The Fullness of Truth

and the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church

Truth does not change

The amplitude, however, of what remains to be understood as definitively true (that is to say, true in such a way that nothing — no aspect, no dimension, no further possible understanding or comprehension of it is possible) — is presently such that it is conceivable that more, in fact, can be further predicated of what we hold to be true. So understood, absolute truth is always, and in some measure, beyond the pale of time in which more can be predicated of it.  In other words, the fullness of truth is inherently eschatological — it remains to be completely revealed in Jesus Christ alone — Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Saint John 14.6) in Whom, and before Whom, all will be revealed and nothing will remain hidden. And in this sense, too, revelation will be complete.

Until such a time, however, it is possible either to elicit more (analytically) of the truth we possess, or to acquire further dimensions of the truth yet to be revealed or understood. This is not to say that we have no grasp of truth whatever! It is indefeasibly true that 1+1 will always equal 2. The interior angles of any possible triangle will always equal 180 degrees. Such truthful statements are in the end ultimately tautologous, or redundant: the definition of a triangle as a three-sided figure, the sum of whose interiors angles equals 180 degrees, and a figure which is three sided and whose interior angles equal 180 degrees is what we understand as a triangle ... are absolutely identical. To state the one is to define the other.

Apart from such purely analytical statements that populate geometry and logic, we never possess the entirety of truth about anything existential whatsoever. More can always be predicated of it — with the sole (logical) stipulation that what furthermore can be said of it can be neither inconsistent with nor contradictory to it.

This is not to say that what we hold to be true is inherently defective; what is presently true will always be true and will never cease to be true; it is merely incomplete relative to all truthful statements than can and will be predicated of it, such that what is true of it is exhaustively and definitively stated about it —  and nothing further truthful can be stated relative to it. The complete truth about any existent encompasses too many aspects to be exhausted for the simple reason that its existence in time will never be totally enacted until the end of time — and more can predicated of anything ... than what is predicable of it at this moment in time and in moments past.

This does not mean that what is true will ever cease to be true — we cannot abolish what is true, nor will what is true ever be not-true. The totality of the truth pertaining to anything created only obtains in that final and definitive denoument beyond which nothing further can be stated about it in both time and place. What remains to be truthfully stated about it is continually explicated in time — until time itself is no more.

However — and this is vital — truth never ceases to be the truth and never contradicts itself:  one truth does not abolish another truth — nor does it contradict a truth already revealed.

For this reason the Magisterium of the Church teaches us what the Holy Ghost will lead us into all truth which is and must be completely consistent with what has been already revealed. More remains true to be said than what has already been said — until the fullness of truth culminates in the blinding reality of the Parousia, or the Second Coming of Christ, when this world will pass away, and all within it. Only then will the fullness of truth be realized, for no more could possibly be predicated of what has reached its culmination in time and has passed into eternity.

Of one thing we are certain: what the Holy Ghost will yet reveal to us will not abolish or contradict what He has already taught us, revealed to His Church in Holy Scripture and in the Sacred Deposit of Faith of 2000 years. Simply put, God, Who is Truth, cannot possibly contradict Himself.

Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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