Quid est veritas? Veritas veritas est?

Is Truth True?

Elliot Bougis

When I proposed (in appallingly feeble Latin) a motto, which was revised by my Latinate superiors thus: Potest veritas se defendere (Truth can defend itself), someone brought up Pilate’s question to Christ, “Quid est veritas? What is truth?” and asked me for some help in responding to arguments against truth in favor of relativism. This post is my effort to help that reader, and perhaps others.

Relativism is the idea, immensely popular in our age, that truth is different things to different people and cultures in different places and times. By now relativism is not so much a specific argument, as a general climate of thought in most of the world. It denies that there is something like absolute, universal Truth “out there”. Even if there were such an absolute reality, relativists add, we are not equipped to know it. We can never reach a “God’s eye view” of reality, which is what they take Truth to be. According to relativists, we are all confined to our own narrow perspectives and limited by our own cultural biases. There is not truth: there are many truths, all relative to the inquirer. …

Because this article is being considered for publication in a magazine, I can’t have it “published” online or in any other periodical, so, if you’d like to read it, email me at fidescogitactio AT gmail DOT com.

Are Non-Catholics Blind?

Alvin Plantinga has argued that Christian beliefs such as the existence of God, incarnation, etc. can be warranted in a properly basic way. Those who do not believe in the existence of God have some kind of impairment in their cognitive faculties which is a result of original sin. In other words, there is something wrong with those who do not believe in God; they are blind. Can we apply them to the Catholic Church and other religions? Suppose that the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ. The Church proposes: