Truth: more than facts
More things need to be true than we usually realise.
Re-Assembling Reality #14, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer
In the last few Essays we have picked apart truth in any number of ways. We considered universal and relative truths (#8, #10); objective and subjective truths (#7, #10, #11); and phenomenological and noumenological truths (#13). But throughout this we have assumed that truth is a property of factual statements. In this Essay we will consider a kind of truth that is not restricted to facts.
What is a statement?
A statement is a sentence that is either true or false.
That seems simple enough. If we wanted to make it look less simple we could dress it up and say that any statement, X, can be used to create a meaningful (though possibly untrue) sentence of the form “It is true that X.” And then to bring it back to earth we could reel off some examples:
— “Squares have four sides” is a statement. The sentence “It is true that squares have four sides” is meaningful. As it happens, the sentence “It is true that squares have four sides” is also true, and necessarily true.
— “My name is Peter” is a statement: is true if the speaker’s name is Peter, and it is false if the speaker’s name is not Peter.
— “Triangles have four sides” is also a statement. The sentence “It is true that triangles have four sides” is meaningful, albeit necessarily false.
That all seems so obvious, so general, that we may ask if there is anything that is not a statement. And,indeed, there are all sorts of things that aren’t statements. Anything that does not, in a formal logical sense, have the property of being true or false is not a statement. Anything which cannot form a meaningful sentence of the form “It is true that X.” Take a few examples:
— “Peter!” is an exclamation, not a statement. It is neither true nor false. The statement “It is true that Peter!” is not even wrong: it’s meaningless.
— A person whose name is Peter is a person, not a statement. We cannot even say “It is true that [Peter]” because Peter is not a word to be said, but a person to be known.
— “Stand up!” is an instruction, not a statement. It is neither true nor false. The sentence “It is true that stand up!” is not meaningful, and therefore cannot be true or false. Although “Stand up!” is neither true nor false, it is still meaningful. If someone says to you “Stand up!” and you stand up, it is clear that they have effectively conveyed meaning to you.
It may also be noted that “Stand up!” requires a response. If your name is Peter, “Peter!” may elicit a response. This stands in contrast to factually true statements which do not generally require a response. If someone says to you “Squares have four sides,” you may have learned something, but you do not need to do anything about it.
What does the bible think is true?
While the last few Essays have focused on science, science does not have a monopoly on an interest in truth. Truth is a central concept in many religions as well. Consider, for example, Jesus’ claim that, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn. 8:31–32.)
What is this truth that Jesus says will set us free? Unfortunately, we do not need to scratch very far below the surface to realise that Jesus, along with a host of the bible’s authors, was a terrible logician. Whatever “truth” Jesus expected us to learn from his teachings, whatever truth he believed will set us free, it does not fit within the framework of factual truth we have outlined above.
To get a handle on a biblical picture of truth, let us start with the writings of the Apostle Paul. In his letter to the church in Galatia he asked, “Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (Gal. 5:7.) It is possible to obey instructions (“Stand up!”). It is possible to obey people (Peter). The question, “Who kept you from obeying Peter?” is meaningful. But it is not possible to obey a logical truth (“My name is Peter”). The question, “Who kept you from obeying my name is Peter?” is not meaningful.
We must conclude either that Paul was writing things that were meaningless, or that, when Paul wrote of “truth”, he had in mind something other than logical, factual truth. Paul is not alone. The same issue crops up again and again throughout the bible.
Biblical truth also has some rather unexpected properties. It is sometimes portrayed in the bible as the opposite of evil. Note John’s parallelism when he writes,
“Everyone who does evil hates the light, …
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.”
(Jn. 3:20–22.)
Paul makes a similar parallelism when he writes,
“Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.”
(1 Cor. 13:6.)
This moral aspect is something that a simple logical statement of the facts generally does not have. In neither of these passages would the substitution “squares have four sides,” make any sense. “Whoever lives by squares have four sides comes into the light”? There is nothing within Christian thinking to suggest that the four-sidedness of squares would bring a person into the light. And it is not at all clear how you would live by squares have four sides, even if you wanted to.
Even in the situation where truth is used in the bible to refer to factual statements, this is often in the context of factual statements with moral consequences. Zechariah’s exhortation,
“Speak the truth to each other,
and render true and sound judgment in your courts,”
(Zech. 8:16)
refers to situations in which, were the truth not spoken, a person may be treated unjustly. The statements imagined are not so much, “F=ma,” as, “This man stole my cow.” Truth in these situations is not cerebral but moral and relational.
Indeed, a key aspect of truth is the speaker’s relationship to God. For this reason, John can write,
“Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory,
but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth.”
(Jn. 7:18.)
This is utterly distinct from the way factual truth operates. If you declare that squares have four sides, it does not make any difference whether you are seeking to boost your own reputation as a geometer, or seeking to boost your teacher’s reputation as a pedagogue, it is still true.
If truth is understood to be the opposite of evil, and also moral, oriented to justice, relational, and glorifying to God, it should not be surprising that Jesus would say,
“I am … the truth.”
(Jn. 14:6.)
Within Christian thought, Jesus is seen as all of these things: the opposite of evil, and also moral, oriented to justice, relational, and glorifying to God. It all fits. But Jesus is not logically, factually true. He cannot be. He is a person, not a statement. The sentence “It is true that Jesus,” is simply not meaningful.
Either Jesus (like Paul) is saying something meaningless, or Jesus (like Paul) is talking about something other than factual truth. Given the apparently widespread and coherent use of this “other type of truth” conceived of in the bible, we may do well to understand it on its own terms, rather than attempting to shoe-horn it into a Modern view of facticity.
Returning to Paul’s question to the Galatians, it is entirely meaningful to ask, “Who hindered you from obeying Jesus?” This interpretation also fits well with the context, in which Paul refers to Jesus five other times in the first seven verses of that chapter (Gal. 5:1–7).
In light of this discussion, we can revisit the verse with which we started this section:
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
(Jn. 8:31–32.)
Asking “What do we come to know through holding to Jesus’ teachings?” is asking the wrong question. The question is rather “Whom do we come to know though holding to Jesus’ teachings?” And the answer is “Jesus.” And when you know Jesus, Jesus will set you free.
This interpretation is borne out four verses later when John reiterates:
“If the Son [that is, Jesus] sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
(Jn. 8:36.)
How we interact with truth
It is clear that these two kinds of truth — factual truth and relational truth — are different. It is worth taking a moment to consider how we interact with each. As a starting framework, it is instructive to consider the distinction which Martin Buber drew between what he termed “I-It” encounters and “I-You” encounters [1].
I-It and I-You
When I engage in an I-It encounter, I am at one side of the encounter, and the other side of the encounter is considered an object. When I engage with an I-You encounter, I am at one side of the encounter, and the other side is considered a person.
In I-It encounters, I may learn facts about the other. But in knowing about the other, I do not come to know the other. I am distinct from them. I can hold them at arm’s length and view them dispassionately. The relationship (if that is what it can be called) is impersonal. I leave it unchanged; both in the sense that it does not change me, and in the sense that I do not change it.
In I-You encounters, I come to know the other. Certainly, I may also learn about them, but the facts which are known serve to know the person. In coming to know that person, I establish a connection with them. I know them, and care for them, passionately. The relationship (for so it must be called) is deeply personal. I cannot leave it unchanged, because taking part in the relationship changes me, and I change it.
It may be that I have an encounter with a person, but I treat the situation as an I-It encounter. I do not encounter the other as a person, but as an object. The shop assistant selling me a bar of chocolate may as well be a vending machine with a face. I know that their name is Sally, and they are a trainee, because their badge says so. But I do not know them, and I do not care. The interaction is impersonal, and I leave the shop unchanged.
It may be that I have an encounter with an object, but I treat the situation as an I-You encounter. I know the house where I grew up. I don’t just know about it; I know it. I have a connection with it, and I care for it. I can walk past a hundred walls with graffiti on, but graffiti on that one house would move me. Not because I own it, or because I live there; I never owned it, and I left it many years ago. But I am moved because my relationship with it is deeply personal. To visit it, so see it, to even think of it — so many memories — I cannot leave unchanged.
