Truth As a Way of Seeing the World

Truth is a way of seeing the world

There are multiple interrelated angles from which the Catholic tradition reflects on the word “truth.”  The first way of understanding the term—the one most familiar to philosophers and scientists—is the classical definition of truth posed by Thomas Aquinas, based on the earlier thinking of the philosopher Aristotle: “Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus.”[i]  Literally translated, “Truth is the adequation of thing and intellect.”  Or more simply put, truth means having a mental picture in your head that is aligned with reality: You don’t want to be seeing things that aren’t really there.  You do want to be able to see accurately the things that are there. 

Why does it matter?

One of the questions being raised in our post-truth society is whether or not seeing things accurately even matters. Ever heard one of the (probably younger) members of your congregation say something like, It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not anymore and yet life goes on.  Why should we care?  The Catholic tradition considers this nonchalance regarding matters of truth strange: at an imminently practical level, we should care because our lives—indeed the life of our planet—depend on it.

In contrast to some Eastern spiritual traditions, Catholicism starts with the premise that there is such a thing as reality.  The world is not something that just exists in our minds.  It exists on its own—whether we are aware of it or not, whether we “believe in it” or not. The climate is warming or it is not warming, but the existence of global warming is not changed by whether you agree it is warming. God exists or God does not exist, but God’s existence does not depend on whether you believe in God.  Beliefs, however, do impact one’s life.  You may not “believe in” gravity, but if you step out of a fourth story window, you are just as likely to fall to the ground as the person who does. If in your mind you perceive things other than how they really are, you run into all kinds of problems. Consider the well-worn tale of a radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities one foggy night off the coast of Newfoundland: 

Americans: Please divert your course 10 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert your course 10 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.

Americans:  This is the captain of a US Navy ship.  I say again, divert 10 degrees north.

Canadians: No, I say again: it is urgent you divert your course.

Americans:  This is the aircraft carrier USS Missouri, the second largest ship in the US Atlantic fleet.  We are accompanied by three destroyers, two cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 10 degrees, that’s one zero degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse.  Your call.

Reality is what it is.  No matter who we are or how powerful we like to think of ourselves being, we stand in danger of a terrible crash if we have the wrong picture of “what is” in our minds. 

 Church writings, hence, often refer to truth as “objective”—a way of asserting that our survival and thriving as a species depends on getting as objective a mental picture of reality as possible, unfiltered by illusion or bias or prejudice.  But there is a second—and I would suggest, equally important—way of understanding this claim.  When we say truth is “objective,” we also are asserting that truth always remains a goal before us. In the same sense that a syllabus lists up front “course objectives,” truth is something we aspire to.  Something that we shoot for.  Not something we possess.  Truth is an ongoing effort.  Like justice, humility, or courage, it is something we have to practice.  With much practice we might get quite good at it. But it is not something we would ever say we’ve mastered.  No one says, “I’ve got this justice thing under control” or “I’m as humble as one could get.” The person brazen enough to say, “I possess courage,” appears to the rest of the world as if they are itching (foolishly) to be tested in battle. Life-long soldiers know better than to make such a claim.

The purely objective nature of truth becomes all the more clear when we consider again what truth is aiming for: an accurate picture of reality.  That is no small task!    Who could ever say, “I’ve accurately counted the number of stars in the universe”  “I’ve got the mystery of weather all wrapped up”  “I’ve adequately grasped what makes people tick”?  As one of my colleagues is keen to say, “Reality is like a bazillion volts of electricity and most of us are only dealing with 60 watt bulbs.”  Even if we happen to be lucky enough to possess a 100 watt bulb in our own skull, in the grand scheme of things, the difference is not all that great.  So, far from implying that “we’ve got reality under wraps,” classical Catholicism’s insistence on “objective truth” implies that we know there is always more to know, and we see that our looking glass could always be more polished, which opens up the possibility that we could be wrong about some things.  To summarize in the words of the philosopher Michael Lynch, “If I know anything, it is that I don’t know everything and neither does anyone else.”[ii]

While asserting the importance of objective truth, then, as a preacher you’ll want to be especially careful how you use the term. You want to invite people to desire and actively seek a deeper understanding of reality, but you never want to speak about truth as something that they end up “possessing” as a result of that quest.  Indeed, one of the most significant stumbling blocks to “doing” truth as a way of life is the belief that one already “has” it.  Aquinas does not define truth as a particular body of content, so much as a way of being in right relationship with a reality much larger than ourselves, a way of practicing holiness in our minds. 

