The phrase has taken on a rather significant appeal to a rather large group of individuals within the LGBTQ+ community as well as those who have a deep hunger simply to be heard, understood, acceptance and loved. At first, when such language began to appear in the mainstream I resisted it, reaffirming the objective character of truth by which subjective (perceptive judgments) must adhere. But not long after I came across a number of texts (some of which are in the Missal), and from Thomists which appear to use a similar language.
I was reminded that the Church’s notion of truth has either a remote or proximate relationship to experience. Prior to understanding Truth as the Person of the Son, we can understand it as a transcendental - which at first is an abstract concept, but also something humanity can also internally experience. Experience has a lot to do with the “core” of “my truth” wherefore a person makes judgments based upon their own experiences. Such judgment simply means that we do one of two things: divide or compose, and declare existence or non-existence.
Judgment
To compose or divide simply means that we can abstractly separate concepts or qualities of something within our own mind. Sometimes in this life we can separate things in a healthy way - wherefore we generate boundaries. Or we can separate things in an unhealthy way, wherefore we neglect our responsibilities. Likewise, we can compose our duties in ways that are unhealthy or healthy and rightly ordered. We make judgments about our responsibilities toward others, toward our perception of their needs, and when they might simply be needy. To be able to separate or compose, in our judgments we begin to understand how to take our relationships apart and put them back together in a manner that is as healthy as the judgments we make.
Likewise, when we judge we also declare if what we have composed or divided is simply a matter of fantasy or if it is rooted deeply in reality. I may compose in my mind a horn upon a horse’s head and call it a unicorn, yet it remains only a fictional being, but not an actual being found in reality. This latter form of judgment where we declare that something “is” or “is-not” is the final judgment, or when our intellect finds rest and a type of decisiveness that is required to make actual decisions. Without confidence and being held to a debilitating type of fear of making error, we often avoid making such judgments.
When we resolve to declare that something “is” or “is-not” we have assigned our will’s affections toward this matter as definitive. If this peanut butter sandwich is good for me or is-not good for me will determine whether I pick it up. Hopefully if I have allergies, my sensual desires will not blind me from what is actually the case.
This process in all of us is developing and at the root of it we must acknowledge that when a person says, “my truth” what they are suggesting is merely on the level of the subjective. It does not necessarily mean that the person is unwilling to admit they might be in error (though this happens to everyone, Christians and non-Christians alike). Nonetheless, an existential decision takes place within man that makes a final-decision and this is often what we call “my truth.” But it would seem more humble to call it “my judgment.” Nonetheless, I won’t get hung up on such terminology. Stating My truth tends to be definitive and not subject to dialogue, debate, change, and thus becomes the language of the unteachable lest a person can at the very least admit that their judgments are subject to some authority greater than itself: namely faith and reason.
My Truth & The Truth
One of the dangers of leaving behind, entirely, the language of “my truth” is that we become rationalistic which is opposed to the Catholic Tradition which espouses the view that we are to be married with “the truth.” That is to say that the living reality of our judgments about what is, and what is good, and what is not good, cannot be merely subordinated to some ghostly abstraction. In the language of Evangelization, one must encounter Grace and not merely have an abstraction notion of it. Newman understood this as the distinction between a notional-faith which can also be ascribed to a type of nominal-ethic. When the very goodness and ugliness of reality is not properly understood in our judgments, we find ourselves lost (and perhaps doubly lost if we do not realize as such we are lost). My truth is that encounter when, on the level of experience we encounter the Transcendental Truth as a Personal foundation for everything that is. One cannot rarely grasp the full breadth of the Church’s teaching without experiencing Christ, alive and written on their hearts.
Nominal and Notional Judgments
This is why so many people who have a notional experience of the faith consider themselves experts. In their judgment, what they have come to know and experience is “all that there is” and they have found it “wanting.” Sometimes, however you do get people who have a notional type of faith, they also become the most ardent, venomous apologists. They study a “theology of conclusions” without intuiting the deeper relational insights, and movements of God’s heart. Rather they become so embittered with disagreement that they forge disciples much like themselves, whom the Lord responds, “I never knew you.” In both cases, whether it be quasi-catechumen who drifts away, or the one who seeks to make war with everyone to address the human need for communion (but not the spiritual need) in a tribe, we find ourselves with a type of judgment that is merely superficial.
God is-not and God-is to both the agnostic and pre-evangelized, but when such judgments are made, there is little life-changing impact. Consider a story I heard (which I will tweak): A man is able to walk a tight-rope and manages to attract a significant crowd. He is able to do this with complete abandon, with no safety-nets. The people hunger to see the limits of what we can accomplish, so he demonstrates it to them. He rolls a barrel back and forth on the tight rope. He even has a mini-stove top in which he cooks and eats an omelette on. The people are enthralled. But the man looks to the crowd and ask them a pointed question: “Do you believe I can carry someone on my back, safely?” All of them wanting to see him accomplish this great task cheer, “Yes!” So then he asks the real question which shows how real their faith is: “Who will volunteer.”
