Truth. For some, this transcendental drives them, motivates them to a greater personal relationship with God. Doctrine, according to one definition, is the penetration of truth. What does this mean? How does one penetrate the truth? Indeed, as we begin asking this question, we undoubtedly find ourselves asking the same questions as Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” St. Thomas Aquinas begins by asking this very question and is left defining it in three ways: first, the truth is that which precedes truth and is the basis of truth (which is an odd definition, indeed, entirely unhelpful); second, truth is that which is intelligibly determined through formal completion (a scientific method); and third, truth is defined as “according to the effect following upon it.”
The third definition follows from an observation by St. Augustine, “Truth is that by which that which is, is shown.” Truth is encapsulated undoubtedly in totality in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Truth is contained within the teachings of the Church and in Sacred Scripture, but we are left ever-seeking to penetrate and know the infinite vastness of the character of Christ, True God and True Man. Truth is not exhausted when we put pen to paper and spill ink—for truth is as much a process as it is a result—just as St. Thomas Aquinas elucidates. “The true is that which is,” according to St. Augustine, which is precisely what we receive when the Church proposes Truth through Her Authority, Her Teaching—it is an end: ink on paper, demarcation from falsehood. Yet, truth, too, “is that by which that which is, is shown,” again quoting St. Augustine—meaning it is a process of showing why what is said by the Church is what is said. What the Church says is true, but not simply because the Church says it, but because what the Church says actually corresponds unmistakably to Reality. Truth is what the Church speaks about, not what the Church says. It precedes the declaration, just as it precedes the one who is declaring. The Bridgegroom is who the Bride is speaking of—He is Truth, and it is He we seek.
In my first blog I quoted Professor Douglas Meeks who told me that theology is something that one should not do alone, and if possible, it should be done with beer. And that is why we have the Church—because it is only through Her that we can really know the Bridegroom. She is the only one who assuredly will not have the gates of Hell prevail against Her. Interpreting God alone will turn out badly for Him and for you. This is the danger in reading Scripture without a lens, without community—it is too prone to multiplicity, some of which may be True, some of which may not be true. The same, however, goes for reading the Catechism. There is as equally a likelihood that an errant quoted paragraph of the Catechism is just as dangerous as Satan with a memorized Bible verse. Nothing put on paper makes it absolutely True, unless it is understood to correspond to the Truth.
Thus, the ink on a page is as equally important as the white remaining on the page. What is actually said means something—something true. But what is not said, is not an automatic mark of falsehood; rather, it is an invitation to probe even deeper. Within the Church’s Doctrines there is never an exhaustion—for Her Bridgegroom is Infinite. Often when I am thinking and trying to understand the Truth, the ink on the page is described to me. What is already said is not really the question at all. I, like many of my contemporaries, can read. The heart of the questions is not what has been said, but what has not been said—it is not an issue of the ink, but an issue of the whiteness remaining. Truth is the ink spilled, as well as the ink remaining to be spilled. It is the unspoken Gloss, the white spaces of a page crying out for saturation with ink. Thinking is not simply assenting to ink already spilled, but the hope of prompting the spilling of more. We can never stop thinking just because we have a Catechism and a Bible and a Church. The Truth precedes all of these. This is what our soul thirsts for—and our souls are equipped with the tools to get there together—but we must think together, as well. What things mean are not necessarily what things say. Spelling out the truth is no more likely to capture the Truth than Satan misquoting the Bible.
In all She says, the Church is not given simply the Authority to be a rhetorician, but is given Teaching Authority, because what She says necessarily demands explanation. As crazy as it seems, 2+2=4 is not Truth in and of itself—it is a statement about an underlying reality where the numbers and signs stand for something and need explained—and until they are considered together (for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be in their midst)—the truth-seeker can be told time-and-again that 2+2=4 without ever understanding it. It is not enough to define or declare, but it must be expounded. The truth must be shown, not just articulated. A definition that is not functional to anyone is useless to everything—for a definition is used as a tool to teach the Truth, because it is a statement of the Truth. It is not enough to mindlessly reiterate what the definition of something is simply because it has a definition. It must be used to probe, to penetrate, to expand the doctrine it seeks to demarcate.
In the past couple of weeks I have come to discover that the Church is fittingly made up of those who focus on the ink that is spilled and those that focus on the spaces between the letters and the lines. This is another reason that we must be a Church composed of many eclectic members, because the Truth is somehow in both places—which makes perfect sense considering its transcendental nature. Yet the conversations between the Ink Faction and the Unlettered Faction can get quite heated as the Inks say what is said (the party line) and the Unlettereds wonder what is not said (the party line). Often the two are not talking about the same thing at all—one is describing ink, the other precisely the opposite. Yet somehow, they are talking about the same thing—Truth. And while the Inks take the Unlettereds stubbornness to mean unversed angst, the Unlettereds take the Inks steadfastness to text to wonder why they don’t just begin a literacy campaign to supplant theology. But God bless each—for the penetration of Truth means we know certain things (that are written) and that we think about what we don’t know (things that aren’t written). It is no more vexing to one to be in the presence of the other or to be in the conversation/diatribe with the other—for Truth is discovered in the interplay between ink and void, and more is said and written only as what is thought conforms to what has been said and revealed. Indeed, the Church is one foundation—Truth, from whence the Inks and the Unlettereds draw their sustenance.
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