“Everyone who is from the truth listens to my word (Jn 18:37)” - Part Two
The notion of truth, as St. Thomas teaches, signifies a correspondence, or proportion, or reciprocal adaptation between intellect and reality, with the possible mediation of conceptual or ideal representation, such that:
If it is reality that conforms to the intellect, then truth is practical truth—the idea, project, or plan that can or must be implemented or realised. In this case, we refer to the divine creative idea or the human idea—the human project in the realms of morality, technology, art, or labor.
Or, if it is the human mind that conforms to reality through a conceptual or imaginative representation, then we speak of speculative truth, which may be sensitive or intellectual, experimental or mediated. Truth, since it is reality itself, is termed ontological truth; since it is a judgement of the mind, we speak of ideal, epistemological, or logical truth. Truth is an act of the spirit, but it is founded upon reality.
Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we encounter the notion of truth as proposed by certain dictionaries—what is, rather, a concept more at home in Kabbalistic, Gnostic, Lutheran, Cartesian, Fichtean, Blondelian, Heideggerian, or Bultmannian systems.
(Translator’s note: These schools and figures represent various epistemological departures from the classical and biblical notion of truth as the conformity of intellect and reality.)
If Scripture were based upon such erroneous notions of truth that it would not lead to an understanding of divine revelation, but rather to materialism, subjectivism, Gnosticism, idealism, pantheism, atheism, unbelief, and impiety.
Moreover, these dictionaries betray a striking ignorance of Greek philosophy, in which we find not only the correct Platonic-Aristotelian conception—i.e., the adequation of the intellect to reality—but also a proliferation of contradictory notions: empiricist, subjectivist, skeptical, materialist, idealist, gnostic, and pragmatist conceptions of truth.
In contrast, Scripture links the notion of truth to that of spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. As in Aristotle, so too in Scripture, the entity, the real, the thing, the res, the creature, does not yet in itself communicate truth. Truth arises only in the presence of a relation between spirit and reality. If reality is true, it is so insofar as it conforms to the thought and will of the spirit, whether divine, angelic, or human.
For Scripture, truth is a product of the spirit: it originates in the spirit, is conceived and understood by the spirit, it dwells immanently in the spirit, is practised by the spirit, and is brought to fulfilment by the spirit. Animals, plants, rocks, and stones, in the biblical perspective, are creatures extraneous to the concern for truth, though, as realisations of a divine idea, they do possess their truth and serve for us as a source and foundation of truth.
In summary, we may affirm that Sacred Scripture distinguishes four fundamental attitudes of the spirit towards truth:
The knowledge of truth, produced by experience, sensation, and intellection, which in turn give rise to faith and wisdom, and thus to experience, reasoning, science, doctrine, dogma, philosophy, and theology;
The telling of truth, which entails right speech, the virtue of sincerity, dialogue, and truthfulness, expressed in the Magisterium, in prophecy, in education, and preaching;
The practice of truth, which requires the exercise of moral virtues and leads to the attainment of sanctity.
The love of truth, which calls forth listening, reading, meditation, study, research, learning, schooling, mystical contemplation, and ultimately the beatific vision.
The True Teaching of Scripture
Sacred Scripture explicitly links the notion of truth with that of the intellect: truth is the object of the intellect. Accordingly, the thesis of certain exegetes, who maintain that the biblical concept of truth would be alien to Greek intellectualism, must be firmly rejected. As in Plato and Aristotle, so also in the Bible, truth is the object of the intellect; even the senses are capable of knowing truth.
The biblical treatment of truth is deeply connected with the act of seeing and the metaphor of light. The experience of truth coincides with the act of vision: he who sees is in the truth. Conversely, blindness is the state of one who is in error. If light is the symbol of truth, then darkness is the symbol of error. This symbolism is particularly pronounced in the Gospel of John, where it is said that God is light, to express that He is absolute, subsisting truth.
The exegetes are certainly right when they affirm that the biblical idea of truth is connected with that of faithfulness, firmness, solidity, and security. It evokes the immutable, the eternal, and the absolute, which pertain properly to the divine nature. From this comes the faith and trust that exist among human beings and towards God.
They are likewise correct in recognising that Scripture speaks not only of speculative truth, but also of moral truth, connecting truth with authenticity, purity, sincerity, holiness, justice, and mercy.
By contrast, the artificial and unnatural Cartesian doubt—namely, the suspicion that the senses do not convey truth, or that realities external to the mind may not exist—is entirely foreign to biblical thought. While it is certainly true that Scripture recognises the fallibility of human intellectual and sensory knowledge, and the possibility that the intellect, senses, or imagination, darkened by the consequences of original sin or by personal sins, may fall into error—whether under the dominion of the passions or blinded by pride, arrogance, or hatred—nonetheless, the biblical worldview affirms that God is absolute truth, incapable of error. He is a faithful and trustworthy God, who neither lies nor deceives, but knows everything, for He has created everything.
