John 18. 38: Pilate said to Him, 'What is Truth?' 14.6b: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (NKJV)
Pilate, as so many others like Pilate, asked: What is truth?
As a rudder and compass are essential in navigation, so the answer to this question is essential for all thought. Pilate, however, asked this question only to dismiss it. As James Boice noted:
Pilate's response was not in the nature of a further pursuit of the matter or even a recognition of the importance of what Jesus said. Rather, it was a cynical response based on what was, to Pilate, the seeming impossibility of ever knowing what truth was. 'What is truth?' he said, and then walked away. (Boice, p.1*)
In other words, Pilate's response expressed the Roman worldview governed by cynicism. He was a precursor of our modern age, a man steeped in relativism. As the Greeks failed to discover the ground of truth and knowledge and drifted into epistemological skepticism, the Romans turned to worship an unknown god. Pilate was preeminently a man of his age. He was a pragmatist who believed that truth is whatever achieves the desires of the moment.
The present age is no better, indeed, in some respects worse. The current slogan claims, "There are no absolute truths," failing to note the contradiction.