Tag Archives: truth

Sep 13 2012

God’s Version of Religion Cannot Be Improved Upon

I once read how divine revelation is a blossoming flower. No petals are plucked, but only unfolded. Making this my own saying, I typically say that you cannot burn the field of flowers just to save the one you want, but you must accept them all as they are, even if you don’t like or want them all. New revelation cannot conflict with or contradict previous revealed truths. Every religion in the world that contradicts older truths (truths are forever true), is false. True religion cannot be improved upon. If it is true, then it must be rigid, narrow, and even at odds with passing cultures and governments.

The following are some quotes I jotted down from Fr. Gordon Knight’s Rational Theology (1956) to share with you. I could have typed up so much more, but I think you will get the gist of what Fr. Knight’s message is with the following. Try to commit some of this to your own knowledge so to let some of these words come out from you when you are called upon to give rationale for your religion:

            ”One of the things about the Catholic Church most irritating to outsiders is what they call its smugness. It is so sure that it is right. It is its sureness, not its disagreement, that is irritating. Those outside the Church are accustomed to disagreement in the matter of religion. They disagree not merely with the Catholic Church but with each other. They may believe that they are right, but they are not sure. They profess to be groping for the knowledge of the truth. But if those outside the Church understood why the Church behaves as it does, perhaps they themselves would be less sure that they cannot learn the true version of religion from the Church Christ sent to teach it.

..The Church has never believed that it was supposed to grope for the knowledge of what Christ sent it to teach. The Church considers that it has known these things from the very beginning of its teaching, and that it has been teaching them unanimously ever since.

..This inflexibility of the Church may seem narrow and intolerant, but only to those who do not stop to reflect on Christ’s promise that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, would guide his Church forever. It is precisely this guidance of the Spirit of God that will cause his Church to adhere forever and inflexibly to what it has always taught to be the doctrine of Christ.

..Change is progress only when that change is in the right direction. If one already has the truth, change is not progress. It is departure from the truth.

..Christ Himself has told us what those things are that God expects of us. His version of religion cannot be improved upon.

(Fr. Gordon F. Knight, Rational Theology – Apologetics, 1956)

What does it say of those who believe they have such authority to improve upon what God has already laid out as the true religion? Why would Christ come at all if religion was up for personal revelation and interpretation, instead of being taught by our Blessed Lord?

END

Aug 31 2012

Pitfalls to Truth #4: Our Neighbor

So often we judge a religion, country, or organization solely by the actions and behavior of its members, or even just one member. There is no basis of truth in judging an entire group by judging one member. For instance, if a few mega-church pastors make millions of dollars and live the high life, contrary to what is Christianity, their lifestyles and ways should not be judged to be Christianity, only foolhardy. A pedophile priest, who, contrary to Church teachings, molests a child, is a sick individual who represents the opposite of the Church’s stance on the sanctity and dignity of all human life. Nonetheless, the entire Church will be judged by its neighbor for the actions of this one man.

It is impossible to condemn the Church as wrong because she is Christ’s, she is truth. But, many try to condemn her through her members, who are always wrong in one way or another, because they are sinners!

This pitfall is so utterly dangerous, and for a few main reasons. First, it prevents a person from higher knowledge. One cannot ascend in truth or knowledge of God if he is blinded by the sinfulness of a man. How is it when man acts bad, he becomes the spokesman for his religion which must then be bad, but if he acts good, he is only good, and his religion gains nothing? For this reason, our inerrant scriptures speak so much of works:

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5.16)

Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity,.. (Titus 2.7)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters,* if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? (James 2.14)

So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2.17)

Why would our Blessed Lord and His apostles stress good works, coupled with faith and as a grace, if Christ did not intend on removing barriers to this higher Truth? Certainly He knew that one man, if without good works, could prevent a multitude from achieving enlightenment.

The second travesty created by our neighbor is his encouragement of falsehood painted up as truth. Darwin’s good intentions to find divine design in evolution has won few souls for God, but has revolutionized a movement with little scientific support opposing God. Carl Marx and his Manifesto categorized man outside of his dignity as a human being; good for Communists, Socialists, and others who dream of societies without God, with the structure designed with the designers on top and the lowly workers below. This thinking again, opposes God.

I cannot decide which is worse, falling for the fallacy that one man represents a religion, or falling for an idea because it gives excuse to be absent of God and truth altogether. One breeds bigotry, the other relativism. The first creates hate, the other ignorance and arrogance.

There is also a misunderstanding of our neighbor’s ways. For instance, the Catholic is wrongfully accused of worshipping Mary, the saints, statues, etc. He is also accused of baptizing in the wrong form, baptizing infants when he shouldn’t, praying repetitiously like a heathen (though all of this is Biblical and traditional), and so forth. Who accuses him? Martin Luther doesn’t. John Calvin doesn’t. In fact, nobody does except for those who “hear” or are “told” that these ways are confounding and wrong. There is now an entire Christian tradition that opposes Church tradition!

I was the one who charged the Catholic Church with error and scruples, believing everything I heard about her without researching things for myself. Again, here, my neighbor, my friend, encouraged my living in ignorance and prejudice, as long as I lived aside him. And, according to him, when I left him for this Church, I fell into error, and there are thousands of books and authors who support his way of thinking, though they do not stand up to two thousand years of Catholicism.