Engaging with factual and relational truth
It is often appropriate to engage with factual truths in an I-It fashion. They are distinct from me. I can hold up “F=ma” at arms length and view it dispassionately. The test of whether I know F=ma is whether I can write down the correct answer in an exam. But knowing it does not change my life.
It is often appropriate to engage with relational truths in an I-You fashion. I come to know Jesus. I may learn facts about him, but these serve the purpose of coming to know him, as a person. The test of whether I know Jesus is whether he changes my life. If I write down all the correct answers about him in an exam, but walk out unchanged, I do not know Jesus.
If we approach the relational truths of religion as though they were factual truths, we utterly miss what is happening. A training in science may set someone up to approach the bible dispassionately. A person may carefully dissect each claim: Considering them at arm’s length. Ensuring at all times that no passion is aroused. Sectioning off any and all parts that might change their way of thinking, or their way of living. Focusing on those parts which require no personal response.
That is how they were told as scientists to assess the truth. And yet that excludes exactly the central truths which the bible would convey.
A return to two-list-ism?
Right back at the start of this series (Re-Assembling Reality #1) we set out a series of dichotomies that people often relate to science and religion: visible against invisible; objective against subjective; knowledge against faith. We also insisted (in Re-Assembling Reality #2) that these two lists should be thoroughly jumbled up, with both science and religion being intimately connected with ideas in both Column 1 and Column 2.
By introducing a distinction between factual truth and relational truth, we seem to have reverted to two-list-ism. If science cares about factual truth and religion cares about relational truth then we have finally found the dichotomies we need to demark science and religion. But it is not that simple.
First, while religion (as illustrated here by Christianity) often cares deeply about relational truth, it is by no means indifferent to factual truth. The Apostle Paul, for all his interest in relational truth, insists that Christian faith stands or falls on the fact of the Jesus’ resurrection:
“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.”
(1 Cor. 15:14–15.)
Clearly, we cannot restrict religion to only engage with relational truth. But what about the other direction? Can we restrict science to only engage with factual truth? Is it ever appropriate (or even necessary) for science to embrace relational truth?
The science of changing the world
Conservation science finds itself in an interesting predicament. Science is very good at making descriptive statements: statements about how the world is. It can even make predictions: statements about how the world will be, about how it could be if certain conditions are fulfilled. Consider the statement,
If we continue to cut down bamboo forests at the current rate, pandas will be extinct within ten years.
This is a good scientific statement. It is descriptive. It makes a prediction. That prediction is testable: you keep cutting down forests at the current rate and see if you have any pandas left in ten years. This is good science. But it is terrible conservation.
Conservationists want to make normative statements: not just how the world is, or how it could be, but how it should be. The world should have pandas in it. Conservationists, if they are worthy of the name, necessarily move beyond predictions about wiping out pandas, and prescribe the actions necessary to intervene in that prediction:
If we continue to cut down bamboo forests at the current rate, pandas will be extinct within ten years. Therefore we should stop cutting down bamboo forests!
This latter statement is a call to action. Calls to action are in the remit of relational truths, rather than factual truths. The call to action also has moral overtones: saving pandas is somehow right. Again, this moral aspect puts us in relational-truth territory.
There are numerous reasons people may put forward for why we should help pandas: We share the planet with them; We have a duty of care because it was us who imperiled them in the first place; Pandas earn us more money alive than dead… Whatever reason we give, that reason situates us in relation to pandas. That relationship may be along-side them, serving their interests, or ensuring they serve ours. But it is still a relationship. This is a whole different discussion from considering the truth of “F=ma”.
Once this moral claim has been raised, the genie is out of the bottle. We cannot move back to the comfortable world of pure facts by simply denying or refuting the conservationists’ claim.
To insist, “We should not stop cutting down bamboo! We should leave the pandas to die” is to reject the conservationists’ normative statement by making another normative statement. We might try to justify the rebuttal: “Pandas are an evolutionary failure and we need not trouble ourselves with them.” But this confronts the conservationists’ moral, relational claim with a moral claim that sets us (evolutionary successes) in relation to pandas (evolutionary failures).
