What Is Truth?

Pilate asked Jesus: "What is truth?"
It seems to have been a rhetorical question, but it shouldn't have been.
And Jesus doesn't answer, maybe because he knows that whatever he says will essentially fall on deaf ears, or maybe, he doesn't answer because he knows that truth is inherently undefinable.  His truth as a Jew is going to be different from that of a Roman like Pilate, his truth as a man facing a brutal death is going to be different from the truth of the man who is about to condemn him to that fate.
In the age of science we are on a quest to gain at least reasonable proximity to "objective" truth, but if you press hard enough you will always find that there needs to be some hedge against uncertainty: standard deviations, margins of error, variance that may or may not be explicable.  Even when you come to a place where you have strong enough data to state the facts, the interpretation of facts into truth is still a tricky process, where "reasonable people" might disagree.
If it's that difficult to name truth in a field that is entirely dependent on data to support conclusions, how much harder is it then in the realm of theology?  Where do you even begin?  If you think you're starting with an "objective" mind you are delusional.  If you think that you would ever arrive at the just and loving God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, simply based on observable reality, you are sorely mistaken.  Everything about the way the world actually works would probably lead you to some sort of paganism, atheism or a agnosticism.  The only reason anyone even knows who Jesus of Nazareth was is because of a tradition of people who have talked about him and retold the stories of his life, death and resurrection.  We have very little "objective" data about the man, and yet...
But I'm not going to jump off here and say that the fact that Christianity is still a thing is somehow proof that it's true, what I'm going to say is: isn't it amazing that Christianity is still a thing?  I'm often staggered by the historical reality of Christianity: the path that led from an obscure sect of Judaism to a world religion that dwarfs its progenitor, but that peculiar reality does not prove it's truth.
The reality of the Christian tradition was foreshadowed by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, when they talked about "the cloud of witnesses," all the people who have worked just a little ways along the path of discipleship.  The councils that have dealt with this heresy or that heresy, making course corrections, sometimes in peaceful debate, other times in violent confrontations, but who miraculously never entirely destroy the message of the Gospel.
The miracle of the Christian faith is not that we have entirely grasped the truth, but that we have managed to hold onto just enough of it to keep us going, and moving forward, to keep us out of the various ditches of extremism on one side and relativism on the other (yes, I know, there are parts of the body that can always throw some gutter balls from time to time, but the main course of Christianity somehow manages to wobble down the center).
We uncertainly apprehend the small bit of  truth we have.  Sometimes we neglect or even despise the truth that has been hard fought by our ancestors.  Most of the time we have a dangerous flirtation with worldly values, in short, the reason we have the truth we have is not because we are clever, disciplined and insightful, it is because grace is a thing.
We are pulled, in every generation, by the powerful lure of Gnosticism, by the arrogant voice of our inner teenager assuring us that we have finally figured out the mystery that has so badly outwitted our parents, we are tempted to retreat into the pseudo-pagan idea that morality is really all that God cares about.  We make unwarranted theological assumptions and then miss the truth that so plainly stares us in the face: just like Pilate.