[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Catholic Reason, a radio production of St. Michael Catholic Radio based in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where we think through various claims made by the Catholic Church concerning issues of faith, morality, and culture, and provide reasons behind those claims. My name is Dr. Coral Bruceard. I'm a staff apologist and speaker for Catholic cancers at Catholic.com and a member of the Chansery Evangelization team at the Diocese of Tulsa in Eastern Oklahoma. The Catholic Reason airs every Thursday here locally in Tulsa from 4 to 5 p.m. on St. Michael Catholic Radio, 94.9, and 102.9. But you may be listening on your own local Catholic Radio station at a different time since the Catholic Reason is aired on other Catholic stations throughout the country. So if you're joining us from outside of the Tulsa area, welcome, and thanks for joining me for today's episode. Just note that you can download the show through whichever podcast platform you use by subscribing to the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic podcast. You can also access the archived episodes at my website, callabrusard.com, under the audio tab. Also, too, if you're interested in submitting a question to me that you would like for me to try and answer on a future episode of the Catholic Reason, you can do so by emailing me at Carlo, K-A-R-L-O, at St. MichaelRadio.com. That's Carlo at St. MichaelRadio.com, but St. is St. not spelled out. And in today's episode, we're actually going to devote the last segment to a couple of questions that actually came in. And so I want to spend some time giving some answers to those questions. But before we do that, for the majority of today's episode, we're going to shift gears a bit from the flavor of topics that we've been considering in past episodes. The majority of the episodes of the Catholic Reason have dealt with issues that come up in Catholic Protestant dialogues. But here on the Catholic Reason, we also like to think through issues that go beyond the boundaries of Catholic, Protestant conversations, especially issues that are relevant within our contemporary culture. And one such issue is what we call relativism. You listening or watching may have heard of that term, and you might be wondering, well, what is it? I've heard of it, but I'm not quite sure exactly what it is. And so that's what I'd like to talk about today, or at least one version of relativism. A 2017 study came out and identified doubt-in objective truth as a major reason why millennials are abandoning God in Christianity. And for that study, you can check out Alex McFarland in the article 10 Reasons, Millennials are backing away from God in Christianity. And that was published in 2017 at Fox News Opinion. Such relativism has been expressed in Supreme Court cases, just to give you sort of a concrete example of how relativism has seeped its way into our culture. Take, for example, the 1992 case planned parenthood of South Eastern Pennsylvania versus Casey. The Justice Anthony Kennedy declared, quote, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe and of the mystery of human life." Did you catch that? At the heart of liberty, so what it means to be free and autonomous is to have a right to define one's own concept of what it means to exist, one's own concept of meaning, one's own concept of the universe, one's own concept of the mystery of human life. That, my friends, captures the essence of what we're going to talk about in today's episode, what we call in philosophy, total or radical or global relativism. Now, that implies that relativism comes in many shapes and sizes, some more radical than others. So we need to start by making some distinctions. And once we have our particular target in place, that's to say the particular version that we'll focus on in today's episode, then we'll proceed to refute it. And keep in mind that everything I say here in today's episode is in written form in my book published by Catholic Answers Press, The New Relativism on Masking the Philosophy of Today's Woke Moralis. Now, in our final segment of today's episode, as I mentioned already, I'll answer a couple of questions that came in via email. And again, if you'd like to submit a question for me to answer on the air in a future episode, you can do so by emailing me at Carlo@St, that's St. MichaelRadio.com. Now, as I already said, relativism comes in many different shapes and sizes. And philosophers divide relativism into broad categories, basically two broad categories, categories. Number one, global or total relativism, and two, local relativism. Okay, so that is the question. Well, what is global or total relativism? Well, total relativism or global relativism encompasses all truth claims, regardless of whether we're talking about human nature, morality, science, religion, history, or any other subject about which a truth claim is made. Now, there are two versions of total relativism. The first claims that there's no truth, and the second claims there's no absolute truth, as if there is a distinction between the two, but in reality there's not, but we'll see that in a few moments. The first claim, there is no truth, implies that truth is mere fiction. There are no beliefs or opinions that conform to reality. We might call this a strong version of total relativism. The second claim, which says there's no absolute truth, what we might call a weak version, acknowledges truth, so it's not so strong that it's saying it's mere fiction, it acknowledges truth, but only in the sense that something corresponds to an internal set of beliefs. It can be true, but in a relative sense, not in an absolute sense where it's gonna apply to all people's all times in all places. What is true for you? So it might be said, might not be true for me, or what's true for me, it might not be true for you. The set of beliefs that serves as the measure for truth can be either the individual himself and his own set of beliefs called, what philosophers call, I say, relativism, or that measure, that