What is truth?

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MindOverMatter said:
Absolute Truth According To Being
. But we must understand that God does not participate in reality; God is reality. God does not participate in absolute truth; God is absolute truth. But when we speak of “created people”, we are not talking about that which is absolute truth, but rather we are talking about that which participates in absolute truth. Absolute being is the basis of all logical truth and epistemological truth. There cannot be a reality that is by definition absolutely nothing, for nothing is not real. Thus there is only absolute reality, that which is, and that which participates in reality. Thus absolute being is the eternal ground of logic because it is by nature “existence” or “absolute reality”; and for that reason a thing cannot be and not be at the same time. God is the reason why 2 + 2 = 4. Gods very being is the cause of that truth. Not that when i say participate, this does not mean that we are a substantial part of what is reality by nature; for absolute reality is transcendent of parts in respect of its natures. When i say participate i mean that we are made actual by reality, and that we are sustained in being by that which is existence by nature. But we are not in any way shape or form the nature that is existence, because existence by definition cannot begin to exist of fail to exist. ]
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I know a guy that would say much the same things, but he’s an atheist and just replaces “God” with “reality”. The fact is that Buddhists have also said the same type of things too. So did the liberal Presbyterian theologian, John Hick (he also said reality was unknowable and was transcategorical). how do you get from this abstract stuff to the concrete truth claims of Christianity, that Christianity alone has a monopoly on truth so much that it’s the only thing that can save people from an eternity in Hell?

Pascal had it right. The God of theologians is not necessarily the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the abstract stuff, MANY religions and philosophers agree. They just disagree on the religion and specific morality that should frame this stuff.

BTW, I have a friend who has advanced degrees in philosophy, but he’s a non-denominational Christian (and I believe his own beliefs are based more on personal spiritual experience rather than objective truth claims). He’s actually very educated philosophically and says nobody is really a “moral relativist”. Morality is either objective or intersubjective.
 
Betterave said:
God is subsistent Truth. That’s fine, but you need to explain that, not just insist on it. Jesus is the way of truth, the true way to true life, love, and joy, not just Absolute Truth; he is human, not just divine; he emptied himself, became like us so as to walk with us. What are you suggesting that Jesus asks of us that I have neglected in what I wrote? Walk humbly with your God… We see dimly now… There are many things that are too hard for you now… Etc.
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John 14:6 :
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way and **the truth ** and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus NEVER emptied Himself of being the Truth. He NEVER ceased to be God even though in Phil 2 He states that He emptied Himself taking on the form of a slave. Jesus is BOTH human and divine and is our eternal Truth.

Yes, we cannot fully comprehend the fullness of God’s Truth but that does not prevent us from apprehending that He is Truth since that is what has been revealed.

Sorry, I disagree with you…teachccd
 
brandymmiller said:
Is absolute zero internally dependant upon the will?
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I don’t know how what that even means. “Absolute zero” I understand to be the lowest possible temperature – the state of the minimal of heat. Is that what you are talking about as ‘absolute zero’?

If so, that’s an impersonal physical state of matter/energy, so no will would apply, making the answer, as best I can make out what you mean, “no”. “Absolute”, again, is an adjective that is not concerned with the will (or the “not-will”), but the absence of external dependencies – “absolute” in “absolute zero” is a statement about the thermal entropy of a system that obtains as a description completely independent of any other reference, any other system.

If you aren’t talking about “absolute zero” as a temperature, then I’ve wasted my time in that paragraph, and have no idea what you are talking about.

-TS
 
jmcrae said:
I hate to appear to be disagreeing with St. Thomas, but it seems to me that it would be difficult to conform our intellect to Truth, without Truth being mediated by Knowledge.
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Well you can’t disagree with something you haven’t first understood! I think St. Thomas is simply talking about what truth is, what it consists in. This kind of truth (“logical truth”) isn’t mediated by knowledge, it’s what makes knowledge to be true knowledge, i.e., it constitutes the being true of knowledge as such. That’s what I understand, anyway.
 
teachccd said:
John 14:6 :
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way and **the truth ** and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus NEVER emptied Himself of being the Truth. He NEVER ceased to be God even though in Phil 2 He states that He emptied Himself taking on the form of a slave. Jesus is BOTH human and divine and is our eternal Truth.

Yes, we cannot fully comprehend the fullness of God’s Truth but that does not prevent us from apprehending that He is Truth since that is what has been revealed.

Sorry, I disagree with you…teachccd
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No worries about disagreeing with me. That’s kosher here. I think you’re missing the point though. Jesus emptied himself of his Godhead. Absolute Truth pertains to the Godhead, not to humanity. Kenosis is a turning away from or setting aside his divinity, not a ceasing to be divine. And of course he is Truth, but saying “He is Truth” (even adding, “it has been revealed”) doesn’t produce a real apprehension of the truth/meaning of the claim that “He is Truth” in someone who doesn’t already know what that is supposed to mean.
 
You might enjoy this book recommendation and reading selections:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/09/16/book-recommendation-a-refutation-of-moral-relativism-by-peter-kreeft/

And some reflections on truth-telling by Fr. Robert Barron and others:

"Christians are people dedicated to living in the truth, because Jesus described himself as the Truth (John 14:6). We who worship Jesus cannot live in falsehood, because he is the criterion by which true and false are discriminated, the light in which the difference between good and evil is seen. Those who wish to live in the shadows must marginalize him, as Pilate did rhetorically — “What is Truth?” (John 18:38) — and as his own townspeople did more directly:

“They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff” (Luke 4:29). But if we accept him as Messiah and Son of God, we must live the truth that he is, even when it costs us…"

More here

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/08/21/truth-telling/

Regards,

dj
 
What is truth? Truth is the property that all true sentences share. “X” is true if and only if X is true, e.g., the sentence “the cat is on the mat” is true if and only if the cat is on the mat.

