31 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Truth, Truthfulness
who doubts in the interest of his own purity and honesty. Also poetry, myth, legend—every activity and endowment of man may serve as
5. The a vessel of truth; whether it is so is in Value- each case a question of fact, which judgment. must find its answer partly in the in-
terest of reason and partly in the free personal judgment of the moral person. In this connection the value-judgment (see Rrrscui, AL- BRECHT) has become of great importance. , This does not imply its substitution for the ontological judgment, but it signifies that man as a religious ethical person, together with those of his kind, discovers himself in the midst of a world of values, without the estimation and possession of which he can not live, and the assent to which affords him grasp and support. Man amidst these value-relations is the man of history, the subject of historical conduct and the object of historical science; therefore preeminently the man of religion. In contrast with morality, which is not to be based on the concepts of values and properties (although belonging in this kingdom of values and value-relations) religion, as to its basis and certainty, refers primarily to values and value-relations. Value and truth are its synonyms. Here also absoluteness is to be predicated. In his personal valuations man continuously fulfils absolute estimations. Whoever would permit himself to be deterred from this privilege, through the relativity of comparative rational criticism, would no longer be a spiritually sound person. To the Christian who is really such, Christianity remains the true religion. This conception of religious truth approves itself also in Scripture, although the problem of truth then appeared differently. The Hebrew ’emeth, “ truth,” expresses ‘‘ firmness,” ‘“ faithfulness.”” The Greek alétheia denotes that which is manifest. Universally in the New Testament, truth is the revelation of salvation and happiness, a possession rescuing to life. Hence it is no instruction of the intellect but a worth to be conceived through its appropriation on the part of every religious ethical person. Although from the point of view of purely human observation this appears as the moral act of the one who seeks, yet the peculiar religious judgment is to the effect that the religious man always accepts the knowledge of religious truth as simply a gift or act of God, or a divine revelation; namely, as a finding or being found without merit on the part of the finder.
If, after what precedes, truth is not a mental picture of reality to which mind is passive, but comes to realization under conditions arising out of the structure of the human soul, then truth can be conceived only from conditions under which the human spirit produces and possesses truth. Always in speaking of truth it is customary to have in mind something without, independent of self, an outer reality; this even in reflecting on the ego; but truth results only as this apparent reality (connoting phenomena with things) is investigated and resolved. Truth comes to light in receiving the effects of the objects of one’s interest. How or under what conditions this takes place is for the
6. Summary.
inquiry of the criticism of knowledge. This—according to the manifoldness of inquiring interest— may be criticism of scientific, esthetic, moral, or religious truth. Religious truth is the internal grasp of the objects of the religious interest (‘‘ the will for religious truth ’’), so far as this is manifest to one who is religiously truthful; i.e., has become a factor of his spiritual possession under the conditions peculiar to religious cognition. See also REvea- TION; and RELIGION.
Il. Truthfulness: As duty and virtue, truthfulness has been recognized in the ethics of all nations
at all times. Falsehood from selfish
1. Histor- motive points, on the other hand, to
ical. radical evil in man. Truthfulness is demanded in Scripture expressly and unconditionally (Matt. v. 37; James v. 12). The lax construction in the East of the injunction of the New Testament is illustrated in the work of Chrysostom, ‘‘On the Priesthood.” Guilty of leading by deception a friend into the priesthood, which then he himself evaded, he greatly exults over the “advantage of deceit.’’ The end justifies the means. Otherwise testifies Augustine in De mendacio (395), and in Contra mendaciwm (420). In the latter, on a special case, he takes the positive ground of repudiating the lie of pretense for pious objects. This precedent unfortunately was not followed in the mendacious casuistry which reached its worst phases in Probabilism (q.v.) and mental reservation (see ResERvaTION, Menta). Also on Protestant soil a vigorous construction (Kant, Fichte) was in conflict with a laxer theory (Rothe). In practise a decided improvement has made itself apparent; specially in scientific research and representation, the sense for truth and the will to be truthful have manifestly increased. It isa reproach to the Church that this victory had to be won in combating ecclesiastical antagonism. Moral responsibility for the mistaking of historical fact can first with safety be referred to individuals with the rise of Humanism and the printing of books. The passion for controversy and the interest of partizan conviction on the part of the Reformers also misled some into doing violence to historical truth. The psychology of autobiographies presents a chapter full of interesting riddles. The most admirable enthusiasm for truth can under the circumstances pass over into immoral fanaticism. No longer surprising, then, is the hypocritical pretense of H. S. Reimarus (q.v.), in offering his religion of reason for the security of the religion of revelation (1754), when at least ten years previous he had volunteered a new religion and violently assailed the Christian pretending to defend it. The truthful Lessing afterward had to taste the bitterness of this falsehood, as well as that of the customary anonymous authorship, with which, then as always, was invariably covered something untruthful.
The pathetic complaint of Reimarus was the necessity of double-facedness all his lifetime, and this was the lot of all liberal-minded men under the imminence of orthodox coercion. The situation for science and life has been much relieved; yet the accomplishment of truthfulness in theology and Church is a vital question. The difficulty
Truth, Truthfulness Tucker