What is truth ?

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blackstone

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I recently read the book " Suprised By the Truth" about fifteen people that coverted to Roman Catholicism. After I read it I passed it on to a Baptist friend who in turn gave me a book to read. It was called “Far From Roman Near to God” the testimony of fifty Roman Catholic Priests that claim that the Spirit Of God had showed them the errors in the teaching of the Catholic chruch and had coverted to Protestantism.

So what is truth?
 
Truth is reality. Things as they really are, not as we want them to be, or as we see through our own or someone else’s agenda.

Anyone, Catholic Priest or not, who claims that the “Spirit of God” showed then the errors in the Catholic Church is not speaking the truth. Either their own pride or the devil, or a combination of the two is what led them astray.
 
50 to 15, huh? Worldwide its about half a billion to 1.3 billion, Protestant to Catholic. Still, this is not why the Catholic faith is true.

Truth is not determined by numbers. The truth is what God has established through His Son, Jesus Christ. Everyone has to discover this for him/herself, but that does not mean each person determines or invents his/her own truth. But in the process of discovery, mistakes happen, or pride or sin gets in the way of honestly accepting what God has established.

The Catholic faith is the fulness of the Gospel that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles and which has been handed on for 2000 years. This can be shown with reasonable certainty. It takes humility and freedom from prejudice to accept this – ultimately God’s grace. Look at the many threads on this forum to work out the details of how truth is known.
 
Truth can be one or more of several things:

A.) It is primarily Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, the “Way, the Truth, and the Life.” St. Augustine also identifies God’s essence as being truth.

B.) Truth is correct correspondance between a proposition and a state of affairs to which the proposition refers (propositional truth).

C.) Truth can also be seen as authentic response to reality, a kind of existential truth.

D.) Finally, truth is also an “unveiling” the Greek word Aletheia meaning according to Heidegger and some philosophers, “unveiling” or “disclosing.” In this definition, truth is seen not so much in the proposition but in the thing itself, the thing revealing its true essence.
 
If you want to see numbers, just look at all the interviews online at EWTN for the Journey Home program. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they used people like Martin Luther as their testimony.
 
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blackstone:
I recently read the book " Suprised By the Truth" about fifteen people that coverted to Roman Catholicism. After I read it I passed it on to a Baptist friend who in turn gave me a book to read. It was called “Far From Roman Near to God” the testimony of fifty Roman Catholic Priests that claim that the Spirit Of God had showed them the errors in the teaching of the Catholic chruch and had coverted to Protestantism.

So what is truth?
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Converted to Protestantism? Which flavor? Given 100 protestants, you’ll have 100 versions of belief with no way of reconciling any of them to one another.

Now, since they cannot all be correct, we know at the onset that at least 99% of them are converting to error of various admixtures. In reality it is 100%, however, even then, we cannot assume the level of culpability.

I get the feeling that your question about truth or what is true goes farther than that. Would you care to clarify? Are you asking about truth in general or truth specifically in this question? If it is the latter, bring specific questions that you have, and you’ll be surprised at how easy the truth is to find. Accepting it is another story. 😉
 
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blackstone:
So what is truth?
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Truth is not a what but a who. Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Light. He founded one Church and that Church is the one which today is called the Catholic Church. Christ Started His Church and promised to protect “until the end of time”, so we can be sure that He did not abandon it. It doesn’t take a lot of research to determine how many churched go back to the time when Christ was on earth, that’s 2000 years. If you start with that, don’t really have too many choices. You can also look at the first post-apostolic Christian writers and see what they taught and believed and how they worshiped and trace that from then up to the present day.

God Bless
 
So … how’s the book ‘Far from Rome nearer to God’? As compelling as ‘Surprised by Truth’?
 
LaSalle

I’m from LSGH…batch 90.

in XT

PS-one of my favorite quotes is TRUTH IS SYMPHONIC. By being True, it is corresponding to different levels of reality and remaining true in different modes…example, Christ said He is the water of life. So water is used for baptism (sacramentally), water sustains life (biologically), water cleans (hygenically), then in the most noble way water is mixed with wine at the consecration to show the unity of Christ as God and Man, then for our benefit we being the water (symbolizing baptized Christians) mingle with wine (the material Christ chose to be his blood), and we have before us the Most Blessed Sacrament. THe unity of God with us men.
 
In listening to the new radio program on Relevant Radio which speaks of the Hard Truth I got to thinking…because this issue comes up in discussion lots in the circle of people I’m around -

We know Truth is in Jesus Christ…and therefore revealed to us through Tradition and Scripture.

But even that Truth is a passing on of an ‘interpretation’ of truth by man.

Well, Islam’s truth is an interpretation of truth by Mohammed.

Buddism, is an interpretation of truth by Buddah.

Hinduism has it’s interpretation of truth by whoever got that ball rolling.

In all my discussions with people who challenge me about Truth - since **my **Truth is handed down and dictated by men as well as ‘theirs’…the only defense I have is that the gift of Faith helps me to distinguish the Real Truth from the others. To which, of course, my cohorts scoff and get rather insulted by my arrogance. But to me, it is not said in arrogance, but in Truth.

So this radio show talks about speaking in the Hard Truth and Natural Law… but listening to the show’s anchorwoman, it seems much of what she says is her interpretation of Catholic teaching - and her guests are speaking from their own agendas with their interpretations of Catholic teaching. Not that what they say is wrong, but the slants used to share their message is there and that always troubles me.

Isn’t Natural Law subject to interpretation as well? It seems there are many threads on this forum with argues the same ‘truth’ from different interpretations/representations.

It seems we don’t really know our truth is The Truth, except through our faith in Jesus Christ. But that’s a difficult point to argue with people who don’t have that faith.
 
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