"Voller Gnade und Wahrheit": Eine theologische Resonanztheorie der Wahrheit

This essay analyzes the theories of truth in philosophy and theology, focuses on the truth-theory of the pragmatist William James as a possible candidate for a fruitful interaction between understandings of truth in philosophy and theology and proposes an own suggestion for a theological solution: Under the condition of abandonment of representationalism and of adopting semantic and active externalism and the extended-mind-theory, Christian faith is described as a means of perception in the framework of an narrative-relational ontology including the concept of dramatic coherence. This leads to an ethical theory of truth which sees truth as resonance in dramatic coherence between creaturely-personal (speech-)acting and divine (speech-)acting and its event-like effects. This definition is gained from the particular perspective of faith, but universal applicable. Furthermore, this theory is able to overcome the seemingly alternative between a theological and personal understanding of truth as the person of Jesus Christ on the one hand and a propositional understanding of truth in the realm of philosophy on the other side. Truth is then seen not as a construct, but something that emerges by the acting of the Holy Spirit, also in the realm of the natural sciences.

Die christliche Tradition beschäftigt sich in vielfältigem Sinne mit der Wahrheitsfrage. Symptomatisch und paradigmatisch ist der johanneische Wortwechsel zwischen Jesus und Pilatus geworden. Auf Jesu Zeugnis, „Ich bin dazu geboren und...