According to the Bible, the intellect and the senses are capable of knowing things as they are. Falsity arises when one conceives, utters, or presents things as they are not. The intellect is oriented toward moral, spiritual, and divine realities, while the senses and the imagination are oriented toward material realities. Both are, however, fallible—either through involuntary fragility or through voluntary malice. In the former case, the error is excusable, and the one who errs remains innocent. In the latter, the person sins, for the falsehood is willed.
The Bible describes the dishonest man as one who, driven by self-interest, seeks to appear as what he is not. He feigns a false virtue, utters words pleasing to the world, and thereby deceives. Such a one becomes an impostor, a liar, a heretic, or a hypocrite.
Christ is exceedingly severe with those who manipulate truth, who pretend to be wise when they are not, who are blind and yet wish to guide others. He rises with threatening indignation and unrelenting severity against these mental and moral dispositions, which are linked to the vice of pride, impiety, and other vices. One need only consider His many polemics against the Pharisees, scribes, and priests, who, unable to bear His accusations and fierce rebukes, and having no intention of repenting, sought His death on the Cross out of envy and revenge.
Yet Christ is gentle, merciful, understanding, and ready to forgive—indeed, eager to pour forth great graces—toward those who, even after grave sin, nonetheless recognise their wrongdoing with humility, honesty, objectivity, sincerity, and integrity. He welcomes those who acknowledge the truth of their wretched condition and beg His help and mercy. This mercy extends even to those who, though they have committed objectively serious sins—including even His murder—did so in ignorance and lack of awareness.
For Christ, the duty of truth, understood as sincerity, consists in the obligation to recognise things as they are, with simplicity and frankness, and to affirm unambiguously: yes to what is yes, no to what is no. This reflects the principle of non-contradiction to which Aristotle appeals when he accuses Protagoras of arrogance (apaideusìa) for having dared to deny it—an act that, Aristotle says, amounts to digging his own grave. The Pharisees in the Gospel correspond to the sophistry of Protagoras.[¹]
(Translator's note: The reference to apaideusìa (ἀπαιδευσία) denotes a lack of education or cultivation, especially in the moral-intellectual sense. Aristotle uses this charge to critique sophists who deny fundamental principles of reason.)
For this reason, St Thomas aptly commented that Aristotelian logic is perfectly in accord with the way Christ reasons, whereas Luther gravely erred in rejecting Aristotelian metaphysics and logic, accusing them of being sophistic—without realising how much of a sophist he was in adulterating the teachings of the Gospel, promoting a lax morality, and claiming salvation without merit, as Pope Leo X and the Council of Trent reproached him. Catholic exegetes who attempt to oppose the biblical view of truth to the Aristotelian one are, in truth, Lutherans disguised as Catholics.
Certainly, for Christ, openness to truth must not be naïveté or simplistic credulity, lest one be deceived by the devil, by the cunning, by wolves in sheep’s clothing, or by false Christs and false prophets. One must know how to combine simplicity with prudence, shrewdness, careful reflection, caution, vigilance, critical acumen, and discernment.
In Scripture, truth is not only an act of the spirit but also a content of knowledge. Truth is the Word of God and the Gospel; truth is sound doctrine; truth is the Magisterium of the Church, the commandments of God, the content and dogmas of the faith.
From the point of view of content, Scripture distinguishes between natural, human, or rational truths and revealed, supernatural truths of faith. When Jesus says that everyone who is “of the truth” listens to his word, he is referring to those who, on the natural level, love and know the truth. Such persons are prepared and disposed to receive the revelation of divine and supernatural truths, which concern the mysteries of faith. But it is clear that those who are sceptical or sophistic at the natural level, or who do not love the truth that reason can attain, are not disposed to accept the divine and revealed truth of the Gospel.
In Scripture, truth is an intellectual virtue, but it also has the character of a moral virtue, since love and respect for truth constitute a definite moral duty, and a man attached to sin cannot attain truth, especially moral truth.
Truth, understood as true knowledge and truthfulness, implies in Scripture that obedience to reality—and thus to God, the Creator of reality—is born of humility. He who is humble remains in the truth. The proud, by contrast, fall into error and tend toward falsehood, deceit, arrogance, duplicity, and hypocrisy.
End of the Second Part (2/3)
Fr Giovanni Cavalcoli OP
Fontanellato, 21 April 2025
source:
https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/chiunque-e-dalla-verita-ascolta-la-mia_23.html
Note:
[1] The notion of truth and the concept that Christ has of being and reality are perfectly in agreement with the logic and metaphysics of Aristotle, and for this reason, St Thomas used them to explain the Word of God. See my book: Gesù Cristo fondamento del mondo, principio, centro e fine ultimo del nostro umanesimo integrale (Jesus Christ foundation of the world, principle, center and ultimate end of our integral humanism), Edizioni L’Isola di Patmos, Rome 2019.