Fr. Goergen explores truth as something we must live and embody, not just know intellectually. Drawing on Gandhi's example and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' insights, it emphasizes that seeking truth requires honest conversation, humility, and listening to others. Truth-seeking is collaborative, requiring us to step outside our own perspectives through respectful dialogue.
Truth matters, but truth is not only something that we know, something we apprehend cognitively, but something that we live, that we do, that we are. Mohandas Ghandhi entitled his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth, his path of non-violent resistance rooted in truth and love. Seeking the truth, living the truth, was the story of his life.
We hear talk today about being one’s true self. St. Paul was aware that this is not easy, however, as he wrote to the Romans, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” (7:19). We all struggle internally with what it means to be true. We all recognize that there are many ways of understanding truth, that there are different paths to the truth, that no one of us has the whole truth. So my question is: how do we approach getting closer to the truth? And how do I “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4: 15)?
Jonathan Sacks, an Orthodox Rabbi, served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. In 2002 book, The Dignity of Difference, How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, he wrote: “Conversation, the heartbeat of democratic politics, is dying and with it our chances of civic, let alone global peace.” He also wrote, in response to the question of how we can live with different moral perspectives and yet sustain an overarching sense of community:
The answer . . . is conversation—not mere debate but the disciplined act of communicating (making my views intelligible to someone who does not share them) and listening (entering into the inner world of someone whose views are opposed to my own). Each is a genuine form of respect, of paying attention to the other, of conferring value on his or her opinions even though they are not mine. In a debate one side wins, the other loses, but both are the same as before. In a conversation neither side loses and both are changed, because they now know what reality looks like from a different perspective. That is not to say that either gives up its previous convictions. That is not what conversation is about. It does mean, however, that I may now realize that I must make space for another deeply held belief, and if my own case has been compelling, the other side may understand that it too must make space for mine.
Conversation implies good will, the desire to understand, a mutual search, a sense of being heard beyond expecting agreement.
I may be an Aristotelian. For me the bedrock of our ability to communicate could be stated in the principle of non-contradiction: something cannot both be and not be at the same time. Or I may be more prone to see truth lying within paradox, a seeming contradiction, but one that is resolved at a deeper or higher level. A Zen koan might move me into a higher or different kind of consciousness. All these have their contribution to make, but they also all agree on the fact that the human being has the desire to know and understand. One can discuss what truth is, one can disagree about how we come to it, but one cannot discount its value for humane or Christian life. Veritas has been and is one of the mottos of the Dominican Order. It is also the motto of Harvard University.
Like Ghandhi, we begin with self-examination and ask the question, Am I being truthful? Honest? With myself? With others? With God? I do not ask “what is truth,” as if it is unknowable or unimportant, but out of a deep desire to be true to myself, the desire to know what is, the desire to discover the meaning in life that is not of my own making. At the very least I want to engage with others in an honest way as a humble servant of the Truth. Humility is manifest in acknowledging not knowing something as well as in knowing. As Confucius had said: One who knows not that he knows not is a fool.
A Dominican colleague of mine often said, “It’s hard to see the whole picture if you’re inside the frame.” Each of us looks at the world and lives his or her life from within a frame of our own upbringing and making. The search for the truth, to be true, means getting outside the box in which we or others have put ourselves. Each of us needs to acknowledge that we only have part of the truth, not the whole of it. Seeking the truth, living the truth, is a collaborative effort, and not only with the like-minded. Jonathan Sacks got it right. It begins with the art of listening. Being my true self, and seeking a common mind in a democratic society, require the art of conversation. “I was wrong,” and “I’m sorry” have been listed among the most difficult things for us to say.
Truth, like goodness, is something I want to be. If we do not have that common goal, life together becomes impossible. My life, and our civic life, must be built on a moral foundation. We may not agree, we need not agree, but we do need the desire to live on a secure and moral foundation. There is one thing on which we can agree, however: we are in this together. Egoism is always an obstacle. May we all desire to know the truth, be the truth, and do the truth.
As we seek the truth with love, we can sing the Benedictine hymn:
O God of truth, prepare our minds
To hear and heed you holy word;
Fill every heart that longs for you
With your mysterious presence, Lord.
Almighty Father, with your Son
And blessed Spirit, hear our prayer;
Teach us to love eternal truth
And seek its freedom everywhere.
(photo credit: Unsplash - Priscilla Du Preez)
