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Does Truth Exist? Insights From Applied Linguistics for the Rationalism/Postmodern Debate
David A. Ross
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Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas, Texas, USA Available online: 21 May 2008

To cite this article: David A. Ross (2008): Does Truth Exist? Insights From Applied Linguistics for the Rationalism/Postmodern Debate, Christian Higher Education, 7:3, 253-269 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15363750701818402

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Christian Higher Education, 7:253269 Copyright C 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1536-3759 print / 1539-4107 online DOI: 10.1080/15363750701818402

DOES TRUTH EXIST? INSIGHTS FROM APPLIED LINGUISTICS FOR THE RATIONALISM/POSTMODERN DEBATE
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DAVID A. ROSS Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas, Texas, USA

The question of whether or not truth exists is at the center of the rationalism versus postmodern debate. Noting the difculty of dening truth, the author uses the principles of linguistics to show that semantic skewing has resulted in the concept of truth being encoded as a noun, while it is really an attribute (true). The introduction of a metaphorthe hourglass of truthenables the author to distinguish the realms of natural truth and spiritual truth. For Christians, these worlds are different, but connected by means of the declaration that Jesus is divine. The author uses this metaphor to illustrate that the conict between adherents of different faiths is not based on disagreements over natural truth, but rather over different concepts of spiritual truth, and that, therefore, we cannot expect to resolve the differences using the principles of natural truth (such as logic). Finally, the author applies the concept of the hourglass to the rationalismpostmodern debate, and shows that it is possible for Christians from different sides of this debate (i.e., with different concepts of natural truth) to share a united concept of spiritual truth, even while each afrms the divinity of Christ.

Much of the contemporary debate between those who support a rational worldview and those who support a postmodern worldview seems to revolve around the question of whether there is, indeed, a body of objective truth to be defended. Some scholars have gone to considerable lengths to apply the principles of logic and critical analysis to the study of theology. For example, Geisler (1976) goes to great lengths to explain why agnosticism, rationalism, and many other -isms cannot produce adequate tests for truth, before proposing a test of undeniability, based on theism. However, postmodernism has brought a different perspective to this debate. Webber (2002, p. 98) helps us focus by making the following comments:
Address correspondence to David A. Ross, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas, TX 75236. E-mail: david ross@gial.edu

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Post-modern philosophy has challenged the use of reason as a test for truth. For post-moderns, reason has no power to bring a person to truth . . . . In the postmodern world, truth cannot be known. It is completely relative. . . . There is no single unifying truth. Truth is personal, subjective, and belonging only to each individual. . . . The entire infrastructure of modernity, built on the notion that truth is attainable through reason and the use of the empirical method, has collapsed.

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Christian academics must be involved in this discussion, because it has profound implications for the very heart of a Christian university. Webber (2002, pp. 164165) notes that traditionally Christian institutions of higher education have emphasized what is meant by Christianity as a worldview, thereby turning it into a cognitive subject to be discussed, debated, and proven. However, Webber agrees with Moore (1999, pp. 2931) who asserts that Christianity is more than a set of beliefs, because it is a form of life. . . a practice, an existence, a way of being in the world. . . . It is a pattern of acting and being. Holmes (1975, p. 6) provides another imperative for Christian colleges to be involved in this discussion. He notes that the distinctive of a Christian college should be an education that cultivates the creative and active integration of faith and learning, of faith and culture. The rationalism versus postmodernism debate surely ts this denition well. Holmes (pp. 5859) also reminds us that the goal in developing a Christian worldview is not unanimity, but rather is holistic, exploratory, and confessional. He notes helpfully that we need not proceed deductively from universal and necessary truths, from either axioms or scientically demonstrable propositions. . . . Rather we start with a confession of faith. This observation provides a helpful basis on which to proceed: the attempt needs to be made to integrate the Christian convictions of those who adhere to different worldviews, in such a way that we can celebrate the unity of the body of Christ. This author believes there has been a body of spiritual truth revealed to us by the Bible and the Holy Spirit, and this spiritual truth is accessible to all Christians, independent of the individuals philosophical persuasion. This paper approaches the challenge of reconciling two different Christian perspectives on truth by observing the difculties of expressing truth in a non-Christian culture, where worldview assumptions are very different.

