Truth

Truth, in the register of my relational first idiom, is the fidelity of intellect, word, and life to the primary or First Truth’s self-gift (God is the Truth and the Sui generous First). The First Truth is not a detached axiom but God himself who gives himself. The Catechism says, “God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His ‘faithfulness endures to all generations’” (CCC 2465). The disclosure of this source is personal and Christic, for “In Jesus Christ, the whole of God’s truth has been made manifest” (CCC 2466). Dallas Willard gives the matching epistemic clarity: “A thought or statement is true if what it is about is as that thought or statement represents it” (Willard, Veritas Forum lecture, Feb. 13, 2013). Aquinas gives the classic metaphysical bearing for such claims, since “the knowledge of God is prior to natural things, and is the measure of them” (ST I, q.14, a.8, ad 1). My own cross-disciplinary idiom speaks of identity within God as 𝒜¹ the First Truth; of belonging as creaturely reception of that Truth; and of fitting consequence as a life and worship that render what is given. That’s just short had for my primitive based idiom, where you can read more on this here: The Primitive – RobertDryer

God as measure requires more than a correspondence between human thoughts and external facts, because even facts are measured. Aquinas insists that “truth resides primarily in the intellect, and secondarily in things according as they are related to the intellect as their principle” (ST I, q.16, a.1). Created things are “true” inasmuch as they show the divine exemplar, and our judgments are “true” inasmuch as they are rightly conformed to what is, under God’s knowing as the ultimate measure. Augustine names the interior reception through which this happens: “Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas” (De vera religione 39.72). The Catechism gives the ecclesial horizon for this interiority by identifying Christ and his Gospel as the locus where this measure becomes visible and binding for the Church.

Truth in things, veritas rei (if I may speak in overly fancy AI helped Latin), follows from this measure. A stone is “true” stone when it possesses the nature proper to a stone according to the divine idea, and for that reason Aquinas can say, “Thus, then, truth resides primarily in the intellect, and secondarily in things according as they are related to the intellect as their principle” (ST I, q.16, a.1). The world is not mute with respect to Truth. It is a received sign that manifests its provenance. To be a creature is to be from 𝒜 and for 𝒜, and therefore to be capable of showing, in an analogical key, the likeness one bears to the exemplar that measures it.

Truth in judgments, veritas intellectus, is the classical “adequation” claim rightly ordered to its higher cause. Aquinas cites the familiar formula when he notes that “Truth is the equation of thought and thing” (ST I, q.16, a.1). Yet even here the architectonic priority of the divine ideas rules, since “as the natural objects of knowledge are prior to our knowledge, and are its measure, so the knowledge of God is prior to natural things, and is the measure of them” (ST I, q.14, a.8, ad 1). A judgment is true when it belongs to 𝒜 by right conformity to what 𝒜 gives, and because all the works ad extra are Christically specified, truth in judgment is finally a participation in the Logos who speaks the world and redeems it.

Truth in life and worship, or to say it in Latin, veritas in vita et in cultu, secures the performative dimension without collapsing truth into mere performance. The Catechism states, “The disciple of Christ consents to ‘live in the truth,’ that is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord’s example, abiding in his truth. ‘If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth’” (CCC 2470). The missionary dimension is explicit: “The fidelity of the baptized is a primordial condition for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the Church’s mission in the world. In order that the message of salvation can show the power of its truth and radiance before men, it must be authenticated by the witness of the life of Christians” (CCC 2044). The moral life is not an external add-on to belief but worship given shape, since “The moral life is spiritual worship” (CCC 2047). Willard’s account of knowledge as public and responsible illumination sits cleanly within this horizon: “[Knowledge] involves truth: truth secured by experience, method, and evidence that is generally available” (Willard, Knowing Christ Today, 18). The point is not that evidence creates truth, but that the First Truth graciously orders a world and a Church in which truth can be responsibly received, tested, and witnessed.

In this whole, one can now state the unified definition without remainder. Truth is in God as First Truth, 𝒜 identical with the divine essence, and therefore the measure of all truth. Truth is in things as right likeness to their divine exemplar and end, since created effects are related to God’s intellect as their principle. Truth is in judgments as the adequation of the intellect to what is, under God’s knowledge as the ultimate measure and under Christic specification for every work toward creatures. Truth is in life and worship as the uprightness of witness, speech, and liturgy that render what God has given. In the aspect grammar of my fuller systematic theology this is identity within God as subsisting Truth, belonging as analogical participation in that Truth, and fitting consequence as the Eucharistic and moral life that shows what it receives.

One may then summarize the place of the familiar “theories” without dislocation. Correspondence is preserved and deepened, since the truth of judgments as adequation is finally measured by God’s knowledge. Coherence is secured because all true judgments and true things find their unity in the One who is Truth and who manifests the whole truth in Jesus Christ. Pragmatic and performative notes are honored in their right place, since the Gospel’s radiance “must be authenticated by the witness of the life of Christians” and the believer “consents to live in the truth” (CCC 2044, CCC 2470), yet witness authenticates rather than manufactures truth. Participatory clarity is supplied by the Church’s metaphysical grammar, since creatures know in the light of the First Truth and things are true by likeness to the exemplar that measures them.

Bibliography

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, questions 14 and 16. Latin text in the Leonine edition; English trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger, 1947.

Augustine. De vera religione. In Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 32. Turnhout: Brepols, 1962.

Catechism of the Catholic Church.* 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.

Willard, Dallas. Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. New York: HarperOne, 2009.

Willard, Dallas. “What is Truth?” Veritas Forum lecture, Stanford University, February 13, 2013. Transcript and recording available via Veritas Forum archives.

Citations used above: CCC 2465, CCC 2466, CCC 2470, CCC 2044, CCC 2047; ST I, q.16, a.1; ST I, q.14, a.8, ad 1; Augustine, De vera religione 39.72; Willard, Knowing Christ Today, 18; Willard, Veritas Forum lecture, Feb. 13, 2013.

1. 𝒜 is God’s one triune act of self-gift (from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit) the single, simple act by which God is God and by which he freely gives being, grace, and communion to creatures. In us it appears as participation in that same gift: receiving, returning, and sharing it in truth and worship. ↩︎