Truth Vs. Opinion

One

Truth and Less Than Truth

We are meditating on the 8th commandment and the importance of Truth because the Truth deserves to be defended from the error that attacks it and we have the responsibility to spread the Truth. However, we should not treat our opinions, personal preferences, and customs as universal truth. When we do that, we make ourselves very annoying and we actually do harm to the truth.

Often, we are more passionate about spreading and defending our opinions and preferences than the truth, so we need to know the difference between what is truth with what is less than truth.

What do I mean by truth? When our mind correctly understands reality, we have truth. I mean when we know the way something really is outside our minds. When we observe something accurately, when we reason about something validly, and when we accept the testimony of trustworthy witnesses we have truth. 

What’s less than truth? Well, things like opinions, or preferences, or just customs.

These aren’t bad things, but they aren’t the standard for truth. Different people have different opinions, preferences, and customs, and there’s not much more to say about it. So, here’s the question: how should we deal with the truth, and how is that different from the way we’re supposed to deal with opinions, preferences, and customs, those things that are less than truth?  

Two

Truth Should be Universalized

It’s a good thing for everyone to know the truth. Truth demands that it be universalized.

It’s good that everyone knows the basics of science, math, and history. That’s why we have educational systems, so we can universalize those truths. It’s good that we have street signs on one-way streets so that everyone can know which way the traffic is supposed be going.

In contrast to this, what is less than truth, such as opinions, preferences, and customs, should not be universalized. It’s not good for everyone to have the same preferences and customs. 

I’d be crazy if I said, “I prefer black licorice to red licorice – and so should everyone!” Of if I said, “My family has always opened one present the night before Christmas, and waited till Christmas day to open the rest – and I will not rest until every family on earth does the same!”

You’re an obnoxious lunatic if you try to get everybody else to adopt the same preferences and customs as you. But sharing the truth, trying to get other people to know the same truth as you know, that’s not an imposition or an act of aggression. It’s a gift. An education is a gift.

Letting somebody know that they just turned the wrong way down a one-way street isn’t “shoving your beliefs down somebody’s throat”. It’s the gift of universalizing truth that should be universally known.

Three

What Contradicts the Truth is Error

When it comes to things that are less than truth, preferences, customs, and opinions, someone can contradict them without necessarily being wrong.

If I prefer blue cars and someone else prefers red cars, nobody has to be wrong. If Americans put peanut butter on their sandwiches and Europeans put Nutella on their sandwiches, it doesn’t make sense to say one group is wrong or right.

But with truth, if two people are saying contradictory things, then one of them has to be wrong. If one kid says 2+2=4, and another kid says 2+2=5 – one of them is wrong. If one person says the earth is flat and another says it’s round, then one of them has to be wrong. 

So if something is the truth, it deserves to be spread, but it also deserves to be defended from error. There is no alternative. Truth is incompatible with its denial and in the confrontation of truth and error, we have to decide which side we’re going to be on. 

Four

Only Truth can be the basis for Relationship

So, a lot of people, even people who go to Church, treat their own religion as though it were less than the truth, less than knowledge, as though it were just a matter of opinion or personal preference or custom. Because they don’t want to spread their faith and if their faith was a matter of truth, they know they’d have to. And they don’t want to see other religions as being in error, which, of course, would be the corollary of seeing their own faith as true. But the thing is, if our faith isn’t about the truth, then it’s just a sad illusion.

Suppose there’s someone you know at work who is always bringing up his wife and kids in conversation even though you’ve never met them. Then suppose a third person comes up to your friend and says, “You know what? I don’t think your wife and kids are real. I don’t believe they truly exist.” That would be a weird thing for someone to say. But do you know what would be even weirder? If the original guy responded by saying, “Yeah, well, who knows? I mean, I like to think I have a wife and kids, but how could anyone know for sure? Anyway, it helps me get through my day, and after all, we’re all just trying to make sense of this crazy world in our own way.” You’d think, “Holy cow! He actually doesn’t have a family! It was all just his pathetic fantasy!”

So too: either our faith is genuine knowledge of truth, or it’s a pathetic fantasy.

Only truth can support a real relationship. If you think your faith is less than truth, that it’s just an opinion, preference, or custom – then you don’t actually have a real relationship with God, or with Jesus Christ. But if your faith is a matter of truth, then you have to treat it like the truth. Which means you have to spread it and defend it. Otherwise, you didn’t think it was true in the first place.

Five

The Truth Deserves to Be Spread

Truth deserves to be universalized. Truth deserves to be defended from the error that attacks it.

The Catechism says that the duty to spread the faith is simply following Christ’s mission of universalizing the truth. Christ proclaims that he has come into the world to bear witness to the truth. The Christian is not to be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord. In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian must profess it without equivocation.

That doesn’t mean we have to be obnoxious about it, loud, or contemptuous of other people’s views, or thoughtlessly repeating the same slogans over and over. Sharing the truth is an art, and like every art, it takes time and practice (and prayer) to get good at it.

But it’s an obligation to Christ. It’s an obligation to the Church. And it’s an obligation to the Truth, which deserves to be shared with everyone.