“Foundationalism, allied as it was with metaphysical realism and the correspondence view of truth, was undeniably the epistemological king of the Enlightenment era.”¹

Thus quotes Millard Erickson the late Stanley Grenz, concerned that as foundationalism goes and as the correspondence view of truth goes, so goes the concept of truth altogether. “Although neither [Grenz] nor John Franke overtly reject the correspondence view, it is so closely allied with foundationalism that their rejection of the latter seems to entail the negation of the former as well.” And indeed, while in the postconservative theological conception both foundationalism and the correspondence theory of truth tend to go overboard together, both tend to stay onboard the evangelical² ship together as well. In both cases, they truly are “part of a package,” as Erickson states.³
In reaction to such postconservative attempts to get rid of both, this is what Erickson proposes instead:

“The theology we envision for the future will cling resolutely to the correspondence view, together with metaphysical realism. A close reading of Scripture will reveal that it presupposes throughout what might be considered an uncritical correspondence view. The world exists independently of our perception of it, deriving its ultimate reality from God. Although our perception may be far from identical with that reality as it is, the goal is to bring our beliefs into a conformity with that reality.”⁴

So, the answer to the postmodern critique of foundationalism and truth of the correspondence type is simply more of the same foundationalism and correspondence theory.
It seems that I might have been home sick from school the day when they explained that the holy trinity of foundationalism, realism and the correspondence theory of truth had now received canonical status. But try as I may, I simply cannot get my mind around why evangelical theologians and philosophers now see in this triad the new article stantis et cadentis of the gospel.

In this article, I want to argue that an adherence to the infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures, to evangelical theology, yes, even (or especially?) to confessional Reformed orthodoxy does not require one to hold any of the three theories, particularly the correspondence theory of truth.⁵ It is my conviction that it is not enough to simply reinforce old positions (e.g. correspondence theory), tone them down (e.g. “moderate” foundationalism) or define them more “humbly” (e.g. “critical” realism). Rather, we need to work out a specifically Christian, yes Reformed theory of truth.

The Correspondence Theory of Truth

There can hardly be any doubt that the correspondence theory of truth has been the majority vote of modernism. Though as a theory it is much older, we are concerned with the heyday of this theory which occurred in modern times. Representative for many “modernists”, we take Descartes and Kant.

A corollary of Descartes’ essentialism is his representationalism according to which one can become aware of external objects (res extensa) only by way of the mediation of the ideas⁶ representing them. Accordingly, Descartes held that there must be a plausible explanation for the orderliness in which we perceive material objects. And the best explanation is that the perceptions or ideas (res cogitans) that we have are caused by and represent the res extensa of the external world, a world which we therefore have good reason to believe actually exists. Cartesian and representationalism gave ground for a correspondence theory of truth because it ensured a true transaction or interaction from res extensa to res cogitans in that the latter “represents” the former. In Descartes, then, we see a strong (“classical”) foundationalism bound up with a classical correspondence theory of truth.

Kant, reacting to Hume’s skepticism, saw the need to develop a new kind of correspondence theory of truth and he did this in so far as he insisted that truth was not to be thought of as merely an agreement of the mind with an already existing state of affairs but rather, the mind’s objects had to “agree” with the mind and its structural concepts and categories. This, he thought, was an approach to epistemology so radically new and different that it merited the name of a “Copernican revolution.“ There was still an essential correspondence. He merely reversed the order of “truth maker” and “truth bearer.”

Now, there is a plethora of contemporary evangelical⁷ theologians today who defend a correspondence theory of truth. A more or less representative sample might include J.P. Moreland,⁸ Douglas Groothuis,⁹ James E. White,¹⁰ and Millard Erickson,¹¹ all of whom incidentally have written critically against postmodernism/postconservative theology. Since their version of the correspondence theory is neither purely Cartesian nor is it Kantian, we must look at how they define and distinguish it.

Moreland states:

“In its simplest form, the correspondence theory of truth says that a proposition is true just in case it corresponds to reality, when what it asserts to be the case is the case. More generally, truth obtains when a truth bearer stands in an appropriate correspondence relation to a truth maker.”¹²

That leaves us with a simple scheme of relations: truth bearer–>correspondence relation–>truth maker. A truth bearer must correspond to a truth maker via a valid relation. Moreland calls this theory a “two-placed relation” because it relates a fact to a proposition about this fact. Groothuis offers, again, a very broad definition:

“Any statement is true if and only if it corresponds to or agrees with factual reality.”