None of that sounds very philospohically interesting, so I think what you may mean is “What is Truth?” or what is Truth with a big T? Big T Truth is a rhetorical device invented somewhere around the 5th century BCE that was used by the philosophers to clobber the sophists. It worked, but unfortunately, as a result the history of philosophy was saddled with Plato’s “nest and brood of dualisms” (Dewey’s words) for the next couple thousand years.
 
djeter said:
You might enjoy this book recommendation and reading selections:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/09/16/book-recommendation-a-refutation-of-moral-relativism-by-peter-kreeft/

And some reflections on truth-telling by Fr. Robert Barron and others:

"Christians are people dedicated to living in the truth, because Jesus described himself as the Truth (John 14:6). We who worship Jesus cannot live in falsehood, because he is the criterion by which true and false are discriminated, the light in which the difference between good and evil is seen. Those who wish to live in the shadows must marginalize him, as Pilate did rhetorically — “What is Truth?” (John 18:38) — and as his own townspeople did more directly:

“They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff” (Luke 4:29). But if we accept him as Messiah and Son of God, we must live the truth that he is, even when it costs us…"

More here

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/08/21/truth-telling/

Regards,

dj
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Great resources!! Thank you so much…teachccd 🙂
 
teachccd said:
I am a confirmation facilitator and our group had a pretty deep discussion on their understanding of truth. Pilate asked Jesus in John 18:38, “what is truth”? Many youths today believe that what is true for someone is their truth. Muslems have their truth and that’s o.k. since that is what truth is for them.

We are on the topic of morality and I wanted to establish the definition of absolute truth as opposed to moral relativism. We discussed faith and reason and how faith is not blind but evidential. It was the most intense discussion thus far.

So now I pose to you: What is truth?
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Reality is singular and independent of the many ways men may think about it. Therefore, truth is simply the happy occurrence of a mind in conformance with reality.

Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Spinoza, adopted this conception of truth as an agreement between the mind and reality. Falsehood occurs, says Augustine, when “something is thought to be which is not.” According to Aquinas, “any intellect which understands a thing to be otherwise than it is, is false.” Truth in the human intellect consists “in the conformity of the intellect with the thing.”

Peace,
O’Malley
 
o_mlly said:
Reality is singular and independent of the many ways men may think about it. Therefore, truth is simply the happy occurrence of a mind in conformance with reality.

Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Spinoza, adopted this conception of truth as an agreement between the mind and reality. Falsehood occurs, says Augustine, when “something is thought to be which is not.” According to Aquinas, “any intellect which understands a thing to be otherwise than it is, is false.” Truth in the human intellect consists “in the conformity of the intellect with the thing.”

Peace,
O’Malley
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Thank you and God bless…teachccd 🙂
 
OK, so here’s my question on this subject. Missing Mass on Sunday or practicing artificial birth control is a mortal sin for Catholics, but not so for most, if not all, Protestants. So if you’re not Catholic then what is the truth about the morality of those acts?
 
Betterave said:
Well you can’t disagree with something you haven’t first understood! I think St. Thomas is simply talking about what truth is, what it consists in. This kind of truth (“logical truth”) isn’t mediated by knowledge, it’s what makes knowledge to be true knowledge, i.e., it constitutes the being true of knowledge as such. That’s what I understand, anyway.
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Oh, I see. He is calling logical conclusions “truth.” Or else he is saying that one can arrive at truth by means of logical deduction.

That is a whole different subject than what we are talking about here.
 
TruthSkr said:
OK, so here’s my question on this subject. Missing Mass on Sunday or practicing artificial birth control is a mortal sin for Catholics, but not so for most, if not all, Protestants. So if you’re not Catholic then what is the truth about the morality of those acts?
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It is always a grave sin to miss Sunday Mass and to use birth control - even if you are a Protestant, or a heathen, or what have you.

HOWEVER, it does not become a mortal sin until the person arrives at a level of awareness of the gravity of the sin, because one of the three characteristics of a mortal sin is “knowledge.” (The other two are “gravity” and “freedom.”)

Artificial forms of birth control still poison the body and hinder fertility, even if the person is Protestant or of some other religion. And the Ten Commandments, which God wrote with His own finger on tablets of stone, still say, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” These are immutable facts.

I hope this helps you. 🙂
 
jmcrae said:
It is always a grave sin to miss Sunday Mass and to use birth control - even if you are a Protestant, or a heathen, or what have you.

HOWEVER, it does not become a mortal sin until the person arrives at a level of awareness of the gravity of the sin, because one of the three characteristics of a mortal sin is “knowledge.” (The other two are “gravity” and “freedom.”)

Artificial forms of birth control still poison the body and hinder fertility, even if the person is Protestant or of some other religion. And the Ten Commandments, which God wrote with His own finger on tablets of stone, still say, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” These are immutable facts.

I hope this helps you. 🙂
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Yes, religious choices do not change moral truths. God does not change to fit our perceptions of Him…jmcrae, great answer!!
 
jmcrae said:
Oh, I see. He is calling logical conclusions “truth.” Or else he is saying that one can arrive at truth by means of logical deduction.

That is a whole different subject than what we are talking about here.
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A whole different subject? He is calling truth the adequation of intellect and thing. Truth requires having words/logoi/concepts that are adequate expressions of the things that they present. Thus “Jesus is the Truth” may or may not be true; whether or not it is true depends on its expressing some truth to the intellect; an untrained/unformed intellect may repeat these words without understanding what they mean and in this case they will bear no truth, i.e., they will not instantiate the adequation of an intellect and a thing. This point is certainly relevant to the question of what is required when one is trying to explain to a bunch of kids what truth is.
 
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