But If I might be wrong, then why believe anything?

We closed the last section by acknowledging that if truth is “objective,” by definition it means that we might be wrong about some things.  Many contemporary hearers find this realization haunting:  If there is always the chance that I might be wrong, then why bother to believe anything at all? 

All of us are occasional skeptics.  We hear something and we say, “Huh, I’m not sure that is true.”   Doubt in itself is not a bad thing.  We should ask hard questions of ourselves and others about why we believe the things we do.  Pope Francis makes this very point: “We do not need to be afraid of questions and doubts because they are the beginning of a path of knowledge and going deeper; one who does not ask questions cannot progress either in knowledge or in faith.”[iii]  Doubt becomes problematic, however, if it is not the “beginning of a path” but rather the end, a way of life in itself.   

Skepticism as a way of life doesn’t doubt that there is such a thing as reality, but it so emphasizes our potential to make mistakes about the nature of reality that it questions whether we can really know anything.  Moreover, it suggests that if we can’t know anything for certain, then the quest for truth is inherently misguided.  It’s not even worth it to try.  In contrast to Bartimaeus, it lacks faith that sight is still possible.  Truth stops being an objective: I thought such-and-such was true, but then I found out this piece of information and everything got turned upside down.  How do I know that I am not wrong again now? Who can I trust? I can’t even trust myself.  Why bother to keep thinking about this? I give up.  Sometimes followed by: I’m outta here.

The problem with the skeptic’s stance is that if one requires absolute certainty in order to believe anything it becomes difficult to act.  To use an example favored by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, imagine if every morning you woke up and had to wonder, “Do I really have two hands or is that just a figment of my imagination?” We are able to move through our day only because there are some things we do accept as certain.[iv]  If we were not able to have some basic trust in our ability to know reality, we wouldn’t know when to plant crops; we wouldn’t be able to travel by map; we wouldn’t be able to cross the street.  In short, we wouldn’t be able to make the judgments needed to survive.   Sure, there are times when we will make mistakes, times when the usual patterns of reality will throw us for a loop, but we can’t allow that to deter us from still trying to understand.

In August 2017, I was one of those fortunate enough to be in the path of totality during the solar eclipse.  It was amazing beyond anything I had expected.  However, as soon as it was over, I found myself wondering: What would this day have been like if I had not been led to expect anything out of the ordinary at all?  The last time a total eclipse had passed over my part of the country was 1442, fifty years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  In a time before extensive travel and communication, the vast majority of people in the region probably had no idea such an event was imminent. 

One day they would have been out on the plains and all of the sudden the sun would have dimmed in the middle of the day.  Bats, birds, crickets and frogs would have launched into their nighttime routines.  The stars would have appeared.  A ring of fire would have burned in the darkened sky.   And then three minutes later everything would have returned to normal. Is it any wonder so many ancient civilizations associated eclipses with outbreaks of sudden blindness?  Given such an event, I imagine I, too, would have stared directly into the sun.  And I would have continued staring at it for the remainder of the day—and weeks to follow—wondering, “Did I really just see that?”

Afterwards, I imagine such an event would lead some to throw their hands in the air in despair: We can’t count on anything any more! Who knows what will happen next?!  Most probably considered it a bizarre anomaly—marking a divine omen or event—but didn’t allow it to change their understanding of how the world normally works.  (We have countless eclipse myths from around the world testifying to this.) But, we know that at least some sat with their experience—denying neither what they had seen that strange day nor how they knew the world to work—and held those two in tension with one another until they were able to figure out a mental picture of reality that was large enough for both.  They waited in hope for clarity while living with the ambiguity.

A healthy response to skepticism favors that third response. Thomas Aquinas was very optimistic about the ability of humans to grasp reality. He emphasized that God has not created the world to play tricks on us.  Rather God wants the world to be known. And so God created human beings in such a way that we could genuinely encounter the world through our senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch—and then, through the God-given gift of reason, gradually “make sense” out of those encounters. It doesn’t mean that sometimes our senses won’t deceive us.[v] And it doesn’t mean that sometimes reality—in its immensity—won’t toss us stuff that resembles nothing our senses have ever encountered before.  When that happens, however, it isn’t cause to throw up our hands in despair but cause to remain curious and open to learning.

Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I’m right.  Who’s to judge?

Most of us (hearers and preachers alike) are also occasional relativists.  Someone begins to quibble with us at a party about the validity of something we hold dear and, not wanting to get into an argument, we end the conversation, “Well, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” or “It’s true for me.”  When pushed on the matter, most of us don’t really hold that truth is relative.  We just want to get out of the conversation without causing a scene or hurting the relationship.  It’s not the “battle hill” we want “to die on.”

