Truth & Faith

[FightingFat]

As Catholics we adhere to the principle that the Church teaches the truth about our lives. A truth that was made evident through the story of Israel and culminating in teaching of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago.

How do we classify what is truth? To what extent is that reality relative? To what extent does the object exist for all of us and the subjective interpretation of the object is the relative part of the equation of life?

In the end, do we have to admit that the truth we espouse can only be an object of faith? Is it ultimately our faith that offers testimony to this teaching as the truth?

 

[JohnJFarren]

JMJ / MMM 080510 Saturday
Dear Everybody –
Stephen Vincent Benet wrote a fascinating short story, TRUTH IS A HARD DEER TO HUNT. Enjoy it.

Truth is the correspondence of the mind to the thing known. This is from our creature point of view. More meaningfully Truth is the correspondence of the created thing to the Mind that created it, to God.

I think that the truth we creatures have of anything is never a perfect correspondence. Most of the time it isn’t that we have something false in our knowing. Rather is it that we either are simply missing much – although what we do have is correct – or most of the time we’re “out of focus.” What we see is correct but like a fogged picture whose meaning is very limited, sometimes shallow.

Think of looking through a lense quite out of focus. The colors we see and what looks like either a man or a tree is not false. It simply isn’t enough to be much precise.

I’m not trying to talk down our human knowing. I’m simply saying that it’s quite limited, very imperfect. At the age of 17 I remember that I was very intrigued by angels. What superior and intellectual creatures! How unintangled and clear in their knowledge! And one day I wept silently and bitterly because God had made me a human … and I never could become an angel!

I still bear a tinge of envy toward those giants in the hierarchy of being. But I learned long ago to appreciate more that I have been made A SON OF GOD … A MEMBER OF THE DIVINE FAMILY OF THE TRINITY!

Just wanted to share something with somebody.
John (JohnJFarren) Trinity5635@aol.com

 

[fhansen]

It would seem that we experience our faith subjectively but that doesn’t mean that the truths of that faith are relative or not objective truths. And when the faith that we experience subjectively comes into agreement or begins to correspond with the objective teachings of the Church, then we gain a surer grip on the certainty of both. But this doesn’t happen overnight. The Church informs us as to the revealed truths and something inside recognizes and responds to that truth and seeks to know more by listening more intently and by testing what’s being said and we become increasingly convinced. And, I think, the historical uniformity of the witness of believers to this process stands as a testimony to its veracity. In the end, the object of our faith is not unreasonable, just unprovable.