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"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, but through me." John 14:6
An Interview with Pontius Pilate: "What
Is Truth?"
JerusalemChristian.com: Governor Pilate, thank you for agreeing to talk with us this morning. We understand the difficult position you were in yesterday. Governor Pilate: You're welcome. Actually, I've rather been looking forward to talking with someone, now that the riot has died down. Yesterday was considerably disturbing to my wife and I. We still haven't slept a wink. Mysterious fellow, that Jesus. I still can't really understand what happened out there. Not really. JerusalemChristian.com: We can only imagine what must have been going through your mind, Sir. Would you mind sharing your thoughts with us? Governor Pilate: I'm the governor of Judea, for heaven' sake. Except for Caesar himself, I am truth around here. At least I thought I was. JerusalemChristian.com: I'm sorry Sir, I'm not following. Pilate: Yesterday. Remember. There he was in chains, yet I was the one intimidated. By the crowd, to be sure. But much more intimidated by his apparent authority. He said, "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." How dare he say such a thing to a Roman governor... Yet I was the one that froze. All I could do was mumble some trite cliche. JC: What is truth? Pilate: That's the one. What I should have said was, 'I'll tell you what is truth. What prevails is truth. It's what works'. JC: Pragmatism, Sir? Pilate: Exactly. Surviving ideologies become truth because they survive the test of time. After all, isn't survival of principles one of your very evidences for absolute truth? JC: So at least you're discounting the notion of relativism... ie, 'what's works for me personally, is my personal truth. Pilate: Certainly. What an absurd notion -- individual truth. To be sure, Roman freedmen are allowed a certain amount of autonomy. But you can readily see that individuals impose their will on others. And the stronger one prevails. So of what value is a 'truth' that cannot prevail against someone else's truth? None. And ultimately death disproves individual truth because no individual survives death. Truth is societal. And even one society prevails against another, so truth absolutely must be the truth of the stronger society, the worldwide truth.... forever. Truth is eventually eternal or it isn't truth. JC: Are you saying truth apparently becomes 'absolute'? Pilate: Yes, eventually it has. Truth improved with time. What worked was obviously the more perfect truth. The better truth survived. And now, the Roman Empire is truth in the ultimate sense. JC: Pragmatism eventually progressed toward ultimate power and truth? Pilate: Exactly. Although, I will have to admit, previous Caesars heralded the notion somewhat prematurely. Julius Caesar for instance. Called himself God, but then was overthrown... so even he didn't quite become 'absolute truth'. But it's a good time for this all to occur now, because I believe absolute truth has finally arrived -- we're at the pivotal moment of history. The Roman Empire will now survive forever. We rule the world because our truth works. And thus prevails the bloody truth of 'might makes right', brutality and slavery. Because it works! For instance, yesterday it ultimately came down to brutality prevailing for the good of a society. So if one man has to die for the good of the entire society, so be it. That is truth." JC: Ironically Sir, I believe you're touching on something there. But let's move on. What about Roman gods, and your truth system as it explains our beginnings? Pilate: By definition, effects come from causes -- if we see an effect, we know a cause exists, and not just some random cause. Take my sun-dial for instance: it obviously was designed by its designer. And it obviously demonstrates that some higher intelligence designed it. Logic demands that a pre-existent supernatural, supremely intelligent being caused the first effect. So it could easily have been one of our Roman gods who initiated that first effect. Am I wrong? Never mind, you dare say not. To tell you the truth, we've conveniently borrowed some of our beliefs from the Greeks and other cultures who have made up such things simply to be able to sleep at night, or lean on psychologically. A bit of a crutch, if you will. And we've chosen some rather playful ones, wouldn't you agree? They are true because they work for us and our sense of happiness and revelry. Our gods serve our purposes. JC: Of pragmatism, Sir? Pilate: That's right. We observe what works, define it as truth, and extrapolate backwards about how it must have come into being. JC: With all due respect, Sir, wouldn't that be somewhat like you and I observing a bug crawling on a straight path for a few minutes and then stating as fact that one year ago today it was in Pompey? Pilate: Don't trifle with me. Even I, a Roman governor cannot be expected to make an air-tight case for everything. We were created with a limited logic-set. And obviously that 'first cause' cannot be exhaustively understood by its created