Relativism, too, however, can and has become a way of life for many.  In contrast with skepticism, which holds that reality exists but doubts we can grasp it in any meaningful way, relativism doubts that there is any such thing as an all-encompassing reality. Reality, like beauty, exists merely “in the eye of the beholder.”  If in skepticism nothing is true because we can’t be absolutely certain, in relativism everything is true so long as someone believes it. There is no standard by which we can judge among truth claims.  All perspectives must be equally accepted.

The seeds of relativism can be traced back to the Sophists of ancient Greece, particularly to a philosopher named Protagoras who opens his book on the topic of truth with the statement, “Man is the measure of all things” and later notes, “Things are for every man what they seem to be.”  The illogic of Protagoras’ position was first pointed out by his contemporary Plato who noted that if Protagoras’ idea that “all truth is relative” was itself relative, then it is just one more opinion among many equally true opinions and nothing to give much credence.  On the other hand, if Protagoras meant for his idea to be taken as true, then there must be at least one truth (Protagoras’ idea) that wouldn’t be relative.  As summarized again by philosopher Michael Lynch, “Suppose I…announce that there is no such thing as truth per se, there is only truth-for-me or truth-for-you.  A fair question to ask would be whether the statement I just made is true or just true-for-me.”[vi]

Given the ease with which relativism as a logical stance can be defeated, we might assume that those who espouse relativism still today—2500 years after Plato—either haven’t thought it through or they have another significant unaddressed concern to which they want to draw attention.  Many modern relativists would acknowledge their underlying concern is tied to the history of colonialism.  For many centuries, European explorers, upon encountering another culture that perceived reality radically different than they did, used such differences to justify their domination of that culture, sometimes even the enslavement or annihilation of that culture.  Recognizing the degree of violence and death and cultural decimation that have so often occurred when two cultures collide, many sincerely ask, “Who’s to say that one worldview is better than another?  That there is just one right way of looking at life?  Who’s to say that monogamy is superior to polygamy? Or that covering women from head to toe is better than going topless?”   Persons asking these questions are not so much intending to adopt relativism as a philosophical stance but rather issuing a plea for greater tolerance of diversity.

From a Christian perspective the concerns raised by the history of colonialism are significant.  Christian churches—including the Catholic Church—played an undeniable role in that history.  As relates to the question of relativism, however, it might help preachers to make a distinction between tolerance for diversity of facts, tolerance for diversity of judgment, and tolerance for diversity of preference.

I think most would agree that relativism in relation to preference is largely unproblematic.  I hold that the lime-flavored LaCroix are better than the lemon.  My husband disagrees.  I say, “You are entitled to your own opinion on this matter.”  We “agree to disagree,” and the world goes on with little consequence.  As one of my mentors is apt to say, “A difference that doesn’t make a difference isn’t much of a difference.”  The relativism that Plato and fellow philosophers were most concerned about was relativism in relationship to facts.  Either the earth revolves around the sun or it does not.  Facts are not matters of opinion and when we pretend that they are, it can have devastating consequences, as noted earlier.  The stickiest area is relativism in relation to judgments.  We often agree on the facts, but differ in our assessment of which facts are the most important ones to be paying attention to, and what we should do in response to those facts. 

On one hand, given the atrocities of history and the harm we have done to one another because of our differences, a more widespread “live and let live” approach makes a lot of sense.  Yet, if every culture’s—and we could extend that to every person’s—way of doing things is equally acceptable and there is no way of judging among different practices, there is also no hope for changing the status quo—a status quo that may also be negatively impacting peoples’ lives.  Take for example the age-old practices of foot binding, genital mutilation, honor killings, or slavery.  Simply saying that “there is no way to judge” cuts off tough conversations too early. Conversations that—if we care about a more just world—need to continue to be had.[vii]  My suspicion is that most people who identify with contemporary relativism’s underlying concerns (vs. Protagoras’) would actually agree that we should not remain judgment-free on every issue.  Where the most difficult conversations occur is when those involved can’t agree whether something is a matter of fact or judgment, or whether something is a matter of moral judgment or mere preference.  Because this is such a large topic, we’ll spend more time looking at it in Chapter 2 and consider ways of preaching related to this topic at that time. (See especially the sample preaching titled “Renewing the Mind.”)