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In attempting to reconcile the approaches of rationalism and postmodernism within the umbrella of conservative Christianity, many would consider this effort to be impossible of a positive outcome. This arises because rationalism and postmodernism start from very different assumptions. There has not been a gradual development of thought, such that the change from rationalism to postmodernism can be traced in denable, well-accepted steps. Rather, a discontinuity in the development of Western thought has produced a radical change in a very short period of time. Handy (1989, p. 5) asserted that original thinking would be necessary to cross this type of divide, noting that discontinuous change requires discontinuous upside-down thinking to deal with it, even if both thinkers and thoughts appear absurd at rst sight. The point here is that investigators from each perspective might consider observers from the other perspective to be promoting absurd propositions, and yet each must engage in discontinuous upside-down thinking in order to understand the perspective of the other. Dening Truth Many investigators have attempted to dene truth, especially in a contemporary Western context. Sometimes these attempts have led to a certain circularity of argument; for example, Dobson (2005, p. 2), offers the following:
In broad terms truth is the product of knowledge manifest in statements, arguments, practices, and beliefs considered to be true. The difculty is that what you consider true, another may consider wrong or downright offensive.

While it is very probable that what one person considers to be true will be considered wrong by another, there is a circularity in the assertion that In broad terms truth. . . is considered to be true. It is not the intent of this author to contribute to this discussion a different denition of truth. Rather, it will be sufcient for our purposes if we can assemble a popular, nonscientic understanding of truth as a place to begin.

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Most nonscientic, adult citizens of the West would probably consider truth to be some collection of a body of knowledge, whether it be academic knowledge or spiritual knowledge. This body of knowledge has been taught to them, at least in framework form, in contexts of more or less formalism (for example, in school classrooms, in church sermons, or around the family meal table). This body of knowledge is essentially considered to be something that is stored away in the recesses of the memory, until such times occur when it can either (a) be retrieved and expanded with new data, or (b) be retrieved and applied to solve a particular problem in a particular context. It is usually assumed that truth is essentially nite, and that the process of diligent learning enables an individual to absorb an ever-increasing proportion of this body of knowledge (even though new data pieces are continually being discovered). It is further assumed that truth is repeatable, and independent of the observer or recorder. These assumptions are fostered by the rational process of scientic discovery and analysis (see, for example, Newbigin, 1991, pp. 20, 21). The problem with this framework of truth is that it works better in the concrete world of scientic investigation than it does in the spiritual world of individual experience, and leads to a very different view of science and theology. Science seems to the secular observer to be an acceptable means of discerning truth, perhaps because it ts the popular concept of truth, but theology is much more suspect, since it is not given to discovery by the accepted means of discerning truth. Thus Polkinghorne (1998, p. 46) comments: In the popular mind there is a caricature account of science inexorably advancing by means of its gain of certain knowledge, whilst theology inhabits an ivory tower whose occupants are much given to fanciful and ungrounded speculation. Some Christian scholars have attempted to emphasize the objectivity of spiritual truth. For example, the Episcopal theologian Hughes (1983, p. 183) condently asserted that
The objective character of scripture as truth comes before and validates my subjective experience of its truth. . . . The objectivity of the light of biblical truth has not only been a classical doctrine of the Christian church but was also fundamental in the teaching of Christ and his apostles.

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This assertion is certainly commonly held to be valid for those who approach the concepts of spiritual truth in the context of a rationalist worldview. In the postmodern world, however, this assertion is difcult to support, and is often considered irrelevant. Another restatement of the problem of deciding, What is truth? is well illustrated by Newbigins (1991, p. 24) lament:
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Human origins are a subject for classroom teaching. They are part of public truth. Human destiny is not. It is a matter of private opinion. And if there is no public doctrine about human destiny, there can be no basis for rational discussion in the public forum about what are and what are not proper ends of human endeavor.

Newbigin appropriately points out a widely accepted dichotomy between public truth (that is shared by all, and is often seen or experienced in the physical world around us), and private opinion (that which is dependent on individuals belief and experience). Based on the fact that different religious faiths express this private opinion in more or less consistent ways, I prefer to refer to these two realms as the realms of natural truth and spiritual truth. Polkinghorne (1998, p. 45) attempts to close this gap by noting that, whichever world is the background of the search for truth, there is a commonality in the difculty of the search:
To many of us, and perhaps especially to those whose formation lies in the sciences, it seems that there is a considerable degree of cousinly relationship between the two disciplines [science and theology] as each pursues its search for truth.

