“What Is Truth?”: Pilate’s Question, My Journey, and the Search We Share

Dear Friends,

There are questions that echo across centuries—questions too heavy for one conversation, too essential to belong to any era alone. Yet, every generation, every earnest seeker, finds that sooner or later, the trail leads to a stone-paved courtyard and an uneasy dialogue: Jesus and Pilate. The world on the brink. And over it all, that short, unforgettable question:

“What is truth?” (John 18:38)

I have often found myself returning to this scene—sometimes in prayer, sometimes in frustration, often in the thick of my own “judgment seat” moments. Maybe you have, too, especially in this strange, noisy era when the words “truth,” “fact,” “proof,” and “belief” rattle around endlessly, rarely landing long enough to provide guidance.

So why does Pilate’s question still sting? Because it’s mine, and, I suspect, yours too.

Pilate’s Dilemma: The Universal Human Trial

Let’s linger, if only for a moment, in Jerusalem, AD 33. Pilate, a bureaucrat of Rome, has little appetite for theological debate, but he’s caught between pressures—politics, public opinion, a gnawing sense that he stands at the precipice of something larger than himself.

He faces a man whose very presence engenders both hope and hostility, whose words will upend the world, yet who answers silence with silence and enigma with even deeper enigma.

The Gospels don’t paint Pilate as cartoon villain. They show him wavering; a man beset by crowd and conscience, command and confusion. He asks, “What is truth?”—and receives no answer, only the gaze of One whose kingdom is “not of this world.”

Though centuries removed, I recognize that look. I’ve seen it in my own reflection when, as a young student, I stood before the “authorities” of my life—school administrators, family, church, my own anxious heart—wondering what truth I was really ready to risk everything for.

Personal Echoes: Standing at Judgment Seats

In The People of the Sign, I wrote of my own search through the tangled questions left by a father whose faith and industry dwarfed his time for books, and later, of my stumbles and awakenings at Ambassador College. As I’ve shared previously: My pathway in, shaped by duty and expectation, collided quickly with the academic wall—Latin Literature in Translation, a professor’s high standards, and my own sense of falling short. Academic probation landed me squarely at my first “Pilate moment”—confronted with the evidence of my own limits.

But it was in returning to Dr. Stavrinidis’ classes, facing the dread of repeating history, that I encountered something closer to the heart of truth itself: the moment of decision, not about what others declared true, but about what I was willing to investigate, admit, accept, or reject on my own terms.

Later, standing alone at the Colmar conference, when the winds of institutional dogma swept the room, it would have been easy—understandable—to fold, to nod agreement, to let the question of truth rest with the crowd. But the lesson was burned in deep: whatever the cost, truth cannot be borrowed. It must be lived, searched for, sometimes even suffered.

The Question Behind All Questions

“What is truth?” Pilate asked, and the world barely paused to answer before moving on to its next spectacle, next crisis. But those three words refuse to let us go—the way only the most necessary questions do.

What IS truth—absolute, relative, revealed, discovered, inherited, constructed? Is it the faith we grew up with, the scientific consensus, the sum total of Google’s indexed facts, or something altogether harder to name? If my journey (and trilogy) have taught me anything, it is that the truth rarely presents itself as a static monument. It arrives disguised as a question, a test, or a persistent itch for coherence.

In my own life, the “truths” I once accepted—about God, doctrine, myself—were periodically shattered by experience. Each breaking was, at first, a loss; later, a liberation. The only reliable throughline was the practice of honest investigation: taking nothing for granted but the dignity of the question itself.

Science, Revelation, and The Limits of Certainty

The question Pilate posed isn’t merely a religious one. It haunts the scientist, the philosopher, the parent, the policy-maker—anyone who dares to peer beneath the easy surface.

As I chronicled in The People of the Sign and its sequels, my search led from archaeological digs in Israel to scripture-drenched classrooms, to the mind-opening corridors of quantum theory and cosmology. Science, at its best, asks “What is?,” always adding, “How do we know?” Revelation, too—properly understood—invites questioning, not blind recitation.

Too much of either, unchecked by humility, becomes brittle. Science untethered from purpose or ethics can become reductionist. Revelation without inquiry ossifies into dogma. The crackle of creativity, the birth of new insight, happens at the intersection where each is willing to question and be questioned—where, as Bahá’u’lláh put it, “see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others.”

Even certainty, precious as it can feel, is always provisional. Every “I know” is (or should be) shadowed by “I might be wrong”—and “I’m willing to find out.”

An Invitation: The Community as Courtroom

What Pilate missed, and what I’ve struggled to learn, is that truth is rarely found in isolation. We investigate best when we do it together—not to pronounce verdicts, but to keep searching in good faith.

That’s why this series exists, and why our new podcast/forum seeks to assemble educators, students, and seekers at the intersection of Science and Revelation. We are intentionally building not just a broadcast, but an ongoing hearing in which everyone gets to ask and answer: What is truth, in this domain, for you? Where have you seen it lost or found? What Pilate moments have you weathered—and what, if anything, remains unanswered?

Your Invitation This Week

I want this space to become a “courtroom” worthy of its question, not filled with prosecutors and defendants, but with honest witnesses.

Share in the comments or by email:
- What has been your Pilate moment?
- Where have you risked honesty against a tide of opinion or tradition?
- How do YOU define, test, and live truth—in science, faith, education, or daily life?
Volunteer for the next episode:
- If you have a story to share or a question to pose, write to me at: Wade@soopmedia.net.
Suggest a topic:
- What intersection of science and revelation seems most urgent, challenging, or neglected?

Let’s become the kind of community that doesn’t sidestep Pilate’s question, but carries it, wrestles with it, and maybe—together—finds answers worth living, if not dying, for.

Next Steps & Preview

In the next part, we’ll look at how the world’s wisdom traditions—religious and scientific—have tried (and sometimes failed) to answer this ultimate question. Along the way, I’ll share further stories from my trilogy—moments of revelation, loss, and ongoing search—and highlight insights from our growing circle of educators and seekers.

In the meantime, I invite every reader to take Pilate’s question seriously, not as a rhetorical flourish, but as the life-work of any true community: together, what is truth?

With humility, expectation, and gratitude,

—Wade Fransson