Catechism: Talk 59 (8th Commandment)
Catechism Commentary 59 - the 8th Commandment
The human desire for truth is a profound and universal longing—one that reaches beyond mere facts toward authenticity and ultimate meaning. This desire has informed philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, often described as a transcendental yearning that reveals something essential about the human soul.
Here is a testimony, about the search for truth. A number of years ago I heard a wonderful testimony of Benjamin Berger. He is from New York who was born into an Orthodox Jewish family who had escaped from Europe during WWII. However, he lost his faith in God as he grew into adulthood. He qualified as an architect and went to live in Denmark. One evening in 1967 when he came home from work he sat in a chair in a reflective state of mind. At one point he asked himself, “what is really true?” Shortly afterwards, he felt that there was a presence in his room. He felt it was a presence of great love. Then he heard the words, “I am Joshua.” Apparently, he knew nothing about Jesus. When he tried to learn about him, he accepted that he was the promised Messiah of the Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he returned to New York he told his brother Reuven about his experience. As a result, his brother also accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, the living embodiment of the truth. Sometime later their mother also accepted Jesus as the truth. I met Benjamin when he visited Dublin a few years ago. In 2o17 I visited a community of messianic Jews in Jerusalem which where Benjamin and his brother are the pastors.
It is said that we live in a post-truth society, where our knowledge is thought to be partial and provisional. We are adrift in our culture upon a sea of relativism. Christians not only reject this pessimistic and sceptical point of view, we believe that Jesus is Truth incarnate and what he preaches is also infallibly true. As Jesus said in John 17:17: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” We are called, says the Catechism, to spread the truth by means of preaching, teaching and witness.
Needless to say, Christians have a moral obligation not to tell lies or to perjure themselves, a topic we looked at in a previous programme. When I was a boy my father told me a story about George Washington. When George was six years old, he received a hatchet as a gift, after which he promptly went and cut down his father’s favourite cherry tree. When his father found out about it, he was understandably angry and confronted his son, asking if he had done it, to which little George replied that yes, indeed, he had. And with those brave words, his father’s anger melted away and he embraced his son, exclaiming that his honesty was worth more than a thousand trees. My father’s words made a big impression on me. As he said at the time, “people will only trust you if you are a man of your word who never tells lies.”
The 8th commandment also rules out rash judgement, slander and calumny. There is a memorable Jewish story about a man who went through his community slandering the local rabbi. One day, feeling remorseful, he begged the rabbi for forgiveness while saying he was willing to do penance. The rabbi told him to get a feather pillow, to cut it open, and to scatter the feathers to the winds. The man did so, but when he returned to tell the rabbi that he had fulfilled his request, he was told, “Now go and gather all the feathers.” The man protested, “But that is impossible.” “Of course it is.” Replied the rabbi, “And although you may sincerely regret the evil you have done and truly desire to correct it, it will be as impossible to repair the damage done by your words, as it will be to recover the feathers.”
I was interested to see that the Catechism is opposed to flattery, adulation, or complaisance.
Flattery is giving insincere compliments.
Adulation is holding another person in an unrealistically high regard.
Complaisance is being over deferential and accommodation to the ideas and desires of others.
Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) argued that beauty is a transcendental attribute of God and that it should play a central role in theology. For Balthasar, theology had become too focused on the "true" (intellectual) and the "good" (moral), neglecting the importance of beauty (aesthetic). In his theological aesthetics, he explored how God reveals Himself in the splendor of creation and through Christ’s form, emphasizing that beauty leads us to the truth of God.