Perhaps a more wistful reection of the state of current perception of truth comes from Parshall (1989, p. 203), a scholar of Islam, who notes:
The word truth has such a positive sound about it. It seems to embody all that is noble, uplifting and pure. Yet throughout history, sincere and courageous people have engaged in the most barbaric acts imaginable as they sought to impose their particular view of what truth is. Both Muslims and Christians have been guilty. . . . To me, there is no other issue so urgent as dening and acting upon conceptual and practical truth.

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It is important to note that Parshall has reached this conclusion after extensive experience in non-Christian cultures (especially Islamic). To add to the mix, McElhanon (2007, p. 28) approaches truth by considering it to be expressed by means of a biblical conceptual metaphor, and concludes that truth is a road, related to the assertion that experiencing a life of faith is going on a journey. Perhaps his most revealing comment is that truth is experiential:
An analysis of conceptual metaphors reveals that the biblical concept of truth is primarily experiential, more about HOW Christians live, rather than merely rational, only about what Christians say. It is signicant that the apostle John links truth with actions in opposition to words: Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18). (Emphasis is in the original.)

The Problem of Semantic Skewing It is helpful to rst approach the challenge of What is truth? from a linguistic viewpoint. In this approach, we need to understand a fundamental difference between the semantic meaning of a concept and its grammatical expression. Indeed, the problem of truth begins in its very grammatical form, in both koine Greek (that of the New Testament) and in English. Ayer (1952, p. 88) was right when he commented that to ask the question What is truth? is to ask for a translation of the sentence the proposition p is true. The word truth is an abstract noun, and this is known to linguists to provide a valuable clue to the nature of the underlying concept. A good place to begin to illustrate this problem is in the TEAR concept, based on Beekman and Callow (1974, pp. 216222), where we may refer to all parts of language as semantically being one of a Thing, an Event, an Attribute, or a Relation. Table 1 illustrates the concept. In its unskewed form, the grammar of a language will encode a Thing (for example, a book or a table) as a noun. Thus the noun will represent a concrete object within the realm of human experience. In the same manner, the grammar will encode an Event as a verb, an Attribute as either an adjective (qualifying a

Insights From Applied Linguistics TABLE 1 How Languages Represent Semantic Classes in Unskewed Form Semantic class Thing Event Attribute Relation Unskewed grammatical form Noun Verb Adjective, adverb Preposition, conjunction. . . Example Table, book Run, play Large, softly On, and

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noun) or an adverb (qualifying a verb, adjective, or other adverb), and a Relation as something like a conjunction (for example, joining parts of sentences together) or a preposition (telling the spatial relationships between nouns). Different languages encode different Relations in different ways, and so this list of grammatical forms for Relations is not complete. But what about truth? It is encoded as a noun, but it is an abstract noun, and so cannot be attached to a reference to a Thing. Both koine Greek and English make frequent use of abstract nouns, where the grammatical form is often a skewing of the semantic class. Thus, for example, prayer is an abstract noun, where the noun is used to express an event (praying), and in its unskewed grammatical form is represented by some form of the verb to pray. The concept of truth is another form of abstract noun, but this time it represents an attributea thing is either true or not true, in a similar way to that in which it is either blue or not blue. Truth is therefore grammatically a noun, but it is used to encode an Attribute. In its unskewed form it may be encoded as an adjective (true), or an adverb (truly), and be used to qualify a thing or an event. Since many languages do not have the ability of skewing the grammatical forms in the same ways, or to the same extent, this often represents a problem for the Bible translator. As Larson (1984, p. 226) notes, often the use of an abstract noun leaves some aspect of the unskewed proposition implicit. Thus the concept of truth leaves us unsure about what it is that is being described as true. For example, when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), what is it that is true? Was he saying that (a) as he speaks his words are true, or (b) that he is showing a true

