how can anything be true?

jesus, bananas...and the nature of truth.

Mike Dorner on Unsplash

Walking through a horticultural conservatory this weekend, my attention was drawn to a towering banana tree. Underneath it was a sign explaining that in the 1950s, anyone who purchased a banana from the grocery store ate a variety called “Gros Michel.”

I learned, though, that around the 1950s a soil-born fungal disease called “Panama Wilt” wiped out entire plantations of this variety. Because the bananas that we eat are created by micropropagation (rather than seeds planted in the ground), a fungal disease like this can leave all banana trees susceptible to being destroyed. In response to this fungal disease, scientists and ecologists developed a variety of bananas “Cavendish,” which is what we eat today.

My friend Sam explained to me that this is why ‘banana’ flavored sweets never actually taste like bananas; because the chemicals that imitate ‘banana-ness’ were created before 1950, our popsicles, laffy taffy, suckers, and syrups all taste like something similar but distinctly different than the bananas we eat today.

This conversation about the true essence of banana-ness has stuck with me for the past few days.

Imagine someone ate a banana every day until the year 1945, and then grew sick of them, vowing never to eat one again. Now, imagine that a child tries their first banana in 1955—never having tasted the Gros Michel variety—and starts describing their experience to the once-banana-addicted adult.

Perhaps the adult could recognize some of the child’s description: a yellow fruit, slightly rounded, with a stem at the top that you peel down in sections.

Eventually, however, the adult will begin to notice that their experience of banana-ness varies from the child: the adult remembers bananas as fragrant, abundantly sweet, and creamy in texture; but what the child describes is a somewhat odorless, sweet but acidic fruit that is relatively mushy in texture.

Both the adult and child have a conception of ‘banana-ness’ rooted in their experience, but such descriptions contradict each other’s account of the proper essence of banana-ness. Their individual experiences render the other’s description unrecognizable.

Determining whether the child or adult is “right” is the struggle of language and, more specifically, communication. Both have experienced a fruit that they understand as a “banana,” and yet their experiences eating this fruit differ to the point that they don’t recognize one another’s description as fully valid.

(The illustration could be pushed even further if we introduce, say, a person from a foreign land who, in their homeland, calls this slightly rounded, yellow fruit “pear.” If this party enters the conversation, saying that the child and adult aren’t describing a banana at all, even more confusion will erupt. But I imagine you get the point by now).

The child, adult, and foreigner are certainly being truthful, but which one is right? And how do we hold multiple contradictory—but equally truthful—experiences of the same subject together?

This illustration is harmless enough when we are talking about bananas. But what happens when we trade bananas for concepts like “justice,” traditions like “Christianity,” and truth claims like “Jesus is Lord?”

This, I believe, is at the core of many divisions among Christians today. We all employ the same language— “I am a Christian”… “Love your neighbor”… “Seek justice”—and then are surprised to find that we all act so differently in the world today.

When two Christians speak of Jesus, they may agree that they are describing God incarnate who has come to redeem and reconcile all creation to God and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near. They likely both agree that Jesus is their Savior and that we should seek to follow his teachings and imitate his life. But, one Christian may say, then, that Jesus is the prototype for the strong, masculine man who takes control and bends the world to his will. The other, rendering such a description of Jesus unrecognizable, may instead say that Jesus exemplifies for us humility, gentleness, and radical love even in chaos.

From these two conceptions of Jesus, each person will likely draw different conclusions about what Jesus says about himself:

When one Christian says “Jesus is Lord,” it means that we must take control of our government and rule it by Christian values, but another may say that because Jesus is Lord, we don’t have to pursue earthly power, but instead are free from such trivial pursuits.

One believer says “love your neighbor,” they have in mind their immediate needs and create a community where all can flourish in their own ways, but another may hear these words and think of conversion to Christianity by any means necessary as truly loving our neighbors.

Of course, all of the words in these statements are subject to the same problem—words like “rule,” “power,” “love,” “Christian values,” and “flourish” all can mean something different depending on who is speaking them.

Finding a common understanding in this context is far more complex than that realizing we are eating two different varieties of the same fruit. We are not dealing only with time, but with social locations that form our imagination of the world and our place within it. Both Christians are reading the same text and appealing to the same person of “Jesus,” and yet their understanding of Jesus and the practice of Christianity begin to differ widely based on how they are interpreting the language given to them.

Nevertheless, this is the work required of Christians today—to name the people, places, ideas, and contexts that shape and form how we make sense of the world. In doing so, our task is to get specific not only about what we believe but also what such beliefs lead us to do.

A core question that remains is how we can measure anything as truthful when our experiences can differ so greatly. If all language is subject to our experiences and all of our experiences differ, how can we come to any consensus on a singular, universal truth? Even more, is any language adequate to describe such a universal truth, given its normative nature?

Books could be (and have been) dedicated to these questions. However, one answer for us today, as Christians, is found in the ultimate authority of an infinite God unbound by social location.

The question we must ask of all that we believe and the ends we use such beliefs towards is if these actions are recognizable to God as revealed in Jesus Christ (John 14:8-9). As the only one who has lived in unwavering devotion to God, always and only doing God’s will and in such reflecting God’s very being to creation, all we say about God and do in God’s name must be recognizable to Jesus Christ.

To roughly utilize the illustration above—does our localized, experiential conception of “banana-ness” align with Jesus’ conception of banana-ness insomuch as we see Jesus interact, uplift, affirm, and utilize such a concept? (Again, replace “banana-ness” with justice, love of neighbor, freedom, humility, or any other theological concept).

To do this is no easy task. It requires us to come to the Scriptures in community, leaning not on our isolated conclusions of who Jesus is and instead holding ourselves accountable to a body of believers who can both encourage and challenge us. Through this process, the Holy Spirit is present in and with us (Matthew 18:20), guiding our hearts and minds to that which is true, good, and beautiful.

Therefore, saints, I am convinced that the more we read the Scriptures and seek to imitate Christ (Ephesians 5:1–2), the more we can live into the faithful and redemptive work of God in the world.

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Reading:

• Mark Noll, “Spiritual Renewal and Social Transformation” (Comment)

• Christian Wiman, “My Christ” (Image Journal)

Watching:

• “How To with John Wilson” (HBO Max)

• “Invincible” (Amazon Prime)

• Post Malone’s “NPR Tiny Desk Concert” (YouTube)

Listening: