raining or sunny? Is there one door in this classroom or more than one? Have a look. To some extent we can check whether our statements of fact correspond with reality, and the correspondence theory of truth thus has some obvious utility. But we can't thus check our deepest conceptual framework for thinking.
Are the ideas of this text consistent with each other? Is this statement or action consistent with the ideal beauty of truth and goodness that the speaker is supposed to represent? How can an incoherent set of thoughts be true?
Limits of the coherence theory of truth
Truth is many-sided; a dogmatic interpretation of one of those sides can block recognition of complementary sides.
One's ideas can cohere nicely, yet be in error, if one's thinking is one-sided or built on a false premise.
Paradox (apparent inconsistency) is sometimes the most helpful way to express a profound realization. "The greatest is the one who serves everyone."
Varieties of (alleged) revelation
An inner realization of supreme truth, beauty, and goodness
A vision
An inspired saying or speech
A person, a life
A book, in whole or in part
Questions about revelation
Does the being to whom the revelation is attributed really exist?
Did the revelatory event really occur?
To what extent did the subject's physical condition and cultural background shape (the reception of) the gift?
How fully did the recipient communicate it?
Has the original record been altered?
What does this revelation mean for us today?
Limits to truth as revelation
There are many claims to revelation that are inconsistent with each other.
One needs scientific, philosophic, and spiritual responsibility in discerning truth.
Acceptance of revelation makes it easy to be intolerant and stop growing.
Revelation must make use of language and ways of thinking appropriate to the receiving culture. It takes inquiry to try to determine its significance for people in a different place, time, language, and culture who have somewhat different spiritual needs.
There is a religious idea that God’s Spirit of Truth illumines the mind so as to facilitate the perception of truth. Whatever one thinks about that idea, there is an experience of intuiting truth. Sometimes we hear or read something that immediately strikes us as having a ring of truth to it. It comes as authoritative, uncommonly insightful, and resonates with the deepest within us.
Limitations to the idea of a spiritual intuition of truth
Intuitions differ; intuition becomes more reliable as the person grows.
Intuitions may be confused by dogma or passion.
You can know the truth, and you can live the truth. Many truths are only comprehended when they are lived. Living the truth carries its own power and authority.
Limitations to the idea of truth as lived
Living true to the best you know today enables one to know more tomorrow, which implies that today’s statements of truth are not final. Since truth is living it cannot be fixed.
Just because a person lives a beautiful life does not proof that every one of his or her beliefs is true. Persons live beautiful lives sometimes partly in spite of, as well as because of, what they believe.