David S. Dockery & American Evangelicalism
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 68, No. 2 - Spring 2026
Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
A Judeo‑Christian Appraisal of Major Theories of Truth. By Joseph B. Onyango Okello. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2025, 206 pp., $28.00.
What is truth? This question, famously uttered by Pontius Pilate as he questioned Jesus in the Gospel of John, has been a fixation within philosophical circles since long before Jesus was born. In his new book, A Judeo-Christian Appraisal of Major Theories of Truth, Joseph B. Onyango Okello attempts to clarify what he thinks is the proper question: who is truth? Okello is a professor of philosophy at Asbury Theological Seminary, having earned a PhD at the University of Kentucky. Thus, he is well situated to engage his chosen topic richly. Beginning with the notion that truth is a property of propositions, he attempts to expose deficiencies in major theories of truth that have been advanced over the centuries as well as to demonstrate how the very notion of truth points us toward the infinite existence of the Christian God. The book is at the same time accessible enough for the non-specialist to understand the major theories Okello
engages and technical enough to offer substantial philosophical questions about those theories.
The introduction of Okello’s book throws the reader immediately into philosophical waters. He assumes that truth is a property of propositions, and that propositions exist only contingently. That is, a proposition only exists if it has been uttered by a proposition-maker. Okello, then offers a sort of ontological argument for the existence of an infinite being by showing that an infinitely long proposition exists and is true. He intends to use this argument to demonstrate the need for a “personalistic view of truth” (15).
The next seven chapters walk systematically through alternative theories of truth in forms posited by specific thinkers. For relativism, his main point of contact is Gordon Kaufman. His two chapters on pragmatism engage the similar thoughts of William James and C. S. Pierce (chapter three) and then of Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam (chapter four). A brief excursion into the postmodernism of Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault is followed by a philosophically technical response to Alfred Tarski’s correspondence theory. Harold Joachim’s coherence theory dominates chapter seven as the final major theory Okello assesses before he gives his own perspective in chapter eight. In that final chapter, Okello walks through New Testament and patristic uses of logos as a title for Christ as well as passages from those sources pertaining to the notion of truth. Finally, he settles on divine omniscience as the only suitable basis for a theory of truth, rooting the concept of truth in the nature of God.
The title of the book may be a bit misleading; readers will not find in each chapter a biblical or theological response to major theories of truth. Okello focuses his efforts on more generally applicable, philosophical arguments against the six theories he addresses. For this reason, his assessments would be challenging regardless of the reader’s presuppositions about Christianity of God’s existence. This feature should be viewed as a positive aspect of the work, for it does not relegate the book only to readers who already agree with its conclusion that God grounds truth.
ertain chapters are more helpful than others regarding their assessments of the major theories therein. Okello’s engagement with Tarski on the correspondence theory of truth is detailed and technical, which is fitting since Tarski himself presented a detailed and technical theory. However, chapter five on postmodernism does not fully develop the complicated and fluid theories that its target figures weaved, largely because Okello only engages a single primary work for each of Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida.
The most interesting, and potentially incorrect claim in the book, comes first in the introduction and then again in the final chapter explaining a theocentric view of truth. Assuming the foundational premise that propositions exist only contingently, Okello attempts to construct an infinite set of propositions of the form “the number N exists” for every whole number N. He then claims that the conjunction of every element in that infinite set of propositions is a single, infinitely long proposition that is demonstrably true but unutterable by any human being (9). Hence, through an ontological-argument-type move, Okello claims that an infinite, omniscient mind must exist. He uses this conclusion throughout the book to demonstrate deficiencies in the various major theories and then in the last chapter to argue that God must ground truth in his knowledge—in his own nature. However, while the set of propositions Okello creates may be potentially infinite in size, it is not guaranteed to be actually infinite in size as formulated because someone would need to utter all infinitely many propositions of the form “the number N exists,” something Okello cannot demonstrate has happened. While one might conceive of this infinite set using the procedure Okello describes, one cannot actually show that the infinite set or infinite proposition exists. If Okello could demonstrate either the set’s or proposition’s existence, then he has proven that a finite mind can bring such things into existence by conceiving of the general procedure for creating them, which undermines his whole argument for truth grounded in omniscience. For this reason, Okello’s argument needs further work, though his conclusion in the book is one with which Christians of all stripes can agree.
