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                                                                                                     On "Truth"

"Truth" may be said to have both a logical and an ontological meaning, in that it is properly used to qualify both a belief insofar as it is warranted by reality and reality insofar as it warrants a belief. So the two senses of "truth" are correlative.

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The question I need to reflect on further is whether, or to what extent, both the Alexandrian and the Antiochene christologies as well as the Chalcedonian settlement that tried to compose their differences and express their legitimate motives are excluded by the preceding line of thought, in much the same way in which, arguably, virgin birth and preexistence as well as sinless existence are also excluded. My suspicion, certainly, is that they are, indeed, excluded – -- that, understood simply as (seriously inadequate) ways of asserting that the Christian witness here and now confronting me is authorized by God, in that its primal authorizing source is God's own gift and demand made fully explicit, all these ways of talking about Jesus are more or less adequate and important, and even legitimate; whereas insofar as they are understood to assert anything other or more than this, what they assert is, at best, neither necessary nor sufficient to warrant the truth of the christological assertion and, at worst, illegitimate, insofar as it can only mislead as to the true character of faith and its ground.

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