And again:

“’What is truth’? Truth is what corresponds to reality.”¹³

Erickson loosely defines the correspondence theory as

“the view that truth is the agreement of language or ideas to reality.”¹⁴

A Peculiarly Christian Theory of Truth?

It is both interesting and telling how some of these authors not only believe the correspondence theory to be the most useful theory, but they actually claim it is the only biblical option, inextricably bound up with the Christian faith and an allegiance to the authority of the Bible. Despite historical evidence to the contrary, they consider the correspondence theory a specifically Christian theory of truth. Their vocabulary is quite religious when it comes to the defense of this particular theory. We have seen that Erickson believes,

“A close reading of Scripture will reveal that it presupposes throughout what might be considered an uncritical correspondence view.”⁴

In fact, according to Erickson, “on a pre-reflective level, or in actual practice, virtually all sane persons function with (…) a ‘primitive correspondence’ view of truth”, with “an understanding of truth as a quality of statements that correctly represent the ‘state of affairs’ being referred to.”¹¹ Stan Wallace claims:

“A correspondence view of truth appears to be most consistent and even assumed by the Christian worldview. For example, propositions such as ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1) and ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day . . .’ (I Cor. 15:3-4) are understood by Christians as being true, and true in virtue of their accurately describing the state of affairs in reality. As such, the Christian would assert that such propositions would be true even if no (human) minds ever entertained such propositions (e.g., surely God could have created the heavens and the earth without populating it with human knowers, in which case it would still be true that God created the heavens and the earth, but that truth would in no way be dependent on [human] minds.) Thus for the Christian, truth is not mind-dependent and hence subjective, but rather mind-independent and objective.”¹⁵

Moreland, when asked, whether there is there a biblical view of truth, answers somewhat differently initially:

“The answer is no and yes. No, there is no peculiarly Christian theory of truth used only in the Bible and not elsewhere. Yes, properly interpreted, the Bible implicitly and explicitly teaches a particular theory of truth.”¹⁶

So, the Bible has a particular theory of truth, but it is not peculiarly Christian? That strikes me as very odd given the fact that Jesus Christ himself claims in his very Word: “I am the truth.” I wonder in what kind of non-Christian theory of truth that might also be acceptable.

Finally, Groothuis confesses his faith in the correspondence theory as the only biblical theory of truth and makes it all but a test of orthodoxy:

“Christians, of all people, must swear allegiance to the notion that truth is what corresponds to reality - and we must do so unswervingly whatever the postmodern winds of doctrine may be blowing in our faces. Whenever postconservative evangelicals depart from the correspondence view of truth - which is both biblical and logical - and thus sink into the postmodernist swamps of subjectivism, pragmatism, or constructivism, they should be lovingly but firmly resisted.”¹⁷

A Critique of the Correspondence Theory of Truth

I will first let the postmodern critique do its destructive work. More exactly, I shall begin with a scathing critique of the correspondence theory that has been influential in postmodern theory. Martin Heidegger, whose Destruktion of metaphysics as ontotheology has been so influential on postmodernists like Jaques Derrida. Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Marion, takes aim at the the notion of truth as correspondence.

Traditionally, so Heidegger, in the history of Western philosophy the concept of truth has been wedded to the concept of Being. In fact, it was one and the same locus, usually characterized by the following two theses: 1. the ‘locus’ of truth is assertion or judgment; 2. the essence of truth is correspondence of assertion/judgment with its object.¹⁸

Heidegger calls both features into question. The first, by a linguistic move. The second by a reductio ad absurdum. First, he goes back to the Greeks and a long lost interpretation of αληθεια (truth), as α-ληθεια, uncoveredness or unhiddenness. Etymologically, he claims, αληθεια does not carry the notion of correspondence with it which makes “truth” an attribute, something that is exterior to a transaction between mind and object rather than inherent in objects themselves and the way they appear to us.¹⁹ Rather, for him, going back to Aristotle, αληθεια resides in the Ding-an-sich and is not merely an attribute.

Second, Heidegger performs a reductio on the traditional (read: ontotheological) theory of truth as correspondence and this is immediately relevant to our discussion. Basically, he says, if truth is a certain kind of correspondence between concept and object, the truth of the correspondence theory must be established by a correspondence between the theory and the correspondence. This essentially leads to an infinite regress.²⁰

Thus, the correspondence theory, rather than being “false” mainly leads to unintelligibility. Truth must be found elsewhere and otherwise. And Heidegger finds it exactly in Plato’s cave.²¹

A closely related problem with this theory is that it basically presupposes a subject/object-rift, an exterior/interior-dualism. A correspondence view of truth presupposes, first, the existence of an external world of objects and, second, an (fallible or infallible) ability of the mind to get in touch with external objects via the senses or representational ideas. In its classical shape, this theory knows two sides of an equation only: the object and the subject. The predicament has always been the relative difficulty or even impossibility of a valid account of the relation between the two.

