Friends and the Truth

Author: Lewis Benson

Format: 8.5" x 11" Downloadable PDF

Description: In any discussion of “truth” someone is bound to throw out the eternal question: “What is truth?” It is a  perennial subject of philosophy and has been debated for all of known history. But we can never find  an answer until we change the interrogative “What” to “Who.” It is from this standpoint that Fox and  early Friends spoke about “truth.” Only by asking “Who is truth?” do you come to the revelation of the way to be restored to our true standing as creatures before our Creator. Lewis Benson stated: 

"Fox’s conception of truth is grounded upon his belief that the life of man is determined by  his relationship to his creator. He believed that the creator speaks to man calling for right  action and for a community that lives under his rule. By listening to God and obeying his  word man fulfils the basic law of his being. This basic conversational relationship between  man and his creator is what Fox means by truth. Truth does not consist of particular  propositions or a system of propositions. It is rather a dialogic relationship to God. When  this dialogic relationship is broken man ceases to fulfill the purpose and destiny that God  intended for him. This is the fall of man – the failure to hear and obey the creator. This is  what Fox calls “the fall from the truth” and to his opponents he declares: “To the witness of God in you all, I speak; that you may see your fall from the truth, out of the prophets’ life,  Christ’s life, and the apostles’ life; so you are out of the commands, and fallen from  God . . . ” Truth is experienced as the voice of the creator whose word must be obeyed and  so it is natural for Fox to speak of hearing truth’s voice and obeying the truth. Truth comes  by obedience in righteousness and therefore the wisdom of “Friends in the Truth” is not the  wisdom of the wise but the wisdom of the just."

In this essay, Benson discusses the following topics: 

• Fox’s Conception of Truth 
• Man Realizes His Manhood 
• Walking in the Truth 
• “Be Valiant for God’s Truth...”