Special Russian truth?
I have just watched Newsnight (BBC2, 25th October), the main feature being Russia’s own view of her current relationship with the rest of the world. They interviewed Aleksandr Dugin, who is known as a political scientist and has the ear of both the Kremlin and President Putin. He is zealous for the uniting of Russian-speaking states and their dominance on the world stage. Newsnight commented that in Russia truth is subordinate to political expediency. Dugin says, ‘Every so-called truth is the matter of belief. So, we believe in what we do, we believe in what we say and that is the only way to define truth. So, we have our own, special Russian truth that you need to accept as something that may not be your truth…’
Truth, when all it means is what we want it to mean, becomes a recipe for chaos. It is where a godless worldview ends up. As a Christian, I maintain that Truth is an absolute and, as such, is inseparable from God himself.
The question ‘what is truth?’ is an age-old question and one that was asked by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate when Jesus said to him, ‘For this reason I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ Here, Jesus is stating that ultimate Truth lies with him. It is a bold statement: he is claiming to be God. Can we fault Jesus at any point and thereby invalidate his claim? The four Gospel accounts are available for us to consider what he has said, taught and done.
So what are we faced with here? Do we accept the concept of Absolute Truth, no ambiguity, no shades of grey? If we don’t, then I suggest that we are travellers on the same road as comrade Aleksandr Dugin. If we do believe that Absolute Truth is for real, then according to the words of Jesus as related above, we can test the sincerity of our profession by asking whether we embrace what he says.
Winston Churchill once made the observation, ‘Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.’ May we not catch sight of Truth and turn away because we don’t like the implications.