Christian responses typically have not been able to provide a biblical alternative to this dualistic world-view. Rather, the responses typically fall under one of two alternative categories: realisms or nonrealisms, both of which are problematic in themselves but cannot be treated here.

The second main problem with the correspondence theory already featured prominently in the definitions of it given by Christians above. All defined the theory to mean something like the following: a proposition is true just in case that it corresponds to (factual) reality. We see here the deeper underlying problem of uncritically accepting some form of realism which is the necessary precondition for the theory to work. This leads to the problem that the correspondence theory only works within a system of univocal predication. Reality must ultimately be one. We must presuppose a monistic and abstract notion of being in order for the theory to work. I have to explain what I mean by that. We say that a proposition (say, the desk is brown) is true if and only if it corresponds to an extramental object the color of which is objectively brown. But what do we mean by “correspond”? Correspond exactly and exhaustively? Does the proposition which I believe (in my mind) ever correspond perfectly to the brown table? And how “is” the brown table? What is it, objectively, that my mind needs to correspond to? Is it the table as I see it - a human perception of it, or as a carpenter sees it - a more complete human perception, or as God sees it - a divine perception? The correspondence theory presupposes a problematic univocal concept of being and a univocal concept of facticity. It arbitrarily defines the “true” and objective meaning of an extramental fact without explicit reference to God.

Now, someone might deny this and say instead: ‘Why not say the proposition (in my mind) that the table is brown is true only if I think of the table as brown because God has made it that way. Only then would the proposition truly correspond to the factual reality of the brown table which actually is ultimately made by God.’ Someone might well say this. However, it would not save the theory, nor solve the problem. It would still need to presuppose univocal predication. It suggests that we can actually know (and predicate of) any fact or object the way God knows (and predicates of) it. But that is impossible because it misses the biblically fundamental metaphysical Creator/creature distinction which plays itself out in the area of knowledge. We can only predicate and know analogically, viz. on a human level.

Therefore, we must agree with Heidegger that inherent in the correspondence theory is an “ontologically unclarified separation of the real and the ideal,” that has been the cause for the sad truth “that no headway has been made with this problem [Realitätsproblem] in over two thousand years.”²² Heidegger reads the correspondence theory of truth²³ as shorthand for an adaequatio intellectus ad rem, the belief that (human) intellect and reason can adequately capture the fullness of meaning of an extramental object. While we do not agree with Heidegger in that truth is a quality inherent in objects rather than a property or a knowledge transaction, we do agree with the gist of his rejection (and reductio) of a correspondence theory of truth built around an autonomous cognizing subject vis-à-vis objects in their brute factuality. This is what we mean by a rejection of univocal predication in favor of analogical predication (“thinking God’s thoughts after him”).

Alternatives Theories of Truth

Rejecting the adaequatio, metaphysical realism and epistemic foundationalism and along with it the correspondence theory of truth, the prophets of postmodernism have usually opted for one of two alternatives: (a) a coherence view, or (b) a pragmatic view of truth. Since the topic of this article is a critique of the correspondence theory, we will pass over a critique of those two positions here and offer a different alternative, a kind of tertium quid between an (evangelical) affirmation of the correspondence theory and a (postevangelical) abolishment thereof, even a biblical alternative.

If the correspondence theory of truth is problematic in itself and not an expressly Christian theory at all, what are the alternatives? Scott Oliphint writes in his otherwise positive review of Reclaiming the Center:

“In sum, what seems to be missing, and sorely needed, in all of these discussions - both in postconservatism and in evangelicalism - is a recognition and reclamation of the Reformed notion of principia. Without detailing any of the positive aspects of this notion, its tried and true emphasis on God as the principium essendi and thus on Scripture as the principium cognoscendi moves appropriately beyond discussions of coherentism, a correspondence theory of truth, foundationalism (modified or otherwise), and establishes a metaphysical and epistemological ground, without which any discussion of truth conditions, epistemology, etc. will inevitably founder.”²⁴