For now, let’s acknowledge that Christianity places a high value in remaining in tough conversations rather than sidestepping them.  While allowing lots of leeway for diversity of preference, the Catholic tradition worries a good deal about “differences that do make a difference”—i.e. judgments that have an impact on other peoples’ wellbeing.  It likewise rejects the notion that facts are inconsequential for human flourishing.  When things that matter are at stake, a Catholic response to relativism insists that we avoid saying, “Whatever” and instead say, “Let’s keep talking and not just let this go,” remaining optimistic that such conversations won’t remain forever stymied. We may yet arrive at new insights.

In light of this admonition, a word of caution for preachers:  Given the heightened concern around relativism in the writings of recent popes, many preachers have taken to use the word quite casually in reference to a wide variety of differences, not only in relationship to facts, but also in relation to issues of judgment and even preference.  Relativism certainly is a serious problem if we want to “live” truth. The problem is that the term is employed so indiscriminately and the dangers associated with it painted so broadly that hearing the preacher cry, “Relativism!” has become synonymous with the little boy crying, “Wolf!”  In many situations, the label “relativist” has come to serve as a convenient dismissal for any voice with whom the preacher disagrees, while sparing the preacher the hard work of addressing genuine concerns related to structural injustices and those who have suffered from them.   Relativism is an academic term and, as noted in the introduction, academic language is to be avoided in preaching unless the goal of the preaching is specifically to introduce a new term.  If your goal in a particular preaching is to familiarize your congregation specifically with the concept of relativism, then do use the term, but define what it means while being careful not to dismiss legitimate justice concerns.  It is all too easy when preaching about relativism to reinforce an “us/them” mentality.

Why is reason so important?

You may have already noticed that in response to both skepticism and relativism, the Catholic tradition offers similar advice: Don’t give up the quest for truth because you are doubtful or uncomfortable. Hang in the conversation.  Remain in the search.  In both situations, this advice is grounded in a deep hope that humans are gifted with a capacity that can help them make progress on even the toughest of puzzles: the gift of reason. 

Thomas Aquinas suggests that our human capacity to reason is one of the ways that we are in the image and likeness of God. God wants us to be able to know the world as it really exists and reason enables us to do that.  Reason is God’s way of helping us to arrive at “the deep-down truth of things.”[viii]   Not necessarily our first impression of things.   Not how we’d like things to be.  But “the deep-down truth of things” as they really are.  Reason is the ability to take what we learn from our encounter with the world and systematically link our different experiences so that our thoughts form a coherent whole, helping us to function in the world. 

For Aquinas, science is reason at its best.  He understands the term broadly: a science is any systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular aspect of reality.[ix]  The methods for arriving at that knowledge will vary according to the aspect of reality that we are trying to grasp.  So, for example, a biologist will have a different approach for studying living creatures than will a physicist who studies properties of matter and energy than will a theologian who sets her sights on understanding better the mystery of God.  Methods that work in the physical sciences (eg. observation and experimentation) won’t be able to glean information about metaphysical realities (eg. God and angels). In the end, however, the different sciences have nothing to fear from one another. They are all ways of trying to understand the same one immense reality.   So, even if for a time it looks like what is being discovered by the various sciences is in contradiction—for example, theology and evolutionary science in the time of Darwin—eventually all truth is one.  And, indeed, it is our common longing for that “deep-down truth of things” that helps makes us one.  Reason makes authentic conversation between people possible and meaningful, regardless of gender, culture, or economic diversity.  Without being able to appeal to reason to help us bridge our differences, we often have little else to resort to other than violence.

Preachers are sometimes guilty of creating a false dichotomy between faith and reason:  Don’t follow your head on this matter; listen to God speaking in your heart or Don’t pay attention to what the doctors say; just have faith!   Such statements assume that the God who created the human mind is not the same God who created the human heart, and that the God who set up the laws that govern the universe is a different God than the one we meet in prayer. Furthermore, many homilies ask congregations to believe incredulous things that, while part of the greater Catholic lore, are not essential or required tenets of the faith. For some congregants, hearing such stories presented as true feeds their spirit, but for many others it is a distraction and makes it more difficult to believe what is core to the faith.  As far back as the 16th century, the Fifth Lateran Council begged preachers to stop preaching on “imminent events, apocalyptic messages, preposterous stories, fabulous miracles, arcane trivia, heretical opinions and downright nonsense.”[x]  Unfortunately, the council’s teaching bears repeating in the 21st century. 

