Pope Benedict is his book, "Truth and Tolerance" written while he was a cardinal, shares a Buddhist parable to illustrate the importance of truth and how quickly it can be set aside on behalf of personal opinions.
The parable:
A king of northern India gathered together all the blind people in the kingdom and put them in one place. He then led an elephant in front of them. To each blind person he would let feel a particular part of the elephant and then say "this is what an elephant is like." One blind person would feel the hairy end of the tail, one the trunk, one the hindquarters, one the ears, one the legs and so on and so forth. Then he asked the question to all of them, "what is an elephant like." Each person then began to explain their understanding of an elephant based on their experience; an elephant is like a woven basket, an elephant is like a store room, like a pillar, like a pot, like a plow handle, like a broom. Quickly the blind began to quarrel with each other for the sake of their opinion and began to fist fight and destroy one another.
This is how the world is today. People no longer seek the truth but rather they cling to their opinion. Thus, truth slowly is lost do to the arrogance of pride that reigns in the human heart.
If truth is lost then there can be no freedom. Only truth makes man free. In deed looking around at choices people make, it is sad to say that truth and freedom have been lost for the sake of opinions and convenience.
Why? Many hold religious truths to be a system of beliefs that are interchangeable and thus equally capable of being disregarded. Christianity is not primarily a system of beliefs, Christianity is primarily a path to be followed. It only truly becomes recognizable once you enter the gate and begin to walk the narrow way, only then is truth known, only then are we known to ourselves.
In seeking to follow Christ, we truly begin to recognize the truth of humanity because of the truth seen in the human face of Christ. This is where freedom is found. We all must be willing and ready to seek truth but we also must have the humility to be found by the one who seeks us, as Jesus tells us, "I did not come on my own, but He sent me."
The argument that must precede any philosophical dialogue about truth with other religious systems must entail a more ardent following after Christ; we must walk the path that Christ walked, we must make the way of the cross for love alone is credible; crucified love seen in the face of Christ is the essential characteristic of truth that must be seen through us if truth is going to set us free.
Truth then is not about our opinions it is about God revealing himself in the face of Christ crucified and thus inviting us to a new understanding of freedom; we must let this voice of truth shape our lives and thus let freedom ring.
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