"What do we mean by Truth and Absolute Truth?"

This is an extensive series of posts rom the CathNews Discussion Board in response to a series of questions put to me by PeterS on these questions...

Question from PeterS:
: You acknowledge that you are in 'pursuit of
: truth' and yet you are ever ready to
: denigrate those who believe that they have
: found truth.

Peter, further to my previous post, if any person believes they have "found truth" they have simply never understood Scripture let alone Catholic teaching and theology. Jesus himself says we cannot find the "full truth" until the end of time. Do you believe you already have "truth" in its full meaning?

: You seem to find it impossible
: that people such as myself or Pauline,
: Sharon and others have also pursued truth
: and are still Œpursuing truth¹ ­ or more to
: the point ­ LIVING OUT the truth that has
: been found.

I do not find it "impossible" that people such as yourself, and those others you mentioned have also been endeavouring to pursue truth. I believe you have "sold yourselves short", or someone else has sold you short, if you believe you have found truth. Loyalty to the Pope is not the pursuit of truth. It is expressing loyalty to the Pope. Searching for certitude and emotional security in one's life is not the same thing as "searching for truth". If we could be fully confident that the Pope does know the ABSOLUTE TRUTH about everything as defined in the category (c) truths I used in the earlier post, yes, you would have great confidence that you had found "ABSOLUTE TRUTH". But nowhere has the Catholic Church in its entire history agreed to such a proposition. Some did try to put a proposition up very similar to that at the first Vatican Council in the early 1870s but they were defeated. That Council instead decided that the Pope can rule with infallibility on some things, as can the college of Bishops through Vatican Councils and such like. The reality is that relatively few teachings of the Church are proclaimed as being infallible or as being "ABSOLUTE TRUTH" in the category (c) sense I used in the previous post. I do appreciate that all this stuff does take a bit of intellectual effort to understand. That it takes a bit of intellectual effort to understand it does not make it wrong — or "it's 'too complicated' so instead I'll believe simply what I am most comfortable with". That's doing what the conservatives and traditionalist Catholics accuse the liberals of doing. It is equally as wrong as what they accuse the liberals of doing. Just because they are following their "conservative" feelings does not make it morally correct.. That is effectively what yourself, and people like those others you mentioned are trying to argue to us though. It is simply incorrect. That is not authentic and true Catholic belief and teaching.

As I have argued previously, "LIVING OUT" the truth, is not simply a process of following, slave like, a menu of rules. It requires making judgments with the mind, and with the conscience (ie by talking to God), as to how these "menu items" or category (a) rules are to be applied to the difficult and gritty moral decisions we face in life. As the example I have given of what I went through a few weeks ago with my father when he was dying, those category (b) truths do change ‹ often within the space of minutes or hours. There simply can't be a Catholic priest sitting on everybody's shoulder telling you what the correct moral choice you have to make is at every moment of our lives. We have to work that out for ourselves. It is the process of "working that out" which actually "grows us in holiness". Get it?

You have told us about a decision you made some time ago to bring some love into your life. That was a moral decision in the category (b) realm. I have NO definitive idea as to whether you made the correct moral choice there or not. I simply do not have access to enough of "all" the facts. Neither does a Catholic priest. He could help advise and guide you but in the end you have to make the decisions. I actually can conceive of situations where it might not have been morally wrong. I can also conceive of a heck of a lot more arguments why it might have been wrong though. I simply cannot make any judgment on those matters in the particular circumstances that applied there.

That example you provided though is a good illustration of (a) a person having to make a moral choice at the second level of moral truth using the first level truth rules; (b) that one can conceive of situations where first level truth rules may need to be broken or ignored (PLEASE NOTE: I am not making any judgment whatsoever there as to whether you made the right choices or not. I simply do not know. You chose to tell us the story publicly. I make no moral judgments on that or on the actual choices you made.); and (c) it illustrates what I have just been saying ‹ it is very difficult for us, even in a black and white type facts' situation, to cast judgments on the moral choices made by other people.

(Peter: by the way, and for what it is worth, I have not gone into the fine detail of what you disclosed to the board previously. I do not believe that needs to happen now either. You, and the regular members of this community will recall the matters in question. For your own sake I suggest you just leave them there. My suspicion, for what it is worth, is that you are probably clear and I don't think you have anything to whip yourself up into a frenzy over even if you might seemed to have broken some category (a) type rules. I don't know if this Pope would agree with me though LOL. He certainly would NOT be able to tell you publicly and I am pretty certain he wouldn't.))

I will slowly work my way through your questions. I am finding this an excellent exercise simply for myself in trying to clarify in my own mind precisely what the Church does teach in these matters. Thank you for asking the questions. I trust if there are any high level theologians out there who are reading this and they find any errors that I make that they will do us all the courtesy of pointing them out. They can do that privately by email if they wish and I will publish the corrections (anonymously if they do not wish their names to be mentioned). My email address is: viastuas@bigpond.net.au.