My truth? The real Personal truth is neither mine nor yours

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 08, 2024

Back in August, on the Feast of the Assumption, I did a round-up of Six inspiring books to jump-start your inner evangelist. Today I want to return to one page of one of those books, the collection of brief extracts from the addresses and writings of Pope Benedict XVI, God Is Ever New: Meditations on Life, Love, and Freedom. I have just finished using this book as part of my nightly spiritual reading.

Back in 2011, Pope Bendict addressed the young people at World Youth Day in Madrid. The following extract from that address seems to me to capture both the most dramatic problem of our world, and the most dramatic hope offered by Christianity. The editor gave this extract an arresting title: “We Are Free, Because We Are Capable of Seeking the Truth”. Here is the extract:

There are many who, believing themselves to be gods, believe they need no roots or foundations other than themselves. They take it upon themselves to decide what is true or not, what is good and evil, what is just and unjust, who should live and who can be sacrificed in the interests of other preferences, leaving each step to chance, with no clear path, letting themselves be led by the whim of each moment. These temptations are always lying in wait. It is important not to give in to them, because, in reality, they lead to something so evanescent, like an existence with no horizons, a liberty without God.

We, on the other hand, know well that we have been created free, in the image of God, precisely so that we might be in the forefront of the search for truth and goodness, responsible for our actions, not mere blind executives, but creative co-workers in the task of cultivating and beautifying the work of creation. God is looking for a responsible interlocutor, someone who can dialogue with him and love him. Through Christ, we can truly succeed, and, established in him, we give wings to our freedom. Is that not the great reason for our joy? Isn’t this the firm ground upon which to build the civilization of love and life, capable of humanizing all of us?

Seeking the truth

Here Pope Benedict put his finger firmly on both the deadening pulse of the modern secularist and the vigorous pulse of the Christian living in the heart of the Church. For deep within this Mystical Body of Christ a Divine paradox unfolds. If the first mark of our human freedom is indeed that we are capable of seeking the truth, then the chief result of our proper exercise of that freedom is not only the conformity of our minds to reality (the human definition of “truth”), but also a direct participation in the life of our loving Father, to whom we come through Christ, who is not only the truth, but the way and the life (Jn 14:6). In other words, our participation in the Divine life through grace is not only an intellectual apprehension but a genuine living in the truth: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:31-32).

This is to put on wings. But we also face a constant challenge. To say that we are capable of seeking the truth is not the same as saying we are already filled with truth. Since we really are free, we may conform our minds and wills to falsehood, exercising our liberty merely to deny reality, usually in response to desires that are themselves temptations—that is, obstacles to our clear perception of reality, necessarily involving a denial of what is true. We may, of course, be merely confused, but personal selfishness often plays a key role in our confusion, as our most common rationalizations conceal rather than elucidate what is true in order that we might justify our desire for some evil. And evil is always the absence of a due good or, in this context, its denial.

Consider the source

Benedict spoke wisely, therefore, when he said that those who believe themselves to be gods “take it upon themselves to decide what is true or not, what is good and evil, what is just and unjust, who should live and who can be sacrificed in the interest of other preferences”. For we all have “other preferences” at times, and it is only through a moral discipline in the service of the truth that we escape from our solipsism, our self-centered insistence that everything is reducible to “my mind” and “my desires”. This fundamental recognition reveals what it really means to conform our minds to reality, that is, to prove our freedom by seeking and finding the truth—and even, when under duress, to do so while possessing our souls in peace (Lk 21:19).

But we must remind ourselves of this frequently, since it is so easy to weaken in our own commitment to the truth. The dilemma we face is that a great many persons (including all the demons of hell) try to make everyone think the first place to look for meaning is really the last. But as a matter of good example, should we not both root ourselves in Christ and live our lives in such a way that causes others to ask (paraphrasing John 1:38), “Where do YOU come from?” And may we not do the greatest possible good by answering, both to ourselves and to others, just as Christ did: “Come and see.”

Ought we not to remind ourselves to start and encourage others to start with the only religion that claims its founder has risen from the dead? Or the only religion that is able to display both a long and contemporary history of miracles of every kind that have survived even the most rigorous examinations of modern science? In other words, why not begin with the most outrageous but, if true, the most beneficial claim. Let us repeat this claim frequently to ourselves, exemplify it in our lives, and at opportune moments explain it to others who are adrift or lost. It is a very concrete claim, and it is simply this: “I am the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved…. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it to the full” (Jn 10:9-10).