Harmony with God: Called to Communion

Spirituality of Truth

Correspondence

• Truth is what corresponds to facts

• Is something factual automatically true?

Coherence

• Truth is what coheres with the rest of our knowledge

• Is truth determined by what we know and believe

Pragmatic

• Truth is what works, or serves our purpose

• Is truth determined by usefulness

St. Thomas Aquinas states:

• Human beings have a natural desire for God- a desire that is natural as hunger or thirst, yet different in its object because of its operation in the mind. Hence, it is not easily satisfied as our physical desires

  • Being rational beings we constantly ask questions whether consciously or unconsciously.

  • Even those who refuse acknowledgment of God are not free from the question of “WHY”

  • We constantly search for the answers to life’s questions, not satisfied by sensory knowledge alone.

C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity states:

• If i find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world, Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it,  to suggest the real thing

He suggest that spirituality is our search for the real thing

• The “real thing”, the Transcendent One, the person we call God is precisely God because he is not our creation 

• The true spirituality is anchored on THE TRUTH of WHO GOD IS

Veritatis Splendor, 2 states:

• The Light of God’s face shines in all its beauty on the countenance of Jesus Christ

  • A Christian therefore, is someone who is convinced that Jesus is indeed who he claims to be. The objective truth of Christian Spirituality is Jesus, nothing else.

Relativism

• Belief that there is no absolute truth. Only truths that individuals or people believe in.

• You think different people can have different views about what’s moral and immoral

• All POV’s are valid even when they are contradicting one another

• Truth then becomes as fluid as the changing of an individual’s mind or preferences. — in a relativist society, there are no standard, no permanent moral values

• The Crisis of Relativism

  • Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be tossed here and there, carried about every wind of doctrine’, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times

  • We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires

    • Missa Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice

1. Relativism in Faith

• Jesus Chrsit is but one religious among others-of the many models and ideal forms of the Absolute

• God is too great to just be contained in one historical person as Jesus of Nazareth

• Thus to affirm Jesus as “The Truth, the Way and the Life” is fundamentalism

• Cafeteria Catholicism

  • This is defined as one choosing which of the Church’s teachings they will accept as true and follow, abandoning beliefs and practices which do not suit their taste or preferences

2. Relativism in Morals

• The logical consequence of relativism in faith

• If all beliefs are true, then all actions are good

• If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge

  • Pope Francis’ reply to questions about homosexuality

• Unfortunately, this response of the Holy Father is often taken out of context and used as a propaganda statement.

• While the Church insists on the existence of objective moral norms which are valid for everyone there are those in our culture who portray this teaching as unjust, that is , as opposed to basic human rights

  • Evangelii Gaudium

3. Practical Relativism

• A form of moral relativism that is self-centered, self- indulgent and grounded on convenience and material and security

• A lifestyle where on accumulates and hoards wealth and power at all costs

• Acting as if God did not exist, making decisions as if the poor did not exist, setting goals as if others did not exist, working as if people who have not received the Gospel did not received the Gospel did not exist

Proclaiming the Truth from the Heart of the Gospel

Thomas Aquinas on the Truth:

• “Adæquatio rei et intellectus” or “ Truth is the equation of mind and thing”

  • Morally truthful

    • When a person’s thinking conforms to what he expresses with words or actions

  • Logically Truthful 

    • When a person’s thinking conforms to what actually exists in reality and his judgments are based are based on the same reality

  • Ontological Truth

    • Insofar as they correspond to how the Creator imagined them even before they were made

Moral Truth and Logical Truth

• Expressions of what originally was just an idea in the Great Mind that brought it forth to existence — God

 Ontological Truth

• Became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ

• Colossians 1:16 - 17

  • For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him. He is before all things,  and in him all things hold together.

• GS, 22

  • In fact, it is only in the mystery of the Word incarnate that light is shed on the mystery of man.

The challenge therefore, is how to communicate the truth in today’s world

A missionary key

• The ultimate purpose behind the transmission of this is salvation

  • Matthew 28

For the truth to be conveyed effectively (EG 35)

• A genuine love for the audience, learn their language, be immersed in their realities

• Not to saturate the doctrines but to concentrate in the proclamation of what their situation necessitates, simple enough to be understood by all without losing its depth and richess.

Pope Francis

• Hance, communicating the truth today should not be by way of imposition but by attraction

Pope Benedict XVI

• In the words, it is through the via pulchritudinis – the way of beauty the others are brought more effectively to the truth of Christ

Hierarchy of truths

• Not all truth are of equal impotence in relation to the salvation of humankind

• Essential truths are the foundational truths – the truths supernaturally revealed necessary salvation

Spirituality of truth

• Verify the truth (logical)

• Living out the truth (moral) 

• Actualizing the Truth of who I am, whose I am for, whom I am (Ontological)

Guidelines for truth 

• Formulate guidelines on how to post truthfully on social media and commit to abide by these guidelines at all times