beings. JC: Except as He chooses to communicate, Sir. Pilate: I suppose. Now as I was saying... go backwards as far as you want, how many ever years... At least we can easily reason that the very 'first effect' by definition is outside of these created natural laws of nature. Thus anything created instantaneously would be something that appeared to be older than it really it was, and seemingly coming from a different source than it really did, am I not correct? Go back as far as you want or make up whatever beginning you want -- you could even theorize that we all came from a single raindrop in mid-air, but ultimately you must conclude that even that raindrop had to appear to come from something different than it really did.... and appear to be older than it really was. JC: 'Poofing' things into existence which seem to have some 'natural age'. I'm with you, Sir. Pilate: I wish I could take credit for that, but any reasoning person would come to that conclusion. By the way, you needn't trifle with me about the earth possibly being eternal -- there is absolutely nothing observable that validates such a theory. Could an eternal random system somehow have accidentally formed chariots? Especially ones that also deteriorate? People only raise such notions to escape the obvious. JC: I'm not arguing with you Sir, but what would you say of eastern mysticism? Pilate: Reality is not really reality; it's merely an illusion? They dodge spears don't they? JC: Um, yes. Getting back to Jesus, Sir... Pilate: I greatly regret that I didn't have more opportunity to get to know this man, Jesus. There truly was something quite unique about him. I wish I had time with him to really ask him about such things. JC: About truth? Pilate: Yes, I suppose. About the meaning of all this... about life itself from his perspective. If it wasn't obvious to everyone before, I'm sure it is now -- I certainly am not the absolute authority around here. I'm afraid of Caesar, I'm afraid of the Jewish leaders. And there I was yesterday, strangely afraid of this man, beaten and in chains. An enigma to be sure, but my truth hasn't really been working for me lately. But his truth didn't seem to be working for him either. I mean, a 'self-sacrificing god'? It's a contradiction of terms. How could an all-powerful God suffer anything? So my thought yesterday was, how could I go wrong? If he were truly God, he wouldn't end up dying on that cross, anyway. Ultimately, he would have to display his power over death by coming down off of it, would he not? JC: Well, unless 'self-sacrifice' was part of his very nature. I know it seems implausible, but don't we see that principle at work when fathers sacrifice for their children? In fact, Sir, Jewish prophets did write of a coming messiah who would be a suffering servant. Pilate: How odd that the religious leaders made no mention of this yesterday. JC: We didn't hear any mention of his miracles either, did we? Pilate: Oh I've heard about them. All explainable I'm sure. We may not yet understand his tricks, but someday we'll be able to explain them all away. You can be sure of that. JC: But wasn't it interesting, Sir, that he didn't do pragmatic miracles and selfishly reap the rewards? But rather, exactly the opposite, raising the dead and healing... and typically serving the lower echelons of society. Coming alongside people in their pain. What do you make of that, Sir? Pilate: Heroic. But your point is...? JC: Simply that some of our people have found these prophesies compelling. I mean our people have had a long history of sacrificing a spotless lamb as a symbol of cleansing us from our sins, believing that someday a messiah would come to pay the ultimate price for our sins and effectively offer us His perfect life in return. Can you see how it would seem then as you had this innocent healer crucified? Pilate: Hey, your leaders were the ones who wanted him crucified. Apparently he had claimed to be "the Truth" and the only way to God. In fact, God himself. That kind of narrow thinking can get you killed, you know. JC: The offer seemed open enough, Sir. He said it was for anyone who would believe. But let me ask you one last question. Jesus often spoke about the consequences for rejecting Truth... describing an afterlife in hell, tormenting fire, forever, unending... Pilate: Enough. No more questions. I had my fill of torture yesterday. JC: We all... Pilate: Wait. Did you notice the beauty of pragmatic truth just now? If I hold the power to not listen to your sense of truth, in effect it does not exist. Pragmatic truth just prevailed again. I guess, bottom line, truth is relative -- he who holds the power gets to define truth. JC: So you're leaving open the possibility that an Absolute Power, in the final analysis, defines absolute truth? Pilate: I will consider it. But if you're talking about your 'king'.... he got crucified yesterday. His case for absolute power and absolute truth died with him. JC: Perhaps we've not heard the last of him, Sir. Pilate: Well, if that 'your truth', ok. Let's just leave it at that.
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