The following is an excerpt from a delightful Graduation Address Stanley Hauerwas delivered at the University of Aberdeen in June 2017.  The address to the graduates was shaped around one simple piece of advice:  “Do not lie.”

“The temptation is to think that in order to get a handle on not lying you need a theory of truth, but that is what many think we no longer seem to have. This is not a new problem. I am a representative of a tradi­tion that has at its center the one we believe not only was at home in the truth, but was and is the truth. When a minor Roman official was told this man was the one who had come into the world to testify to the truth, he asked the skeptic’s question, “What is truth?” He received no answer; the ensuing silence indicates that the response to skepticism is not a theory but an exemplary life. Such a life, a life that is at home in the truth, is a life according to Wittgenstein that has undergone the training to keep pride in check.”¹

This is the seventh in a series of posts highlighting captivating, provocative, or simply entertaining quotes from the forthcoming book Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections by Stanley Hauerwas with Robert J. Dean (Cascade).