The conversation has shifted. Whether we agree with conservation scientists or disagree with them, the discussion invokes relational truths. There are four positions that may be taken from here:
- Conservation science is incoherent and should be abandoned.
- Conservation science is incoherent but should be pursued anyway.
- The remit of “conservation” should be restricted so that it does not urge a response.
- The remit of “science” should be expanded so that it does urge a response.
Few people are eager for Option #1. Certainly, few conservation scientists would endorse it.
Many people might end up with Option #2 simply because they uncritically walk into it. If they had to reflect on the issue they would admit that science is descriptive and conservation is prescriptive, and that might make them uncomfortable. But they don’t reflect on it, because they are busy saving pandas.
I cannot think of many people who would embrace Option #3. If we are going to have conservation, let it conserve.
This leaves Option #4. And this option is far from crazy. Indeed, while conservation science may be the goad that bought the situation to our attention, we find that science in general urges a response. All science changes the world.
Some science changes the world in big bold ways: Evolutionary science informs our understanding of our relationship to the rest of the created order. Medical science changes our ability to live and flourish in different situations. Some science changes the world in small ways: A project to build a laser means that the world contains one more laser and one less unemployed physicist.
Science is never done accidentally. Certainly, there may be serendipitous discoveries — a chance observation of how a Frisbee wobbles in flight may provide the inspiration needed to solve deep problems in quantum electrodynamics. But that chance observation only led to insight because someone (in this case, Richard Feynman) had spent several decades learning and wrestling with the key mathematical ideas, because he believed that this was something which was worth doing. More than that, he believed it was worth doing by him. Those years of training were not accidental, but purposeful. Training — whether in science or any other field — cannot be otherwise. And science cannot be done without training.
At very least, the opportunity cost of science — the hours, years, spent in a lab, rather than with your kids at home; the billions of dollars spent on particle accelerators, rather than on clean drinking water for sub-Saharan Africa — attests to the fact that, at least tacitly, someone thinks that this science should be done.
Science makes, indeed lives by, normative relational claims.
Being true
The formation of a scientist involves imparting of information (like knowing that F=ma), training of skills (like knowing how to align a laser), and inculcation of academic virtue (like knowing when to doubt your own ideas).
Information can be learned from textbooks.
Skills can be learned in lab courses.
Virtue is cultivated by slow, hard work with others. It is established by listening to advice, being confident in your own convictions, and yet humble in the face of correction. It is a process of deciding and learning what is important, what is worth doing, how ideas fit together, how they fit into us, and how we fit into them. It is honing the tacit understanding of when to cast out your favourite theory, or when to hold on to it against all odds.
Academic virtue is growing to love your equipment. To know — personally — the time and sweat and tears that went into the installation of each detector, and to feel the responsibility that is entrusted to you in looking after them. To carry and honour the weight of their history, and to know the tension between that and the call of upgrading, replacing, and moving on.
When we think about “research integrity” we often imagine it means nothing more than “don’t fake your data.” If truth in science were only factual truth, then that would make sense: Is your data true? Is this really what you observed? Did this author really do the work you say they did? Are all of your statements factually true?
But research integrity is more than that.
What happens when you are thinking of rushing on to the next measurement as quickly as possible, before checking your calculation one final time? The data is not faked. So there is no problem, right?
Except that, in hastily rushing ahead, you do not give due honour to the work that went into getting you to where you are. You disregard the giants on whose shoulders you stand. You neglect the patience that your supervisor patiently sought to establish in you. You are not being true to your craft. You are not being true to science. You are not being a true scientist.
Faking your data is not a failure of research integrity because it falls short of factual truthfulness. It is a failure of research integrity because it falls short of relational truthfulness. When you take data as a scientist, it is important that the data is true. But this does not stand on its own. It is a secondary point derived from a point of primary importance: it is important that you are true.
This essay and the Re-Assembling Reality Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9061 Science and Religion: Questioning Truth, Knowledge and Life, with the support of the Faith and Science Collaborative Research Forum and the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
[1] Buber, Martin (1971). “First Part” in I and Thou. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. London: Bloomsbury Academic. (pp. 53–85.)