A Biblical Solution

Briefly, the principium essendi of theology is the metaphysical primacy and uniqueness of God, or, theologically speaking, the aseity of God. Out of the commitment to this principium flows a two-level metaphysic in which being is not one, but at bottom two. There is no abstract, univocal notion of being, no “scale of being” or analogia entis. But there is God’s being which is underived (a se) and there is created being which is derived and dependent upon God’s being. The principium cognoscendi is the revelation of God in his word. Corresponding to the two-level metaphysic the commitment to this principle leads to a two-level epistemology. While the first-order metaphysical distinction of the Bible is the Creator/creature distinction, the corresponding first-order epistemological distinction is the archetype/ectype distinction. God’s archetypal self-knowledge and knowledge of his creation are analytical and primary, while man’s ectypal knowledge of himself, creation and of God is derived, re-creative and analogous. Man’s knowledge, insofar as it is informed by revelation, is true as far as it goes, but it is never exhaustive. There can be no exhaustive correspondence just as there can be no exhaustive coherence.
With these basic biblical distinctions in place, we can understand why and how Cornelius Van Til completely reconstrued and redefined both the correspondence and the coherence theory.

Concerning correspondence he says:

“True human knowledge corresponds to the knowledge which God has of himself and his world. Suppose that I am a scientist investigating the life and ways of a cow. What is this cow? I say it is an animal. But that only pushes the question back. What is an animal? To answer that question I must know what life is. But again, to know what life is I must know how it is related to the inorganic world. And so I may and must continue till I reach the borders of the universe. And even when I have reached the borders of the universe. I do not yet know what the cow is. Complete knowledge of what a cow is can be had only by an absolute intelligence, i. e., by one who has, so to speak, the blueprint of the whole universe. But it does not follow from this that the knowledge of the cow that I have is trot true as far as it goes. It is true if it corresponds to the knowledge that God has of the cow. From this presentation of the matter, it is clear that what we mean by correspondence is not what is often meant by it in epistemological literature. In the literature on the subject, correspondence usually means a correspondence between the idea I have in my mind and the “object out there.” In the struggle between the “realists” and the “subjective idealists” this was the only question in dispute. They were not concerned about the question uppermost in our minds, i.e., whether or not God has to be taken into the correspondence. We may call our position in epistemology a Correspondence Theory of Truth, if only we keep in mind that it is opposed to what has historically been known under that name.”²⁵

Concerning coherence he says:

“It is our contention that only the Christian can obtain real coherence in his thinking. If all of our thoughts about the facts of the universe are in correspondence with God’s ideas of these facts, there will naturally be coherence in our thinking because there is a complete coherence in God’s thinking. On the other hand we hold that the idealistic coherence theory of truth cannot lead to coherence because it omits the source of all coherence, namely, God. In a way it might be well for us to call our position the Coherence Theory of Truth because we claim to have true coherence. Whether we call our position a correspondence theory or whether we call it a coherence theory, we have in each case to distinguish it sharply from the theories that have historically gone by these names. Accordingly, the determining factor must be a consideration of that which is most fundamental in our theory of correspondence or of coherence. Now this depends upon the question whether we have God’s knowledge in mind first of all, or whether we begin with human knowledge. For God, coherence is the term that comes first. There was coherence in God’s plan before there was any space-time fact to which his knowledge might correspond, or which might correspond to his knowledge. On the other hand, when we think of human knowledge, correspondence is of primary importance. If there is to be true coherence in our knowledge there must be correspondence between our ideas of facts and God’s ideas of these facts. Or rather we should say that our ideas must correspond to God’s ideas. Now since we are dealing with opponents who speak of human knowledge almost exclusively, we can perhaps best bring out the distinctiveness of our position by calling it the Correspondence Theory of Truth. An additional reason for this choice is that at the present time the old correspondence theory has pretty well died down, leaving the coherence theory in control of the field. Hence we have the advantage of a different name from the current name, since we are interested in making it clear that we really have a different theory from the current theory.”²⁶

He also reconstrues the notion of objectivity (or factuality) which, we have said, is usually taken in a univocal sense in most definitions of the correspondence theory:

“In ordinary speech we understand by an “object” anything that exists “out there,” that is, independently of the human mind. We then claim to have objective knowledge of something if the idea that we have in our minds of that thing corresponds to the thing as it exists independently of the mind. We may have false ideas about a thing. In that case we say that it is only subjective and does not correspond to reality. The coherence theory of truth implied a new conception of objectivity. For it, objectivity no longer was the correspondence of an idea to a certain object supposed to exist in total independence of the mind. For it, objectivity meant a significant reference to the whole system of truth. One would have a true idea of a cow not by having a replica of the cow in one’s mind, but by understanding the place of the cow in the universe. Now it will be readily understood that as far as the form of’ the matter is concerned the Christian conception of objectivity stands closer to the latter than to the former position. For us, too, the primary question is not that of the out-thereness of the cow. What we are chiefly concerned about is that our idea of the cow shall correspond to God’s idea of the cow. If it does not, our knowledge is false and may be called subjective. But the exact difference between the idealistic conception of objectivity and ours should be noted. The difference lies just here, that for the idealist, the system of reference is found in the Universe inclusive of God and man, while for us, the point of reference is found in God alone.”²⁷

In summary, after having rejected the correspondence theory of truth both in internal and biblical grounds, we want to maintain a theory of truth that is not univocal but rather analogical, that does justice to the distinction between God’s being and reality and man’s being and reality, to the distinction between the divine archetypal knowledge and the human ectypal knowledge. This theory holds to (archetypal and exhaustive) coherence in the mind of God and (ectypal and partial) coherence in the mind of man insofar as the latter corresponds to the former by being informed by revelation. In this system we have successfully overcome the subject/object dilemma, overcome the need for univocal predication and therefore done justice to the most basic biblical distinctions. It is therefore a truly and peculiarly Christian and biblical theory of truth that can withstand both the onslaught of the postmodern critique and the charge of rationalism to which conventional theories are subject.

1. Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era Baker Academic, 2000), 190.↩
2. By “evangelical,” I mean theologians critical of the postmodern/postconservative approach to theology. I realize that “postconservatives” consider themselves to be evangelicals also. But that is for another paper to explore. For now, I will stick with this oversimplified taxonomy.↩
3. Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor, eds., Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 329.↩
4. Ibid., 330.↩
5. In this article I can only treat of the correspondence theory of truth. I have treated (“Christian”) foundationalism in an earlier post here. A post on (critical) realism might follow.↩
6. He speaks of “adventitious ideas” here and not “innate ideas.” ↩
7. Again, mind my “definition” of evangelicals above.↩
8. J. P. Moreland and G. DeWeese, “The Premature Report of Foundationalism’s Demise” in Ibid.. Ibid., “What is Truth and Why Does it Matter?” Boundless Webzine. Online here.↩
9. Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), 60-63. Cf. also ibid., “Truth Defined and Defended,” in Ibid., 59-80. Cf. also his article “What is Truth?” Online here.↩
10. James Emery White, What Is Truth?: A Comparative Study of the Positions of Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Donald Bloesch, Millard Erickson Baptist Sunday School Board, 1994).↩
11. Millard J. Erickson, Truth or Consequences: The Promise & Perils of Postmodernism (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 234.↩
12. Moreland, “What is Truth and Why Does It Matter”. Online here.↩
13. Groothuis, “What is Truth?” Online here.↩
14. Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor, eds., Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 328-29.↩
15. Stan Wallace, “The Real Issue: Discerning and Defining the Essentials of Postmodernism.” Online here.↩
16. J. P. Moreland, “What is Truth and Why Does It Matter”. Online here.↩
17. Douglas Groothuis, “Truth Defined and Defended,” in Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor, eds., Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 79.↩
18. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (London: SCM Press, 1962), 257. The Latin term used in philosophy to express this idea of agreement was adaequatio. Thomas Aquinas replaced it with correspondentia from which we get the ‘correspondence theory of truth’. ↩
19. Ibid., 262.↩
20. In The Essence of Truth Heidegger asks. “And what is the true? The true is what is known. It is just what corresponds with the facts. The proposition corresponds with what is known in knowledge; thus with what is true. The true? So does the correspondence of the proposition amount to correspondence with something corresponding? A fine definition! Truth is correspondence with a correspondence, the latter itself corresponds with a correspondence, and so forth. [...] What presents itself as self-evident is utterly obscure”(Martin Heidegger, The Essence Of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus [n.p.: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002], 2-3).↩
21. Heidegger reads Plato’s cave allegory as a story of unveiling, of bringing the hidden to unhiddenness (α-ληθεια). Correspondence does not even play a role there at all.↩
22. Ibid., 259.↩
23. And along with it the separation (and later, correspondance) between the real and the ideal.↩
24. K. Scott Oliphint’s review of Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth, and Justin Taylor, eds., Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004). Online here.↩
25. Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 1-2.↩
26. Ibid., 2-3.↩
27. Ibid., 3-4.↩