set of beliefs that serves as the measure for truth could be a group of individuals, right? Or the culture, what some philosophers call, society says, relativism. Now, total relativism can be contrasted with partial or local relativism, which only involves relativists that claims about truth in particular areas of thought. So for example, a partial relativists, in contrast to a total relativists, might say, I believe absolute truth exists when it comes to things like math, two plus two equals four, or science, gravity is real, you get on top of a building, you jump off, you're gonna find out, gravity is real. But when it comes to truth claims in areas like morality, say, for example, don't have sex before marriage, or religion, perhaps. For example, Christianity is the true faith. Well, those things, something is gonna be true only relative to what the individual or the culture thinks. Those sorts of truth claims in areas like morality and religion are not absolute. They do not apply to all people's all tribes, all tongues quoting scripture there, all people's all times and all places, but rather they're only true relative to the individual or the group of individuals set of beliefs. The version of relatives, excuse me, the version of relativism that we're gonna target in today's episode is total relativism, or global relativism. In both, it's strong version and weak versions. Remember, the strong version says there is no truth, absolutely speaking, truth is mere fiction. The weak version tries to say, well, there's truth, it's not merely a fiction, but it's truth insofar as it's relative to the individual or the group of individuals set of beliefs. My plan here is to save moral relativism for another episode. I wanna devote an entire episode just to moral relativism, at least to begin dealing with it and refuting it because it's quite vast. So let's take the strong version of total relativism first, the claim that there is no truth, and that truth is mere fiction. Now, in response, basically what we wanna do is show how the proposition itself falsifies itself. There's an inherent contradiction by which making the assertion actually undermines the very truth of the assertion, assertion. It falsifies itself, and so what we call that in philosophy is it's self-referentially incoherent. When you apply it to itself, it refutes itself, right? So, in response to the claim that there is no truth, we can simply ask the question, is the claim there is no truth? It's self-true. Is that true? Is that proposition true? Now, the relativists can't say no because he would be giving up his claim, right? He doesn't wanna say no, it's not true because then why would he be making it in the first place, right? And why would he be trying to get us to adopt his view in the first place if it's not true? So he can't say no to that question, is it true? But guess what, he can't say yes either. For if he does, well then he'd be saying that there's at least one absolute truth, namely the very proposition itself that there is no truth. But to say that there's at least one absolute truth is to undermine this version of total relativism. Therefore, it's self-defeating. It's like a sneak devouring its own tale. And moreover, this version of total relativism entails a contradiction. It's true that there is no truth. Did you catch that? It's true that there is no truth. That's a contradiction, friends. Since we can't accept a contradiction, we're justified in rejecting this version of total relativism. Now, I'm gonna have to hit the pause button here. We're coming up on our first break. Don't go anywhere on the other side of the break. We'll pick back up with more. You're listening to the Catholic Reason. I'm Dr. Carlo Bruceard. Talk to you on the other side. Well, welcome back my friends to the Catholic Reason, a radio production of St. Michael Catholic Radio based here in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I'm Dr. Carlo Bruceard, staff, apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers at catholic.com. If you're just joining me, in today's episode, we're talking about a particular version of relativism known as total or global relativism, which basically states there is no truth, regardless if we're talking about morality, religion, history, science, whatever area we're talking about, there is no truth or no absolute truth, which leads to that distinction of the two versions of total relativism. We talked about strong version, saying there is no truth whatsoever. It's mere fiction. Versus the weak version of total relativism, which says, well, truth is not merely a fiction, but it's going to be true relative to the individual group of individuals' set of beliefs. And so in today's episode, we're gonna be targeting both of those versions of total relativism. And before the break, we started to target the strong version of total relativism, which says there is no truth, truth is mere fiction. And we began our refutation of this strong version of total relativism by showing how the proposition itself, the assertion itself, namely, there is no truth, is self-referential and coherent. There's, in the very act of asserting the proposition, it refutes itself, so it falsifies itself, and there's an inherent contradiction. So as I mentioned before the break, in response to the claim that there is no truth, we can simply ask the question, is that proposition true? Obviously, the relativist doesn't wanna say no, because then why would he be making the assertion in the first place and trying to get us to adopt it? But he can't say yes either, because if he does, as I mentioned, he'd be saying there's at least one absolute truth. There's at least one truth, namely, the statement, there is no truth. But to say there's at least one truth, that's absolute, and that's real, right? Well, that would be to undermine the version, the strong version of total relativism. And so it's self-defeating, it falsifies itself, like a snake devouring its own tale. But more so, this version of total relativism, as I mentioned, entails a