On Being and Meaning

The aim of philosophical knowledge certainly does not consist in the knowledge of being, in a reflection of reality in the mind of the person who knows. Its aim is the knowledge of truth, the discovery of meaning, its purpose is to give an intelligible sense to reality. Philosophical knowledge, therefore, is not passive reflection, it is an active break-through, it is victory in the conflict with the meaninglessness of world reality. What I want to know is not reality but the truth about it, and I can recognize this truth only because there is in me myself, in the knowing subject, a source of truth, and union with truth is a possibility. The fact that there is in front of me a writing-table and I am writing with a pen on paper is not truth. It is something received by the senses and a statement of fact. The problem of truth is already posed in my writing. There is no truth of any sort of object; truth is only in the subject.

  [Nicolai Berdyaev, The Beginning & The End, Harper Torchbook, 1957, p. 42]

Berdyaev (1874-1948) was a Russian philosopher usually grouped with Christian existentialists. I got to know him in the 1950s. He is also sometimes called the philosopher of creativeness. In the following sixty some odd years, I’ve never had occasion to question his intuition. All harmony. He has this to say on the next page:

Truth is a creative act of spirit in which meaning is brought to birth. Truth stands higher than the reality which exercises compulsion upon us, higher than the “real” world. But still higher than truth is God, or to put it more truly—God is Truth.

Answering Pilate's Question

Pilate’s famous question came in an unfortunate context. He has been reviled ever since, but his question is actually a good one. What Pilate really said is that it’s very difficult to define what that word means—especially when it is used in an abstract way, thus without the addition of the word “about.” The simple answer, my dear Pilate, is that truth is experience. But experience, while it cannot be denied, is something other than “a conceptual formulation of something experienced.” That second formulation—the expressed, reported truth—is a secondary product. It may fully satisfy the person who had the experience, but the only way to judge whether or not the “translation” is accurate is by having had the same experience. Pilate’s question therefore suggests that while truth has an unambiguous personal standing, its public or shared standing is fraught with ambiguity. It depends on experience, not merely on intelligence sufficient to parse the words in a conceptual formulation.

We can tease this apart further by supplying the appropriate context. Technically truth is an agreement between a statement and the experience on which it rests. If the experience is anchored in the visible, tangible, physical, the outcome is a fact; it can be checked and confirmed. If the experience is inner, the outcome is a truth; but truth is beyond confirmation. God may have told you that, but how do I know? Thus our own reaction to a reported truth is of necessity intuitive.

What we see here is the unbridgeable chasm that exists between different realms of reality. If truth were as forcibly compelling as fact is, there would, in effect, be no such thing as free will. But there is freedom in the spiritual dimension, necessity in the physical. The endless battles over scriptures would cease if revelation were viewed correctly as messages directed to souls. Revelation used as social engineering or as secular legislation is revelation abused. But one of the truths about this world is that if revelation reaches this region, it will be abused. Sooner or later.