If we want contemporary hearers to “live” truth, we need to lift up that faith and reason ultimately live in harmony.  Not all scientists are friends of faith, but science itself is friend, not foe. 

Are there limits to seeking truth?

If the pursuit of truth is a sure path to God—it raises a question: are there any limits to this quest?  Is learning more always good?  Is science ever a foe?  Here we’d have to acknowledge that in all of the Christian life we have to guard against the extremes. 

It is interesting to note that, curiosity is not traditionally listed as a Christian virtue.  Indeed Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas name “curiositas” as a vice.  Augustine described it as “concupiscence of the eyes”[xi] and Aquinas saw it as an offense against temperance.[xii]   But the curiositas about which they were concerned is something quite different than the curiosity generally associated with the sciences.  Augustine was referring to a curiosity that drew his attention to lurid theater and public scandals.  Aquinas was warning against knowledge sought merely for the sake of puffing oneself up to look good or pursued at the cost of more profitable activities.  (Although TikTok and Twitter did not exist in his day, these are the types of curiosities that he seems to have had in mind.)  Contrast this with the wonder of the magi whose curiosity was motivated with a desire to understand creation better.

But even with regard to pursuit of the sciences, we need to acknowledge limits.  Perhaps the greatest story of caution can be found in the earliest chapters of Genesis where God tells the first humans that they are “free to eat from any of the trees in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die."). It seems like such an odd prohibition: Why wouldn’t God want people to have knowledge of what is good and evil? It might help if we were to first look at the Hebrew roots of this text.  “Good and evil” is a common Hebrew figure of speech, similar to “heaven and earth,” in which two opposites are juxtaposed in order to try to convey “and everything in between.”  So, in this situation, the storyteller is trying to say “knowledge of everything.”   Furthermore, in Hebrew, “knowledge” is often a euphemism for intimate or sexual knowledge.[xiii]  From a Jewish perspective, this text is often interpreted as God setting sexual experience off limits for the new human beings if they want to be immortal (i.e. eat from the “tree of life”). 

One way of pondering this passage is to consider that this limitation may not have necessarily been meant for forever but that—fresh from the clay of the earth—humans simply weren’t ready for all knowledge yet.  While in artwork we often conceive of “Adam and Eve” as full-grown adults, their portrayal in Judaism and early Christianity often paints them as children.  There is knowledge out there that they are not prepared to handle.

Once, when studying this passage with a group of pre-teens, I asked if there were things that they had seen that they wished they had not yet seen and almost all answered in the affirmative.  They had glimpsed scenes of sex, of violence, of terror—good and evil and everything in between—that they didn’t have the internal capacity to make sense of at this stage in their development.   Eventually it would be good and important to know the truth about these things, but not yet.  We need to balance our external search for the truth of the world with a concurrent internal maturation process that will enable us to wisely handle what we discover about reality. One of the great challenges preachers face is discerning how to assist in this maturation process.  What is the right age at which to begin to talk from the pulpit about the beauty of sex, for example? How about the reality of sexual abuse? 

Many of us would acknowledge that even as adults, there is information becoming available to us that we as a species are not yet mature enough to handle with appropriate care.  Many ethicists would include here things such as how to split an atom, CRISPR technologies, and embryonic stem cell research.  Should we continue to pursue technical knowledge that has the potential to do irreparable harm to us as a species?

Finally, it needs to be said that there may be some knowledge we are never meant to have, no matter how old or ethically mature we grow, because the only way that we would be able to come by the knowledge is by evil means.  Consider the medical experiments conducted in Nazi concentration camps by physicians like Josef Mengele in which Jewish and Roma prisoners were intentionally subjected to horrible diseases and extreme conditions in order to study systematically the limits of human endurance.[xiv]  Or, consider the Tuskegee experiment conducted between 1932-1972 during which 399 African-American men were withheld treatment for syphilis to see what the effects of the disease on the body if left untreated would be.[xv]  As preachers who advocate the seeking of truth, we want to acknowledge also that there are some things we as humans are simply not meant to know because in order to find them out, we would have to engage in sin.

