Pope Benedict on Truth and Relativism

At this time of year, as we approach its end, we inevitably hear all kinds of odd things from the media. We are subjected to overviews of the previous year and predictions of what the next year will bring. 

For example, flipping through the channels yesterday evening I encountered a synopsis of the entertainment industry in 2024. At least from my perspective (and I don’t claim my point of view represents that of the majority of Americans), the industry’s annual highlights seemed more like horrifying lowlights. 

This brief coverage depicted a radically self-absorbed industry. We are presented with a world like few others, a dystopian-like world inhabited by far too many ego-centric celebrities. It’s a world in which money rules and defines almost everything. It’s a world where all is relative, especially truth. It’s a world lacking any standards of human behavior where the lines separating good and evil are increasingly blurred. 

It’s certainly not a good world, but one that apparently appeals to many, especially young people. And this is its real danger, that it will infect future generations and lead them to accept what Pope Benedict XVI called a “dictatorship of relativism."

Indeed, Pope Benedict, perhaps the greatest scriptural and theological scholar among modern popes, wrote and spoke often about truth and relativism. In a series of interviews with European journalist, Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict had much to say on the subject. (The interviews were published as a book in 2010 — Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times)

I've included some of what the pope said below. I realize it's rather lengthy, but we can all benefit from his wisdom, especially on this subject. Here goes...

It is obvious that the concept of truth has become suspect. Of course, it is correct that it has been much abused. Intolerance and cruelty have occurred in the name of truth. To that extent people are afraid when someone says, “This is the truth”, or even “I have the truth.” We never have it; at best it has us. No one will dispute that one must be careful and cautious in claiming the truth. But simply to dismiss it as unattainable is really destructive.

A large proportion of contemporary philosophies, in fact, consist of saying that man is not capable of truth. But viewed in that way, man would not be capable of ethical values, either. Then he would have no standards. Then he would only have to consider how he arranged things reasonably for himself, and then at any rate the opinion of the majority would be the only criterion that counted. History, however, has sufficiently demonstrated how destructive majorities can be, for instance, in systems such as Nazism and Marxism, all of which also stood against truth in particular.

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...we must have the courage to dare to say: Yes, man must seek the truth; he is capable of truth. It goes without saying that truth requires criteria for verification and falsification. It must always be accompanied by tolerance, also. But then truth also points out to us those constant values which have made mankind great. That is why the humility to recognize the truth and to accept it as a standard has to be relearned and practiced again.

The truth comes to rule, not through violence, but rather through its own power; this is the central theme of John’s Gospel: When brought before Pilate, Jesus professes that he himself is The Truth and the witness to the truth. He does not defend the truth with legions but rather makes it visible through his Passion and thereby also implements it.

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A new intolerance is spreading, that is quite obvious. There are well-established standards of thinking that are supposed to be imposed on everyone. These are then announced in terms of so-called “negative tolerance”. For instance, when people say that for the sake of negative tolerance [i.e. “not offending anyone”] there must be no crucifix in public buildings. With that we are basically experiencing the abolition of tolerance, for it means, after all, that religion, that the Christian faith is no longer allowed to express itself visibly.

When, for example, in the name of non-discrimination, people try to force the Catholic Church to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women, then that means that she is no longer allowed to live out her own identity and that, instead, an abstract, negative religion is being made into a tyrannical standard that everyone must follow. That is then seemingly freedom – for the sole reason that it is liberation from the previous situation.

In reality, however, this development increasingly leads to an intolerant claim of a new religion, which pretends to be generally valid because it is reasonable, indeed, because it is reason itself, which knows all and, therefore, defines the frame of reference that is now supposed to apply to everyone.

In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face. The danger is that reason – so-called Western reason – claims that it has now really recognized what is right and thus makes a claim to totality that is inimical to freedom. I believe that we must very emphatically delineate this danger. No one is forced to be a Christian. But no one should be forced to live according to the “new religion” as though it alone were definitive and obligatory for all mankind.

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But the reality is in fact such that certain forms of behavior and thinking are being presented as the only reasonable ones and, therefore, as the only appropriately human ones. Christianity finds itself exposed now to an intolerant pressure that at first ridicules it – as belonging to a perverse, false way of thinking – and then tries to deprive it of breathing space in the name of an ostensible rationality.

It is very important for us to oppose such a claim of absoluteness conceived as a certain sort of “rationality”. Indeed, this is not pure reason itself but rather the restriction of reason to what can be known scientifically – and at the same time the exclusion of all that goes beyond it. Of course it is true that historically there have been wars because of religion, too, that religion has also led to violence...

Indeed, the Church of today and tomorrow will need many heroic souls who possess the faith and the courage necessary to stand up for Jesus Christ in a world that despises Him. Brothers and sisters, the Church is far more than the pope and the bishops, far more than its priests and deacons and religious. You too are the Church! And together we must stand firm in our faith, even as the world, slowly and deceptively, tries to lead us astray. Our lives must also be prayerful lives, lifting up the generations that follow so they, too, will accept the Truth and follow the Way to the eternal Life God offers to us all.

By the way, get the book (see Amazon link above). It's a wonderful read and provides many unique insights as to how we should life our faith in a world which is largely hostile to all that it stands for.