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| Beware of Nietzsche, he's a snake! Read him only with Ratzinger! |
Thomas Aquinas, as is well known, defined truth as the adequation of the intellect to reality...the perception of the truth is a process which brings man into conformity with being. It is a becoming one of the "I" and the world, it is consonance, it is being gifted and purified. To the extent that men allow themselves to be guided and cleansed by the truth, they find the way not only to their true selves but also to the human "thou". Truth, in fact, is the medium in which men make contact, whereas it is the absence of truth which closes them off from one another. Accordingly, movement toward the truth implies temperance. If the truth purifies man from egotism and from the illusion of absolute autonomy, if it makes him obedient and gives him the courage to be humble, it thereby also teaches him to see through producibility as a parody of freedom and to unmask undisciplined chatter as a parody of dialogue. It is victorious over the tendency to mistake the absence of all ties for freedom. Thus, the truth is fruitful precisely by being loved for its own sake.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology Ignatius 1955, p. 39
Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. --Jesus Christ (John 18:37)