Our neighbor, peer, spouse, friend; these all can be obstacles, though unbeknownst to them, to our Blessed Lord. Many mean well, but are wrong. Many lead lives we respect or desire, which can then lead us to be wrong. And, it is only when we recognize truth above all relationships, desires, and prejudices when we find it there in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“Who will set whips over my thoughts,

and the discipline of wisdom over my mind,

so as not to spare me in my errors,

and not overlook my* sins?”

Ecclesiasticus 23.2

 

END

Aug 25 2012

Pitfalls to Truth #2: Lackluster Wisdom

Many overlook wisdom and mistake it with education when the two are uniquely different. And, many times, one who is not educated will be judged to know nothing by the educated, when it is very likely that the uneducated might have great wisdom in simple matters, which oftentimes are the most important matters. Herein lays the pitfall of lack of wisdom, which goes two ways. 

The first pitfall to truth due to a lack of wisdom is when a man thinks he has sufficiently educated himself without it. He knows a lot, but often understands little. And, he makes judgments and curtails his life around what he believes he knows, holding onto half-truths, but wielding them as whole. This can be a dangerous scenario when played out on the world stage.

For instance, some cultures believe it is more honorable to kill oneself than to disgrace the family name. Another culture believes killing an individual for not wearing proper clothing is righteous. Yet another ideology might say eating a certain food is evil. These are all half-truths that can bring about great chaos. Honor is much more wanting than disgrace; this is true. But, suicide is a grave evil, taking the natural death and timing of it out of the hands of God. Proper clothing, wherever or whenever the particular occasion, is indeed proper and should be encouraged, but the greater sin of killing or jailing one for being disagreeable is made up to complete a half-truth as a whole, making it altogether false. Abstaining from a particular food for greater holiness should be encouraged, if indeed it helps a soul along to salvation, but is a falsehood when this ideology is legalistic, unwanted, or harmful.

The second pitfall to truth by the lack of wisdom is the complete disregard for wisdom as some sort of nonsense because it cannot be understood or trusted, or scientifically supported. These people do not realize that just because they cannot comprehend a truth, it does not mean the truth is incomprehensible (it’s just not comprehensible to them!). Many will hide behind the curtain of science, thinking that quoting as many people as they can with the prefix “Dr.” or “Biologist”, or “Scientist”, will get them out of any fault for taking the half-truth of science and making it their whole being.

The rational mind comprehends truth as reasonable and scientific. It is reasonable that there is a God because it is scientific that all around us is a great design. But, those who disregard wisdom and see only randomness in the universe are those who choose to close one eye to what is real so to focus the other on what is desirable to themselves and their lifestyles. It is most often that the way one lives dictates how one will think. But, it is the devout, through abstinence and denial of the whole world, who lives according to how he thinks and not according to what is desirable here on earth.

If all thing pass and turn to dust, the man who places all his being into what is eternal is truly wise, and his wisdom is justifiable and provable according to the passing ages and all that has come and gone as the eternal is everlasting and still holds the hopes of all who also have passed, where hopes in any thing of this world have all surely died with their members.

Aug 23 2012

Pitfalls to Truth #1: Criminal Desire

The following is the first in a series entitled, “Pitfalls to Truth”. Over the next couple weeks, we will discover these roadblocks that prevent a person from coming to the fullness of truth in our Blessed Lord. Today’s topic: Criminal Desire.

Criminal Desire

What is it you desire? Jesus might ask. Any one of us might reply, “Oh, not much… Maybe a four-bed, two-bath, three-car garage house, free healthcare, a steady well-paying career, and the basics like clean water, electricity, plumbing, and three meals a day.”

It is quite easy to fall into temporal desires, fabricating needs that must be met. But, even when having all these things, many are still not happy. While one desires all these temporal things, desire of the spirit is repressed. Then comes the desire for that new car. The new car is important if the old one has spent its last miles, or the family has grown so the need of a larger vehicle has to be met.

It is not the larger house, career, or benefits brought about by hard work that suppress the soul, if acquired out of necessity, but the desires themselves become the pitfall to truth. How can any man who has invested his entire being in temporal pleasures be convinced that giving them all up for a greater reality, a greater truth, a cross, will be more desirable? One might as well ask a man if he prefer to sit in a Lazy-Boy recliner or on a bed of nails.

Nevertheless, mankind is obliged to attain to truth, especially truth in religion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Doubeday) accurately states:

“Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it: “It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons… are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole levies in accordance with the demands of truth.” (CCC 2467)

I fear the adhering to truth, and forming one’s life to it, prevents many to seek out truth in the first place. We become addicted to criminal desire, that which promises us temporary pleasure in place of that spiritual desire that, through great patience, will bring about eternal glory.

Another form of desire is the tantalizing road away from truth. This can be the night-scene with friends when one is young and daring, or a revolutionary movement born of restlessness of older men. The desires of this world oppose the desire for truth so much that as soon as one is totally invested in passing things, he sees his soul as nothing more than an evolved reason slightly greater than the reasoning of a chimp.

All other desires but the desire for truth are inordinate and unreasonable. And, with careful placement of these inordinate desires over the cries of the soul, one hopes not to hear the lamentation beneath the temporal floorboards. Not able to kill the soul, one must burry it deep underneath all kinds of things and moments that eventually all turn to dust and history, and man is left unfulfilled, saddened, and alone with a weeping soul, dissatisfied that satisfactions have come and now are gone.