I don't want to seem haughty or condescending, as if I know the absolute truth. I am convinced about some things, but do I know the absolute truth?

Do I not simply have a relative interpretation of the absolute truth? Some might even say there is no absolute truth to begin with, because all 'truth' is relative to the person perceiving or constructing it.

Well, let's see. In geometry any three non-collinear points determine a unique triangle in which the inside angles add up to 180 degrees.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of living organisms.

The burning of the sun-radiation-causes light on the earth. If I swim down to the wreck of the Constellation out by the reef, tear off my mask and snorkel, and then try to breath like a fish, things will not turn out well.

Some things I can know, and they are not a matter of interpretation, but many other things reside behind a thin veil.

We sense them there, but we cannot know them exactly.

Christians claim to have absolute truth, the Scriptures; yet, we all interpret the Scriptures in our own ways.

We have a relative understanding of absolute truth. Some will say that they have the Holy Spirit to help, and I think this is an important point.

God is transcendent, Wholly Other. He is qadosh, holy, which means in a class by itself.

This is the meaning of the oft-stated nominative, "Only-begotten Son of God" in reference to Jesus. What the Greek actually says is, "One-of-a-kind Son of God" holy.

It is impossible for any of us to know the thoughts of another person, to know the truth of that person absolutely, for each other person is enshrouded in the enigma, the mystery of his or her own subjectiveness.

The only one who knows what it's like to be you is you. Even your own words to tell what it's like to be you fall short and communicate at best just a sliver of what it's like.

In fact, they do not grasp your experience at all, but simply point to it as you tell your story.

Your telling is a confession, and it is a revelation of yourself to another of what it's like for you in any given situation.

Your most intimate companion can only imagine from what you say, looking beyond the words and the concepts you speak or write, to something else, something other than the words themselves.

That is because, like God, each of us is transcendent with regard to any other, and we can only have a relative understanding of the truth of another.

Into this kind of existence Paul acknowledged the enigma of subjective thought when he wrote, "Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10)

However, he went on to assert something quite astounding. He wrote, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God…we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2: 12, 16)

Those who have received the Holy Spirit have access to the subjective understanding of God in regard to the things of God. What that means to me is that when I turn the light on to read Scripture, God's mind on the subject is made ready to my own mind.

I do not simply look at it and see a transcendent, impenetrable enigma; I gain some understanding, and especially so, I gain God's view of how that scripture relates to my own, immediate situation.

It is a conversation with God that takes place within me, and there is nothing more immediately amazing than that.

However, what this does not do is allow me access into the same thing happening inside my brother, for the communion of his spirit with the Holy Spirit inside him remains transcendent to me.

I still have only a relative understanding of his truth, even though God, the author of absolute truth, may genuinely guide him.

That's why, to me, it is so important to honour one's brotherhood with others. We cannot know what is going on inside them between themselves and God.

In the early church Tertullian was a theologian of distinction before he converted to Montanism, which was regarded by the church to be a heresy-a heresy because it promoted direct prophetic utterance by people claiming to speak from God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some claimed the Montanists made up new doctrine that superseded the apostolic teaching captured in the New Testament.

Tertullian claimed it was rather a purging of deadness and the hypocrisy of self-serving (a kind of foreshadow of the reformation to follow several centuries later).

What is the truth? Montanism has been compared to the modern Pentecostal church; is that neo-Montanism? What is the absolute truth?

To me what is important is that whenever there is a claim to prophetic utterance that it conform to the statements of the New Testament.

Further, to me, it's one thing for a minister to share prophetic utterance when the minister him or herself has an understanding of scripture as a base or ground, but if all he or she feeds his or her people is a steady diet of his or her own ecstatic experience, then those people learn that religious experience supersedes contemplation of scripture; for them such experience has become a continuing revelation, and that is exactly what got Montanism branded as a heresy.

So, how do I approach my brother in Christ with whom I may differ in my understanding of truth?

Do I know all things absolutely? No. I know some things surely and for myself, and I may share my understanding, but what God teaches my brother is between him and God and a relative truth to me. I've been told to love my brother, and that is enough-that is plenty!