IRONY IN HARVARD YARD: TRUTH REVISED; TRUTH REVEALED

In Harvard Yard is a statue. I used to ride my bike by it when I was just ten years old.  The statue represents a big irony.  It is supposedly a facsimile of John Harvard, "Founder" of the university.  On the base of the statue is one word, the present motto of Harvard, Veritas, meaning Truth.  The irony is that nothing about the statue and motto is actually true.  First, it can’t really be John Harvard.  When he passed away, he left no picture or image of himself.  Second, he did not really found Harvard.  He merely left his library and some funds after his death to a committee who founded the school to train pastors.  These founders named the school after him. Third, the original motto was “Veritas Pro Christo et Ecclesia”.  Sometime along the way the Truth was uncoupled from Christ and the Church.  Today, truth is relative at Harvard and most other universities.

In contrast is the Word, scriptural truth, which has prevailed for thousands of years.  It prevails because it is God’s word and continues to be actualized and operationalized in increasing Christ likeness in both personal life and in the broader Christian community . . . It remains the primary means of grace, that occasions faith.  “Faith, the fruit of grace, becomes the seeing eye and the hearing ear that receives and embraces the divine mystery and presence. . . It is the totality of the Christian life, in all its various dimensions, both public and private, heart and mind, personal and social, that attests to the truth of Scripture.” (Kenneth J. Collins, The Theology of John Wesley . . . , p. 2)

Faith at Harvard dissipated over time.  Its grasp of Truth dissipated as well leaving  a diminished capacity for seeing and hearing the mysteries of God and for an awareness of God’s presence.  In the Gospel of John (1:14) speaking of Jesus, we read 

           “The Word became flesh . . . full of grace and truth.”  

Here the Word is more than theory, more than philosophy, and more than speculation.  Christ was full of grace and truth.  I like the order, grace before truth, because it was and is in the grace of God, in the life of Christ, and in the work of the Holy Spirit that we see Truth.  While some truth is discovered, Truth is revealed.  Whether discovered or revealed, in the Words of Arthur Holmes, “All truth is God’s truth.”  Ain’t that the truth!

"When he, the Sprit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth." John 16:14.