What is truth? When Jesus stood before Pilate and told him that he had come to testify to the truth, Pilate famously retorted: “What is truth?” Interestingly, in the Koine Greek of John 14:6, Jesus refers to himself as ἀλήθεια (aletheia, truth).
“I am the way, the truth (aletheia), and the life.”
Aletheia is the opposite of Lethe, the river of oblivion flowing through Hell. The prefix “a-” is a negation. Thus, truth is that which that negates oblivion. Lethe conceals—aletheia reveals. Lethe makes us forget—aletheia makes us remember. Aletheia un-conceals.
Aletheia is the unconcealment of what is hidden—not merely a set of propositions. That’s what Jesus calls himself: the unconcealment of Being.
Truth is the disclosure of Being—not sentences or propositions. Incidentally, for Heidegger, aletheia is the moment when beings “come into the open.” When beings come into the open, they disclose Being. They reveal. Truth is revelation.
“Everyone is the other and no one is himself.” Heidegger
Until we come into the open, we are not ourselves; we are someone else. We live in concealmeant, hiding Being. Yet, our false self is transient—it will be consumed by Lethe. Everything that does not reveal Being will be forgotten. To rise above Lethe, we must embrace aletheia—the unconcealment of Being.
This is what Jesus meant when he told Pilate that he had come “to testify to the truth.” He was aletheia—the perfect unconcealment of Being. To be true is to participate in something that survives Lethe. Pilate was too steeped in the temporal and transient to recognize Being before his eyes.
“Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!” Rev. 14:13
Whatever we have done within chronological time to transcend chronological time abides forever. It follows us. It has been salvaged from Lethe. It is aletheia. It cannot disappear. As Michelangelo said,
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”
In aletheia, we transform shadows into glimpses of divine perfection. These glimpses cannot disappear. We make “in the law in which we were made”—to borrow Tolkien’s phrase. We become sub-creators.
Having glimpsed divine perfection, we reproduce it—we unconceal it—within the confines of our shadow world. The only way to salvage the world of shadows from falling into oblivion is to transcend the shadows—engage in aletheia.
Whether we bake bread, write articles, share a conversation over a cup of tea, build cathedrals, or repair cars—if we glimpse and reflect the divine spark in what we do, we participate in the unconcealment of Being. In doing so, we transcend the shadowlands.
Everything in the shadowlands is a shadow until we see through it and partake of divine perfection. It is our inheritance by virtue of divine birth. We have that spark in us. We are that spark. We are shadows transcending ourselves by pursuing aletheia—every moment of the day.
