What is the truth?

by Michael Shackleton · August 7, 2012

We are taught that the Church cannot stray from the truth that Christ gave it. What is this truth? Is it Christ himself who is the way, the truth and the life? Is it the Church�s teaching and, if so, is it this teaching that makes the Church infallible? And, incidentally, can infallibility be defined clearly for all to understand? �Pen Evans

Infallibility in the Church means that, having faithfully received the truths revealed to it by God in Christ, the People of God express and profess their faith in the form of doctrines and dogmas that cannot contradict or stray from those divinely revealed truths.

“Put very simply, the Church does not fundamentally hold or teach error.”

So, if error cannot penetrate the faith of the Church, you ask: what is the truth against which we measure error?

This truth is the Holy Spirit himself, the �Spirit of truth� (Jn 14:17) �whom the Father will send in my name and will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you� (Jn 14:26). The Spirit comes in Jesus� name and therefore, yes, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the only road to God�s everlasting kingdom, he is the truth itself and he infuses divine grace into humanity to prepare us to live in the company of divinity.

The entire Church, as an organic living community of believers and doers, is infallible in this way. All its members, right up to the head of the Church, the pope, share in the gift of infallibility.

There have been times when there was uncertainty about what really is the truth. For instance, Arius in the fourth century understood Christ�s being Son of God to mean that he was the first and highest creature of God. Arius had a large following.

This confused many in the Church until the Council of Nicea in 325 condemned his views�the Arian heresy�and gave us the specific definition of Christ�s divinity: he is not a creature of the Father but he is �consubstantial with the Father�, he is God. This is the truth we proclaim when we recite the Nicean Creed at Sunday Mass.

When the pope, in union with the episcopal college which he heads, clarifies and declares what we must believe, this is done only to bring greater unity to the People of God, because that is the function of the Church�s magisterium.