One would think its a simple matter. But it turns out it is not. And perhaps its more complicated than I currently realize. let me say it then. Not many people ask in earnest anymore what truth is or what truths are. in a way, whatever i live by and everything i live by i tacitly acknowledge as a truth. no one consciously lives falsely or by what they themselves would see as falsehoods. and in that sense there are as many truths as there are lives. its not what i want to talk about here. i want to say something much more simple about something i may call a truth that i also call guidance – something that somehow shows me something that i want to know and that i feel i am unable to live aright without knowing or understanding. this kind of truth, i want to note, is always an answer to a question.
statements like ‘this earth is a sphere’ and ‘that table is black’ are truths when they are answers to ‘what geometrical structure is the earth’ and ‘what color is that table’ but they are not truths of guidance as answers to ‘where is the statue of liberty’ and ‘what color is the sky’. when i think about or talk about truths as guidance or truths that may guide, i must first think about the questions i am trying to answer. there is no notion of a guiding truth without a gap, a lack, a misguidance that that truth is going to try and fill or address.
so when i ask someone to think about truth, they can ask me what truth is to me. and then i should talk about what questions i dont have answers for and need answers for. if my questions are not someone’s questions, my truths cannot be their truths…because i am interested in truths that guide not truths that stand as abstract propositional statements [as if] without a conscious subject…
The Quran as Revelation 