On Being a Humble Truth-Seeker

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote hundreds of years ago on truth, capital-T Truth:

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand, and say: Father, I will take this one—the pure Truth is for You alone.  Wikiquote

Mendelssohn, Lessing & Lavater
Wikimedia Commons

Lessing’s premise, that it is more blessed, more holy, indeed, more true, to seek Truth rather than to claim or possess it, is, in our time, an extraordinary one. . . for are we not the quintessential holders, claimers and defenders of the True?

Lessing’s answer is clear and succinct: no.  And if we pretend that we are, we aim at usurpation of the divine.

Left with a choice, he says, he would always choose the seeking after of Truth, for Truth, ultimate, settled-for-all-time Truth is the purview of God alone.

What an extraordinarily humble and wise thing to say.

Daniel Berrigan’s Advent Credo redound, “This is true. . .” rings in my head.  But even those claims, lofty, noble and in my view, true, as they are, must be uttered with the same humility urged by Lessing: I can only ever see through a mirror dimly when it comes to anything, including the divine vision of justice, mercy and love, let alone the ultimate divine claim upon us: the claim of, to, from, and for life.

This is awfully abstract.

I write in abstractions today for I am not yet ready to write in the concrete: a friend lays upstairs dying and we who love him gather round.  This I know to be true; but is it True?  I cannot say.