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way, or (c) that he offers true life, or (d) something else entirely? At this point the grammar of the original languages does not help us at all, and yet the translator must try to express the meaning of Jesus words in an accurate manner in a different language. Another example is in John 14:16, where Jesus promised to ask His father to send the Holy Spirit, whom he called the Spirit of truth, to those who love and obey the Son. In what sense may the Holy Spirit be referred to as a Spirit of truth? Does the Spirit reveal true matters? Does the Spirit use true words? The context would have one wonder whether the intent is rather that the Spirit inhabits the true world, to be experienced only by committed followers of Jesus. The point here is that the grammar of neither Greek nor English helps in this determination. The Hourglass of Truth: A Christian Perspective Bible translators in non-Christian cultures quickly discover that the problem of dening truth cannot be avoided; it occurs some 25 times in the gospel of John alone. Further, they are reminded that, although humankind lives in a common, physical world dened by various principles of natural truth, different faith perspectives have very different concepts of what constitutes spiritual truth. Thus, attempts to dene truth based on the common experience of mankind are not necessarily transferable to the cultural values expressed, for example, in religious convictions. As an attempt to move us away from the apparently irreconcilable difculties of harmonizing the rules governing natural truth and spiritual truth, it may be helpful to consider a metaphor of the hourglass of truth. As the hourglass of Figure 1 illustrates, this metaphor allows us to assert that there are two distinct worlds in which truth can operate simultaneously: the world of natural truth, and the world of spiritual truth. Furthermore, these two worlds can have very different governing principles. We can dene the world of natural truth in such a way that it is not inuenced by ones faith perspective. It is the world all humans are born intoa world in which we perform physical experiments, construct things, and build relationships. It includes the concerns of history, philosophy, and economics. It is in this world that truth comes nearest to approximating a body of repeatable, stored knowledge, independent of the observer. To the extent that

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FIGURE 1 The metaphor of the hourglass of truth.

an observer shares the same scientic worldview, the concepts of natural truth will be shared. We will return to the possibility of different concepts of natural truth later in this paper. However, for the purposes of introduction, we assume that observers are looking at the hourglass from a common view of natural truth. The other half of the hourglass metaphorthat relating to spiritual truthcan only be dened relative to a specic faith heritage. For the purposes of this introduction, I will use the Christian perspective as the rst example (and later return with an Islamic perspective). Most Christians believe that the entryway to spiritual truth is only by acknowledging the divinity of Christ (John 14:6). We further believe that the Holy Spirit is the agent by which the content of this world is revealed. There are, however, some principles governing the world of spiritual truth that are very different to the world of natural truth. The following are for illustrative purposes only, and are not by any means exhaustive: 1. It is not possible in the world of spiritual truth to out-give God. Jesus praised the widow who gave little, but it was all she had (Luke 21:13). 2. It is possible to bless enemies, even while they are killing the believer (see the stoning of Stephen, Acts 7).

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3. There is a predictability and continuity about truth, since truth is revealed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (John 14:16). The rst two of these principles are the opposite of what would be expected in the world of natural truth, where judgments are more likely to be based on dollars contributed, and on justice for all. However, the third principle agrees with the claims of natural truth, but we shall see later that it violates an Islamic assumption about what constitutes truth. Having established some of the contrasting differences between the world of natural truth and the Christian concept of the world of spiritual truth, we must also acknowledge that there are some strong connections between them. Sometimes these two worlds reach conclusions that reinforce each others perceptions. A good example of this is the way that modern medicine (a natural truth pursuit) is increasingly aware of the contributions of divine or miraculous healing (more common to a discussion centered on spiritual truth). The hourglass metaphor allows for these connections. However, there are also areas in which the two parts of the hourglass are in open disagreement. For example, the world of natural truth tends to talk of quality-of-life issues, and to allow liberal approaches to such social issues as euthanasia and abortion. However, in the realm of spiritual truth the discussion centers more on the sanctity of life, and those promoting these values tend to be more conservative on the same social issues. There is thus not a free movement of ideas between the two parts of the hourglass. During the age of the Enlightenment it was assumed that the same rules of logic and critical investigation applied to both the world of natural truth and the world of spiritual truth. However, we now challenge this assumption, by reference to the worldview of a non-Christian culture.

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An Approach to Expressing Truth in an Islamic Context The foregoing discussion seems very appropriate in a Western context, where the spirit of critical analysis has long been extended, not just to the world of natural truth, but also to the

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world of spiritual truth. A Christian with extensive experience in a Western culture is rarely offended by the concept of applying critical analytical techniques to elucidate the issues of spiritual truth. However, the same does not hold true for Islamic scholars. As Parshall (1989, p. 203) comments:
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Muslims are wholeheartedly convinced they have found the truth. . . . The Quran forcefully makes its claim to absolute truth. And lo! We know that some among you will deny (it). And lo! It is indeed an anguish for the disbelievers. And lo! It is absolute truth. So glorify the name of the Tremendous Lord. In light of such a dogmatic assertion, it is understandable why Muslims have generally closed their minds to other views of truth. Any investigation of alternative claims seems to them to be a breach of trust in the clear, unequivocal pronouncement of Allah.

