Truthiness, Truth, Judgment
December 13, 2006, 7:32 am
Posted by Robert P. Imbelli
I’m still not clear on what the “truthiness” business is all about, but “getting at the truth” seems a more urgent undertaking.
Hence I was taken with the column in today’s Boston Globe by Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried.
Fried writes:
There is such a thing as truth; that is why Holocaust deniers are fools
or liars. But that is exactly why there can be no such thing as official
truth — truth endorsed, policed, and enforced by the power of the
state. Truth is above politics, and judges politics, which is why
politics has no authority to proclaim it.
“Power” and “authority:” Pilate and Jesus. Even if, in the short term, power prevails.
It is impossible to deny that there is truth. Anyone who denies that there is truth cannot escape paradox that he is asserting something that entails that what he is asserting is not true. The odd thing is that anyone would not see this.
I’d like to make a pitch for far greater intellectual modesty and humility.
If, as my science friens here tell me, there are more universes than molecules in ours, we are indeed very small with very much to learn. It’s my continuing experience that truth is far more complex than we make it out to be, where what we latch on to at a given moent is just one facet . Our linguistic and analogic limitations are evident in so many of these discussions.
And then there’s the problem of “official” truth – and how much more we are under the weight of perception management, increasingly sophisticated in our world.
And yet there are profound insights even in the parables of the master which we hear from year to year -stories that continue to touch us and clearly are not about power.
Robert–
Your perceptive comment about “analogic limitations” being a barrier to perceiving truth reminded me of “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions,” a novella written by an Anglican bishop, Edwin Abbott, in the 1880′s. At once a primer of basic geometry and a satire on Victorian society, it is also a thought-provoking reminder of our inability, and often self-imposed unwillingness, to perceive the possibility of other dimensions both physical and metaphysical.
Still a favorite among mathematicians, especially those pondering multi-dimensional universes, IMO it also has theological implications and dimensions (no pun intended), especially Part 2 of the novella.
Best of all for those who may be interested, it is available for free on the internet, any copyright protections having long expired:
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/flatland.htm
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who has trouble with “truthiness.”
In this context, it may be of use to recall John Henry Newman’s distinction between notional assent and real assent concerning statements that report something that calls for our assent. It is one thing to assent with indifference to some statement and quite another to take the statement to heart. For example, for me, whose interrest in astronomy is not particularly keen, to hear about a change in the number of planets recognized by astronomers is only of passing interest, even if I have no reason to doubt the reliability of the report. For dedicated astronomers, it might be quite another matter.
Now if we apply this distinction to statements reporting theological claims, the importance of Newman’s distinction to the kind of acceptance we give them becomes clear. Of course, in these matters, things are not black and white, We can spend a lifetime working to improve our real assent to a doctrine like the Incarnation, even though we have long ago given notional assent to it. I take it that this kind of consideration is relevant to Fr. Imbelli’s point about the need we have to continue to search for the truth.
I am rapidly reaching the point of real assent to the truth in your comment, Bernard.
BTW, as your astronomy example, my son was somewhat upset that Pluto was demoted from planet status, not because he has a great interest in astronomy, but because the demotion ruined his mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets from the Sun outward:
“My Very Expensive Machine Just Smashed Up Near ?????” (The fender bender used to be in the vicinity of “Philadelphia.”)
Bill Collier, I’d bet a bundle that your son has already repaired his planetary mnemonic! It’s delightful in today’s world that he knows what a good mnemonic’s worth.