Dialogue

What is dialogue?

A provisional definition: what we do when we (a) do not know what is
true (b) do not have the courage to tell the truth.

Here is an example of a dialogue. Pay attention to how the two
dramatis personae play their "roles" in the "dialogue."

"Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?"

"Am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over
to me. What have you done?" [stalling, excuses]

"My kingdom is not of this world..." [truth]

"So you are a king?" [willful incomprehension masked as ignorance;
stalling; the desire for more dialogue]

"You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born into the world:
to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my
voice." [truth plainly spoken; the truthful recognize truth;
implication: Pilate does not hear Jesus voice, ergo, Pilate is not of
the truth]

"What is truth?" [willful incomprehension, willful absurdity in the
face--the literal face--of the truth, postmodernism]

"I find no guilt in him" [relativism, weakness, cowardice]

...

A third party: "According to the law he ought to die, because he has
made himself the Son of God" [Canada, Sweden...]

Narrator: "When Pilate heard this he was afraid." [the coward cowers
before truth]

"Where are you from?" [more stalling, refusal to submit to the truth]

"You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given
to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the
greater sin." [authority derives from the truth who is infinite power;
those who lead astray by the abuse of authority face a stricter judgment
(cf. James 3.1)]

Third party: "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend."
[cowardice, mob insanity: the absurdity of democracy]

"Behold your king!" [mockery of the truth, shameless, postmodernism]

Narrator: So he delivered him over too be crucified. [a natural law:
the coward will always crucify the truth]



A second definition: Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman. I
will write about the second definition if one single person proves to
me that they care.

Christ's peace,

Phillip