Parshall (1989) also notes that the spirit of inquiry by which a Western Christian scholar asks penetrating questions of his faith perspective seems, to an Islamic scholar, to merely lead to selfdestruction. The difference in approach seems to stem from a fundamental difference in the understanding of how God operates in his creation. Van Gorder (2003, p. 2) summarizes this divergence of perspective in the following way:
God in Christ is a participating . . . God who does not send revelation but comes and lives among humanity. God in the Quran transcends the happenstance of the physical world while providing practical guidance and clear understanding.

In other words, van Gorder claims that the Islamic view of God is of a being somewhat more detached from the experiences of humans, whereas the Christian concept is of a God who has already experienced what it means to be human. To be fair, there have been Islamic philosophers who have attempted to allow for different expressions of spiritual truth. For example, Walzer (1967, p. 655) quotes Al-Farabi of Baghdad (ca. 875950) as claiming that truth is expressed for each nation in symbols that are not the same as those used by any other nation. Thus it is possible that several excellent nations and several excellent cities exist whose religions are unlike, although they all

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have as their goal one and the same felicity and one and the same purpose Dobson (2005, p. 229) sums up Al-Farabis position thus:
For Al-Farabi, there was only one true philosophy, but many different religions suited to different people. Philosophical truth was the same for everyone, but revelatory truths varied from place to place.

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Such attempts at accommodation are, however, rare. The Hourglass of Truth: An Islamic Perspective With the Islamic concept of truth sketched out as above, we can take another look at the hourglass metaphor, with a view to determining its applicability to describe the difference between the worlds of natural truth and spiritual truth for a Muslim. While a Muslim might not usually express it in these terms, the fundamental tenets of Islam do, in fact, correspond well to the hourglass metaphor. Accepting that all humans live in the world of natural truth, a Muslim would say that the nonnegotiable means of entering the Islamic world of spiritual truth is open to all who will say the Islamic creed in Arabic. This creed asserts that there is one God, Allah, and that Mohammad (PBUH) is his prophet. In a sense this provides the connection between the worlds of natural and spiritual truth, in much the same way that the divinity of Jesus provides the connection for Christians. This is illustrated diagrammatically in Figure 2. However, the contents of the world of spiritual truth for a Muslim are very different from the contents of the analogous world for a Christian. The tenets of spiritual truth for a Muslim revolve around Gods purpose for man (to submit to God), the ve pillars of the faith (including giving alms to beggars, saying prayers ve times each day, keeping the month of fast annually, and making a holy pilgrimage to Mecca at least once), and the worldwide ummah, or brotherhood of Islam. In some ways, adherents to the Muslim faith tend to blend the worlds of natural truth and spiritual truth in a much more integrated fashion than do the Western Christians. For example, many Muslims can see no reason to separate politics and religion,

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FIGURE 2 The spiritual conict between different faith traditions.

but many (if not most) of those who live in nations based on a Christian heritage consider that this separation is desirable. Further, architecture and calligraphy tend to show a much greater inuence of the Islamic faith than do their Western counterparts. The reason for this comparison is that, by means of contrasting the two approaches to determining spiritual truth, it is clear that the spiritual antipathy existing between the two faiths is not a result of living in the same world of natural truth. Rather, it is a spiritual antipathy, arising from very different concepts of the nature of spiritual truth, as Figure 2 illustrates. The fact that Islam and Christianity are different in their conceptions of spiritual truth (both in the indispensable entry requirements, and in the contents or doctrine of the position) should alert us to the expectation of spiritual disagreement between adherents of these positions. It is clearly futile to try to resolve the differences between these faith perspectives by reference to the principles of natural truth (for example, use of logic). The real source of the disagreement is not in the realm of natural truth at all, but in a disagreement based on different worldviews expressed in different concepts of spiritual truth. A Case Study The relevance of this hourglass concept to the discussion of truth may be illustrated by a case study. In the process of translating holy literature for speakers of a language spoken by several million people in Asia, the author discovered that the foregoing

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discussion is all too real. As far as was known, all speakers of the language claimed to be Islamic, and there were strong societal pressures for this to remain the situation. The author experienced the problem as a lack of the concept of truth in the language, at least as popularly used. The nearest equivalent in the language was a word that literally translated as right (for example, the right hand), which was also the grammatical form of the idea of a way or a path. The problem was that this denition had no objectivity to it, but depended on the perspective of the actor (and sometimes the observer also). Thus, for example, a thief may declare himself to be engaged in a right action, and this action is rarely, if ever, challenged, especially if a status difference is part of the situation (see below). The language does have a way of describing an untruth or a lie, but it is applicable only in very serious situations such as giving false evidence against a family member. It is not considered a lie to make an arrangement to visit a friend at a particular time and place but with no intention of keeping the appointment. In practice, it seemed that truth was dened by context to a much larger extent than that allowed for by the Christian perspective. Thus, someone who is of high status is assumed to be telling the truth, irrespective of the objective validity of his/her comments. The issue of truth, then, does not have any relevance in such relationships as tribal chief to tribal member or employer to employee, since the person of lower status accepts without question that the statements of the person of higher status are true. There was also a perception that venturing into wrong practices could be justied by a greater intended good that could result from so doing. The point of this analysis is not to give a solution to a difcult translation problem. Rather, the object is to clarify the contention that there will be conict between adherents of different faith traditions, based on different concepts of what constitutes spiritual truth. Applying the Hourglass Metaphor to the Rationalism versus Postmodernism Debate Having established the usefulness of the hourglass metaphor for explaining disagreements between adherents of different faiths,

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FIGURE 3 Approaching Christian spiritual truth from different worldviews.

it is now appropriate to ask whether the same metaphor could help us understand better the rationalism versus postmodernism debate. In this regard, a fundamental question might be stated: is it possible for a committed Christian conviction to be held both by those who are committed to a rational concept of natural truth, and by those who are committed to a postmodern concept of natural truth? If indeed this is possible, then it is no longer an important exercise to derive a body of changeless truth. The modied hourglass of Figure 3 is a way to conceptualize this situation. As we looked at the Islamic illustration above, we realized that it is possible to have a common view of natural truth, but very different concepts of spiritual truth. (We illustrated this by having one bulb, representing natural truth, connected to two bulbs representing spiritual truth.) If it is possible for committed Christians to come from different concepts of natural truth, but hold to a common view of spiritual truth, then the modied hourglass would have two bulbs representing natural truth, but only one bulb representing spiritual truth, as represented in Figure 3. We have noted that the entryway by which a Christian enters the world of spiritual truth is by the acknowledgement that Jesus is God, that is, by recognizing the divine nature of the person of Jesus. We might also note that this assertion might be acknowledged propositionally (as is the case for rationalists) or relationally (as is the case for postmodernists). The essential recognition that Jesus is God might, therefore, come from either

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of two different views of natural truth, but not in either case be a barrier to inclusion in the Christian community. This, then is a different use of the hourglass metaphor. In this case we can appeal for the validity of the analysis, by analogy. Just as we demonstrated that the conict between Islam and Christianity involved different understandings of the realm of spiritual truth, and therefore could not be resolved by resorting to the principles of natural truth, so, by analogy, we can celebrate the unity of all Christians who acknowledge the divinity of Christ, recognizing that unity among Christians depends on shared contents of the realm of spiritual truth, but not on a shared understanding of the realm of natural truth. As we introduced the metaphor of the hourglass, we gave examples illustrating some of the principles of spiritual truth as they appear in scripture. None of these three principles depends on logic, nor on a rationalists view of natural truth. In fact, at least two of the examples cited (the encouragement to generosity, and the possibility of blessing ones enemies) are much more lifestyle issues than issues of logic or rationality. These examples from the contents of the realm of Christian spiritual truth would tend to conrm the assertion that it is not necessary to come from a rationalist perspective of natural truth in order to understand the realm of spiritual truth. Conclusion By means of an hourglass metaphor, we have demonstrated that the rationalist and postmodern perspectives on the Christian faith may be reconciled without appealing to logic or critical thought. Both groups have access to spiritual truth by means of the assertion that Jesus is God, even though they may interpret this differently. An ongoing effort is now needed to nd other bridges from the world of spiritual truth to the different concepts of natural truth, given that committed Christians may hold different perspectives on the world of natural truth. References
Ayer, A. J. (1952). Language, truth and logic. New York: Dover. Beekman, J., and Callow, J. (1974). Translating the word of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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