The first problem is relativism: “Truth may be truth but whose ‘truth’?” You can’t find a more nonsensical statement than that, and it’s something that isn’t echoed only by secular humanists and atheists, but by an increasing amount of people that have been baptized, and still consider themselves, Catholic. “You have your truth, I have my truth, and they have their truth”, we often hear. Except all you have are opinions, not truth. The word “truth”, in the 21st century, has been reduced to that of a personal view or an opinion. How sad…
I think Catholic13 made a good point. Interpretations can be wrong, where as truth
is truth. There can’t be several truths, because Christ is
the truth. Any interpretation or understanding that distorts that truth no longer can be called “a truth”; such an interpretation is called “a falsehood” or “a lie”.
The laws and teachings of Jesus Christ, with the inauguration of the New Covenant, can’t be reduced down to an art piece or music; those can have different interpretations. Christ’s Commandments cannot. Everything, all of the law, stems from those two Commandments: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and love one another. The Church, which Jesus promised us, further defines how we more perfectly love one another. How does turning the institution of marriage on its head help us
love one in another, as Christ commanded? More specifically, how can that
agape love be found in turning marriage into something with no boundaries?
So when I say your statement was “nonsensical”, I meant the entire sentence. Not just, “Truth may be truth”, but “Truth may be truth
but whose ‘truth’?” The bolded part is what I had the biggest problem with, and is what I think makes the statement nonsensical. Yes, we cannot
absolutely know the truth until we pass from this world, but, indeed, this is why we walk by faith, and not by sight. To have
faith in someone means you have
trust in that someone. I have trust in what Jesus was recorded to have said in the Gospels; I have trust in the Church Fathers; I have trust in the successors of those Apostles and Church Fathers that have handed down the Catholic faith since 33 A.D. I have more trust in these people than I do anything else, especially since one of those people (Jesus) is God Himself.
So yes, we all have our beliefs, but beliefs that contradict each other cannot all be “truths”. That’s a contradiction; it’s nonsensical. Something isn’t true because it comes from a Catholic understanding or a Catholic perspective; it’s true because it’s true. Simple as that. any deviation from the truth, as I mentioned before, is a falsehood or a lie. Or, at best, a misunderstanding. Neither of those three things, though, can rightly be called “truth”.
So when you say “but whose truth?”, that means that we’re already presupposing everyone’s claim is true in some way, or that it’s “their truth”. That makes no sense. Every single religion can theoretically be wrong. Every single religion (or to narrow the scope, every single Christian sect)
cannot be right. You and I, in our understanding of same-sex sexual activity
can both be wrong. However, you and I cannot
both be right. I do not have “my truth” and you do not have “your truth”; there’s no such thing. There is only
the truth, and everything else contrary to that is falsehood.
For those that are searching, they have to decide who is credible. Are Joseph Smith’s claims credible? Are Mohammed’s claim’s credible? Are the Apostles of Jesus Christ credible? Is Martin Luther credible? Is Robert Bellarmine credible? If we find that one of these people are, we place our faith and trust in them. That doesn’t mean that each of them hold the truth. I for one, believe Jesus Christ when He proclaimed He was “the way the truth, and the life”. Therefore, I believe He was also telling the truth when He said He’d send the Holy Spirit to safeguard the truth:
[W]hen the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; …I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (Jn. 15:26, 16:12-13)
So in turn, I believe that this charism guides the Magisterium today, and I believe that what the Church has proclaimed regarding the sinfulness of sexual activity outside of actual marriage is true. I stake my life on it. Others may stake their life on something else entirely different. However, only one can rightly be called “truth”.