Summary 

Living in a post-truth society raises urgent questions for contemporary Christians:  What is truth?  Why should I care? How can I know?  What really can I do if someone else’s truth is different than my own?  Isn’t that just something we have to live with?  Is there any way for us to break through our differences?  While previous generations certainly asked these questions as well, they have become a source of discouragement, even despair, for many in the present context. Part of announcing the “Good News” in this particular time involves proclaiming a word of hope regarding these fundamental questions related to truth, reminding hearers that the Catholic tradition: 

• affirms that there is such a thing as reality and that—while it is immense and beyond anything we could grasp in its totality—God has created the universe with the intention that it be known by us;
• names truth (having a mind aligned with reality) as essential for our survival and thriving, and ultimately for enjoying God;
• expresses concern with the skeptic’s claim that just because we can’t know everything we can’t know anything;
• expresses concern with the relativist’s claim that just because someone believes something it must be somehow true;
• proposes reason as a gift from God that we are meant continually to develop in order to break through situations of impasse and come to greater truth; and
• honors systematic study (the sciences) as a noble pursuit through which humans exercise their God-given call to grow in truth.

While these points seem very basic, they are the foundational building blocks for reconstructing a holistic sensibility around truth in our present context.  If our congregations are going to be able to “live” truth in any of the other realms that we will discuss in the chapters to follow, it is helpful if these concepts are already in place. Fortunately, the lectionary with its many feasts and memorials offers abundant opportunity to explore these foundational points in the act of preaching and models of life that embody them.  Our challenge is to explore these tenets in such a way that it attracts hearers rather than makes them feel ignorant for questioning them in the first place.  As preachers, we want to do all we can to make truth a desirable and viable lifestyle—something we both want for ourselves and something we believe possible.

[i] Thomas Aquinas. Summa I.16.1

[ii] Lynch., 10

[iii] Pope Francis, Weekly General Audience, November 23, 2016 (available at http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2016/doubts-about-faith-should-spur-deeper-study-prayer-pope-says.cfm) 

[iv] Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. on Wright (New York: Harper, 1972), 245. Quoted in Scott Steinkerchner, OP, Beyond Agreement: Interrelgiious Dialogue Amid Persistent Differences (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 42.

[v] Anselm of Canterbury.  “Truth is, indeed, in our senses, but not always; for they sometimes deceive us.” Quoted by Thomas Aquinas in Questiones Disputatae de Veritate, article XI sed contra 1

[vi] Lynch., 33.

[vii] For a deeper look at this topic, see Timothy Radcliffe, “The Wellspring of Hope” in Sing a New Song (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1999): p. 60: “If our century has been so marked by violence it is surely partly because it has lost confidence in our ability to attain truth together.  Violence is the only resort in a culture which has no trust in the shared search for truth.  Dachau, Hiroshima, Rwanda, Bosnia—these are all symbols of the collapse of a belief in the possibility of building a common human home through dialogue.”

[viii] See especially the International Theological Commission, Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles, and Criteria (2011), #62:  “Created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.), the human person is capable, by the light of reason, of penetrating beyond appearances to the deep-down truth of things, and opens up thereby to universal reality. The common reference to truth, which is objective and universal, makes authentic dialogue possible between human persons. The human spirit is both intuitive and rational. It is intuitive in that it spontaneously grasps the first principles of reality and of thought. It is rational in that, beginning from those first principles, it progressively discovers truths previously unknown using rigorous procedures of analysis and investigation, and it organizes them in a coherent fashion. ‘Science’ is the highest form that rational consciousness takes. It designates a form of knowledge capable of explaining how and why things are as they are. Human reason, itself part of created reality, does not simply project on to reality in its richness and complexity a framework of intelligibility; it adapts itself to the intrinsic intelligibility of reality. In accordance with its object, that is with the particular aspect of reality that it is studying, reason applies different methods adapted to the object itself. Rationality, therefore, is one but takes a plurality of forms, all of which are rigorous means of grasping the intelligibility of reality. Science likewise is pluriform, each science having its own specific object and method.”

[ix] See especially Thomas Aquinas, Summa Ia-IIae, q. 57, a.2

[x] Fifth Lateran Council (1516) quoted in Robert Waznak, Introduction to the Homily (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), p 8

[xi] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 10

[xii] Thomas Aquinas, Summa II pt II q 167.   For an excellent article further exploring the nature of curiosity as both a virtue and a vice, see: Elias Baumgartner, “Curiosity as a Moral Virtue” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, v. 15, no. 2 (Fall 2001).  Note that Aquinas does speak favorably of studiositas (or “studiousness”).  His use of this term perhaps more closely parallels our contemporary praise for curiosity as a virtue. See Summa II-II, q.166, a.1

[xiii] Marc Zvi Brettler, How to Read the Bible (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005): pp 44-46

[xiv] For more information, see “Nazi Medical Experiments” available at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article

[xv] For more information, see “Tuskegee Study Timeline” available at: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm

Photo credit:  Amanda Dalbjorn (Unsplash)