As you can imagine, no one, if not a few will raise their hand. I recently told this story to a group of children, and one of them raised his hand and said, “I would jump on his back.” I couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous for Him, and told him if anyone asks that of you, make sure you talk to your parents first. But the child-like faith was evident in Him, and there wasn’t much fear. For some, and especially if taking this story literally, might consider it imprudent. Yet faith demands something more: our whole lives are to be entrusted in surrender to God, and this is something we can cheer about, and proclaim, and even perform various external acts that give others the impression it is accomplished in our life. But these acts may still be circling around that one area that God has asked us to entrust to Him first. Perhaps it is the confession of an unconfessed sin, or the acceptance of a vocational calling, or the change of one’s lifestyle. But the fact remains, we’ve made an existential judgment which is more authorities than “God’s truth” and thus our faith is weak. We cry, “Lord, Lord” but He does not know us.
His Truth Becomes Our Own
When we encounter the Lord, not merely as an abstraction or theological conclusion to a series of concepts, we begin to integrate that truth into the whole of our being. Everything has an opportunity to reorder itself, to change our lives completely. We abandon the old ways, for the New Law. In one of the collects or prayers after mass (I cannot currently remember) the phrase of the prayer says that God’s truth may become our own (paraphrase). This is far less isolating, and territorial than declaring “my truth.” My truth, alone is isolating, and it is proclaimed because of its loneliness. One wants it to be shared. This is why there is such a force in attempting people to ascribe to “their truth” be it in sexual relativism or whatever - there is a chronic fear of rejection in many, perhaps a wound as such. And while it is all immature to make our happiness dependant upon the ideological paradigmatic shift in others (for both the woke and Christian), it does appeal to something that is also anthropologically rooted in man: a longing for communion of heart and mind.
Yet recognizing that communion is at the root of this thrust we must then conclude two things: communion with (res) reality is first and foremost the goal. If we belong to a fantasy, dysphoria, error, or mere social construct we find ourselves ungrounded from something solid, meaningful. It will offer a brief reprieve until the fantasy lifts, and a new narrative, rationalization, tribe, and book reaffirm our existential judgments.
More-deeply, that communion with res is Christ Himself, who is at the root cause and continuing cause of our existence. He is holding us, intentionally in being, with love at each moment. He is at the root of our existence, where we are most vulnerable, dependant, and He calls us by name - and in the ontological sense, calls us Very Good. Being in communion with reality that is Personal - the Truth - who loved us first, puts into perspective every dimension of our lives, all ethics, all relationships with creation, and human relationships, and above all God.
Circling Back to Judgment
Recently the
CDF put forward a document that listed 4 types of human dignity: (1) ontological, (2) Moral, (3) Social, and (4) Existential. Often within the sphere of our thinking, these four distinctions are often not made, and all sorts of disorders arise as a result. Where inordinate shame occurs is where the ontological dignity of man is so often conflated with the moral and social dignity. Where a man morally fails he might believe himself to not only be evil in his character (which perhaps he is), but also in the very fact that he exists (which is unequivocally untrue). Likewise, many internalize the voice of other’s judgments. If this person calls me a hero or a loser, I must be those things (social dignity). Perhaps not even in such words and names, but in the very track record with relationships, and how one is treated (abuse, etc). Somehow the judgments of others or perceived judgments of others has been internalized as “my truth.” Thus we arrive at the pivotal and universal experience of everyone except Christ and Mary: we all succumb to error about ourselves (innocent or chosen). And thus “my truth” is a place that lacks certainty in this life. This does not diminish the fact that through experience confidence can grow and a healthy type of skepticism can be preserved. But it does mean that self-knowledge is challenging when the social-dignity defines our own existential judgments.
The ontological dignity is ultimately that which is transferred from the cause of our being: God. Due to the fact that we are created in the Image and Likeness of God, and through baptism, ontologically configured to be beloved sons and daughters of the Father - this becomes the stable rock of our identity. This is God’s truth about us, and if we cooperate and accept it, it will rebuke the lies of the enemy that plant themselves into erroneous versions of “my truth” so that His truth can truly become “our own.”
Detachment From My Truth
Being able to be corrected when it comes to our own notion of identity might be the hardest thing for some to do. Without knowing that God’s judgment is actually good, it is difficult to trade in our counterfeit version for what appears to be harmful. It takes a lot of courage to allow God’s fire to burn up our own identities. God, as a jealous God (in the charitable sense) sometimes allows people to go after their idols to teach them that they offer them nothing but a bubble (vanity). When that bubble pops, it is time for them to return to their first love (Ez. 16). Our detachment from “my truth” is not a detachment from making a new judgment, and therefore truth, our own. We do not lose our existential dignity to make such a decision. Yet, we become detached not from our existential character but subordinate it to what is actually the case: Christ and His Truth. So many understand this subordination to be arbitrary as though the Truth is artificially imposed upon as like some positive law. Some Christians do ascribe to that. However, our God is the Logos - the deepest Truth - and there is nothing false or artificial to it. Letting go of our self-concepts, politics, and judgments, to place them into God’s hands, becomes the most intimate, vulnerable place where we literally allow God to carry us on His back. Why? Because we depend on the one to whom our actual existence and joy depends upon.
