I spent the current semester that is winding to an end with my students in two different courses studying the limitless ways in which human beings have used truths they claim to be in possession of—religious, political, what have you—to justify violence against and killing of fellow human beings who happen to embrace different and incompatible Truths—the capital “T” signifying something unchanging and absolute. The Crusades, various wars of religion, the Nazis—virtually any truth can be dressed up as a Truth, then used as a weapon of mass destruction. The best comment on this dynamic I ever read came from the author of a letter to the editor in the local newspaper a number of years ago: Pursue the truth, and run like hell from anyone who claims to have it.

The truth is something that we make. This is not a surprise, because as a matter of fact all ways of seeing reality are human constructions. Truth is not an exception. Everything we believe is a product of a complex filtering and organizing process through any number of filters, from genetic to experiential. Truth is a relative business—relative to each human being since each of our filters are uniquely ours. These filters change over time as each of us changes. Supposing truth to be something to be discovered and “owned” is not only a mistake, but is also damaging. As Christian Wiman writes, Nothing poisons truth so quickly as an assurance that one has found it.