What is truth?

Have you ever noticed that definitions never seem to be meaningful anymore?  We have a tendency to redefine words or use them in the way that is most beneficial to our own idealogy.  Often times someone asserts there opinion, using a word which you understand to mean one thing, but suddenly they take it upon themselves to redefine this word and use it in a completely different and perhaps even inappropriate context. How are we expected to respond to these uncomfortable little moments? Say nothing, if we disagree we risk hurting their feelings. Heaven forbid you suggest that there may be a better way of understanding the term, put it in it’s proper context and (gasp!)  correct them.   We live in a world that is running from the truth.  A world in which the virtue of charity(love) has been divorced from the truth.  Tolerance is not the highest form of charity, in fact, Charity divorced from the truth, is not true Charity at all(I stole that from Pope Benedict see Caritatis in Veritate). Rather it is contrary to living a truly human existence.  Imagine a world where we don’t have to agree to disagree, where we don’t say that’s ok for you, and this is ok for me.  Instead, accepting that there are fundamental objective truths about the human person that when denied reject God’s divine game plan, the dignity of every human person, and inevitably bring about a culture of dishonesty.

The truth is that there is objective truth.  If you asked me who the first president of the United States was and I emphatically answered Abe Lincoln, you would laugh at me.  If you loved me you would immediately tell me how ridiculous I was.  You would know with certainty that no matter how obstinately I might cling to my belief, George Washington held the first official presidential seat.  This is the very nature of objective truth and no matter how hard I might stomp my feet, kick and scream, argue to the contrary, or try to rationalize why I believe that Lincoln was the first president, I would still be wrong, even if it made me FEEL better to believe that Lincoln was the first president. You see when something is true by it’s nature, something cannot oppose it and be true at the same time.  That means when two people disagree about something, typically someone is wrong.  Sometimes, our opinions, our comfortable choices, our rationalizations are actually wrong and they require someone who is right to set us back on the right course.  We can cling to our good feelings all we want to, Pilate did when he met face to face with the truth and it didn’t bring anymore peace to his life. In many ways, aren’t we all a little like pilate?  I’ll take this teaching but not that one, or that teaching but not this one. You like the liturgy like this while I like it like that, it's no big deal.  Why all of this talk about truth?  Because the recognition that objective truth exists is absolutely necessary for a human person to live a fully human life(Rom 3:4).  And truth, when it is accepted brings about true unity.  Bloggers Note: Truth has nothing to do with how we feel.  

Of course there is always some Jr. philosopher out there who wants to deny and make a mockery of the Catholic Church for asserting such a thing.  But if the Church is asserting it, it isn't simply because it is imbued in her doctrine, it is because, without her doctrine, reason would tell us that objective truth exists. Nevertheless, there are those who reject this notion.  They usually begin by asserting, as if it were objectively true, that “there is no objective truth!”  “That’s an outdated idea.”  Don’t laugh this just happened to me at the gym two weeks ago.  Now, clearly this Jr. philosopher, believes that what he has just said is, you guessed it objectively true.  But, wait, I say, you just said objectively that there is nothing that is objectively true.  Does this include the statement you have just made about objective truth, I ask?  If so, why should I continue to listen to you?  You have asserted by your own admission that what you have said is not true, it is merely an opinion, your opinion, and surely I am not bound by your opinions, am I?   Wait I say, are you saying that I am right and objective truth does exist?  Long pause…a couple of well’s and umm’s later, I get a “religion is stupid.” And our conversation ends as he walks off.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that “Man could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another.”  Now after my conversation, I can see that this is true.  That person was not interested in hearing the truth or being challenged to live in it. He realized almost immediately that accepting this fundamental premise would mean change, a change he was not ready to embrace. His only interest was to further an agenda which he had been sold by a culture that does not view him as holy and sacred rather, as a utility or an object, a good for economic purposes.  As a culture we need to get beyond our pride and stop imposing materialism on human beings.  This calls for individual conversion so that it may be felt culturally.  We need to challenge oursleves to live differently. Look around, we say we love each other, but 50% or better of the marriages in this country end in divorce.  We say we love each other and we move in together before marriage, over 80% of those marriages end in divorce.  We say we love each other and we are unfaithful.  I don’t think it is to hard to see that we live in a culture devastated by dishonesty.  Men very often can’t speak about women without talking about them as objects.  The average age of the guy exposed to porn is between 8- 10.  Until our lives are congruent with our lips, we are going to live in a world of deceit and mistrust in which the common  experience is shallow, broken relationships built on a lie about who the human person is, rather than the truth. 

Why is Theology of the Body so important?  Because, it goes right to the root of the human person and reveals the truth about who they are. Over the next blog or two I will investigate more closely the truth about how God created us from the beginning.  The absolute truth, the truth we are called to live in.  John Paul the II refers to the truth 342 times in “Man and Woman he created them: a Theology of the Body.”  So, it is important as we dive into who you are and what that means for your life, that you begin to pray about being open to this life giving truth.  St. John says “If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth (1 Jn 1:6).  Jesus says simply “Let your yes be yes and your no be no, all else is from the evil one(Mt 5:37). We cannot continue to live lives that fail to seek truth, speak truth, or to live truth.  That way of thinking leads to a way of living that is diametrically opposed to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

God had a very specific design for your life.  You are merely a tool in his hand.  Like a scalpel in the hand of the divine physician as he operates in the world.  Failure to realize that, failure to be a docile instrument washed clean by the mercy and grace of the sacraments and prayer, makes us a lot less precise and effective.  We begin to look a lot more like an out of control jackhammer(this is not a tool I want to be operated on with, you?) But none of us, no matter where we have been or where we are right now, is beyond this saving truth We are not destined to continue in the mistrust and insecurity brought on by it, or unable to recieve the grace to start again.  Pray about your life,  where you are at and whether it's where you want to be, are you living a life rooted in honesty? Are you being honest in your prayer, your worship of the Eucharist, in the confessional, with your body, and your lips? And stay tuned for more life giving truth, courtesy of 2000  years of Roman Catholic Teaching.

As always please pray for me.