Veritatis splendor

In this essay I want to comment what I think is the notion, term, word truth. I think that this word is very important to re-discover or know the origins of the word, because in this age and all the places a lot of people think that the truth is something that is not absolute and it depends for the time and the place. The approach that is proposed to do this, is with the phenomenological experience, so I will explain some elements of the truth with examples to approach to the reality or the essence of truth. I take the title of one of the encyclical letters of saint John Paul II, because I think that truth glow and shine of one of its elements, and its the light that illuminates all people.

The first thing that I can see of the element of truth is that a lot of people in the society thinks that the truth is relative and not absolute. I can say that this statement is true, but at the same time is false. This statement is true because the truth is a kind of relation between human intelligence and the things, its different the relation of the mathematician with the numbers, that the relation that have the physicians, chemists and the philosophers, the approach that has the physicians and chemists to numbers is very particular, they use the numbers to explain their sciences, so the approach to numbers that these have is only using them; the approach that the philosophical science have is asking the essence of the numbers, and the approach that has mathematics is the relationship between the numbers with operations like addition and its reference to the geometric shapes. Also the relation that a lawyer have to the numbers is to poor, because his method does not include the numbers, but the lawyer has a little notion of numbers to ask the payment for his services. The truth is relative in the meaning of relation, not in the meaning that everyone has its own truth. When the relation is bigger the intensity of the truth is bigger, and when the relation is poor the intensity of it is less. So this little difference help us to express the idea that there would be a bigger difference in the approach to the truth, and maybe it would be an absolute truth, and I think that if my experience with the objects are limited, are temporal, and I can make mistakes, maybe it would change over time or it can be perfected over time; but it would exist somebody that his experiences never change and knows perfectly the truth of all the things over time, maybe would exists somebody that can make perfect relations with all the objects; my experience is limited by my body, and this somebody no needs body to have perfect relations and also he never do mistakes in the time, so the relation that this somebody and all the things needs to be in the eternity (because in this type of “time” doesn’t exist the measure of the before and after), absolute (without limitations), and this elements we can find them in the essence of God, God has a certain relation with all the things in His eternal and absolute mind. So, in our social context when people say that the truth is relative, they mean that everyone has its own truth, but in fact relative signifies a certain relation; we can also affirm that the truth is absolute because exist somebody that has no limits in the knowledge of all the things.

A second element that I found on truth is explained in the definition that Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas say: the truth is the adequation of the thing and the intellect. I think that this translation is to poor, because in latin it can explain a lot of things (adaequatio rei et intellectus), for instance the term adaequatio means that something goes to equality, tends to equality, this tendency means that has a beginning and necessary has an end. Which are put on the equality are the thing and the intellect, this is something that I have said, is the relation between an object that will be studied by an intellect, but most people think that the tendency is only from the intellect to the object (thing), but is not the only form to procede, if is only in one way we can’t reach the equality; also the thing appears to the intellect, the thing is launched to the intellect, the thing appears, is a phenomenon, but this tendency to equality is a certain proportion because if we want to have an exact equality it would mean that in the human intellect we can also find the matter of all the things; if I’m knowing a volcano which measures 2,000 mts, these 2,000 mts of rock wouldn’t be in my mind, because if them were in my mind, it would explote. So, the knowledge that I have is an analogue, its a kind of proportion because I don’t have the existing object in my intellect, but I have it in a proportion; and this is a perfection that I acquire, because the essence that has the mountain I have it in a proportional existence (inmaterial) with the notion of the name, term, word… When I’m knowing a bird, I have the perfection of the bird, I can understand in a certain way the essence of the bird, and it helps me to understand the reality and I can transform the idea of bird to another ideas that I create in my mind, such as, the idea of airplane, if I want to know how a man can fly, the essence of the bird can help me to discover new ways to describe the reality and to help a man to fly, I can understand the aerodynamic system, the way that the bird moves its wings and its tail, and so on, these expressions can help me to create a new thing with these ideas and help a man to fly; also I can understand the idea of sing of the bird and I can imitate this characteristic of it. So, when I’m knowing something of the reality I need a relation between the thing and my intellect; and when my intellect gets the idea of the thing, myself is perfected: I have in some way the essence of the thing, and if I’m wrong I can return to the object to know if my idea is related to the thing.

In order to understand the idea of truth, I want to say one last thing: the truth is beautiful. The truth and the beauty are convertible, when I know a thing, I also saying that this thing is beautiful, and beauty is something that seen what pleases, and my speculative knowledge and practical knowledge sees the thing and they are pleased when have the essence. When I don’t understand a thing and my knowledge go far and deepest in the thing and then I can understand what is this thing, I’m very happy because I understand what it means. When I studied mathematics and physics and I comprehend what the professor says and want that the students understand and when the professor want that the student understands the deepest basics and principles (axioms) of these sciences, and when the student understand them, the student is very happy, he feels something new, he is astonished and impacted by the beauty of the truth, and when the student don’t understand this he feels pain, suffering, and when he understands the principles the truth heals the wound that is in the human soul, is like a light that gives a new meaning of the human existence; but this healing does not end there, the healing go beyond and can help to heal another people, because the beauty of the truth is also self-diffusive, and expands, go beyond, and have a diffusion to another human intellect to perfect himself and to heal the wound of the soul.