This might be painfully obvious to those well versed in philosophy, or I may be completely wrong about it, but I think its interesting and fairly foundational to much else.
As I was driving down the Trans-Canada Highway I was thinking about some conversations I’ve had with people who do not believe that there is truth, on the on hand, and those who simply equate truth with Christ(“I am the truth”) on the other. The most obvious answer to the first is that it is a statement that is claimed to be true that they are giving when they say there is no truth. In order for that to be true there must be at least that one truth. However, I thought that some might simply try to redefine truth to suite there purposes and so I started thinking what we mean by the word truth, and(especially since I’m trying to slug through Aquinas and he talks a lot about this) the word being came to mind. Truth is being, or rather a statement about something that is. Truth, maybe, is something that is only conceptual or logical, whereas being is what is real. Existence is a property of all things that exist, truth is the concept associated with them. If this is so, then to say there is no truth is essentially equivalent to saying there is no being, nothing exists. This is proved false, at the very least, by Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum. I can at least know that I exist to do the doubting that I exist: this is truth. There are a billion other things which exist, not to mention the source of all being: God(“I am”), but I think the cogito is the simplest to prove.
In addressing the other, particularly Christian, objection to truth, I think one must properly interpret the passage that it refers to. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” To say that Christ is truth, generically, is equivalent to saying that Christ is the way, generically. This would mean that if I ask the way to get to Calgary, the only appropriate answer would be “Christ!” This is obviouly meaningless, since the “way” referred to is qualified in the next clause: “no one comes to the Father but by me.” This is the same with truth. It is meaningless to say that Christ is truth generically. Rather he is the truth about coming to the Father. This misunderstanding is responsible for much suspicion in the Church of the notion of theological or philosophical truth. This suspicion, I think, is partially responsible for many young people who reject Christianity because when they question something they are told to just believe and not doubt.