contradiction. It's true that there is no truth, right? So in response to the proposition, there is no truth. We ask, is that true? If the relativist says yes, well then, so it's true that there is no truth. That's a contradiction, friends. And since we can't accept the contradiction, it violates reason. Reason doesn't wanna assent to a contradiction. We're justified in rejecting this version of total relativism. So somebody says there is no truth, ask them, is that true? And then, of course, they're in a pickle that they cannot get out of. Now, perhaps the relativist responds, well, Carlo, your objection doesn't work because it presupposes what I'm already denying, what I am denying in the first place, namely truth and falsity. So the counter-argument here is that my response presupposes truth and falsity, which the relativist has denied in the very first place, getting out of the gate. And so my refutation of the strong version of total relativism seemingly would not work. So how do we respond to this? Well, the problem with this sort of response is that it undermines the assertion of any statement, including the statement, I deny that truth or falsity exists. If a statement about reality can't be true or false, which is what this counter-argument presupposes and assumes, if a statement about reality can't be true or false, well, then it would be nothing more than a bunch of sounds, void of meaning, or semantic content, like a grunt or a moan. This being the case, the statement, there is no truth, would be non-intelligible. If the statement, there is no truth, cannot or does not presuppose truth or falsity, well, then what the heck does it mean, right? Because it's stated in a propositional form as if it is a claim about reality. It's not like it's a command, do this. It's not even a question. It's not any sort of exclamation of sort of a feeling, right? It's a statement about reality. There is, notice the verb to be, no truth. And so it necessarily presupposes truth or falsity. And if you deny that assumption, within the statement just becomes a bunch of sounds and unintelligible, which is absurd. Furthermore, these non-intelligible sounds couldn't be inconsistent with our belief that there is truth. To say meaningless sounds are logically inconsistent is to speak nonsense. Therefore, the relativists can never meaningfully say there is no such thing as truth, right? So the relativists in its strong version of relativism is actually further undermining his own position. By saying that we can't presuppose truth and falsity, which thereby leads to the statement being unintelligible sounds and excluding any meaning from the statement, that takes down the very relativistic claim itself, there is no truth, making that meaningless. And furthermore, if such, if we cannot presuppose truth and falsity, well, then there is no sense can be made in saying that my position that there is truth is false, right? And so the relativists could in no way offer a counter to our belief. The relativists could in no way critique our belief that there is truth. So not only does the strong version of relativism devour itself, defeat itself, destroy itself, it actually makes it impossible to offer any sort of criticism for the opposing view, which is there is truth. And so these are ways in which we can respond to this counter-argument and ultimately refute the strong version of total relativism. Okay, so now we come to the weak version of total relativism. Remember, total relativism is saying there's no absolute truth regardless of what we're talking about, whether morality, religion, history, science, et cetera, no absolute truth, regardless. And then two versions of that sort of total relativism, strong version, truth is mere fiction, but then a relativist might hold to this second claim. Might not wanna go so far as saying truth is mere fiction, but rather try and say, well, truth is relative to an individual group of individual set of beliefs. There's no absolute truth. Just truth is relative to the set of beliefs, whether we're talking about the individual or the culture or a group of individuals. So how should we respond to this weak version of total relativism? Well, first we can ask similarly to our response to the strong version, is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth? If the relativist responds, yes, well then it follows that there is at least one absolute truth, a truth that would apply to all peoples of all times in all places, namely, there is no absolute truth. That statement itself would be an absolute truth. And like the first formulation, this is self-defeating. It's falsifying its own position, because remember, in this weak version of total relativism, the relativist is trying to say there is no absolute truth, but in the very act of making that statement and thinking it is true, they thereby falsify what they're trying to say, right? Namely that there is no absolute truth, because in stating it, that's at least one absolute truth. But it also entails a contradiction. It's absolutely true that there is no absolute truth. And so like in the strong version, you have an inherent contradiction here in the weak version of total relativism and therefore ought to be rejected. Now, suppose the relativist answers our question and says, no, the statement there is no absolute truth is only relatively true, and I'm perfectly happy with that. So the relativist might say, well, this is problematic as well. The relativist use of the verb is, implies an assertion about the objective order of things. It suggests conformity to reality. It's a statement about reality, it's a metaphysical claim. The relativist is suggesting that the statement, there is no absolute truth, really is relatively true. But this is the same thing as saying, it's absolutely true that there's no absolute truth, which, as we already said, is a contradiction. And furthermore, the relativist claim that the statement, there is no absolute truth, is true relative to his system of beliefs. It just pushes the problem back one step. The system of beliefs itself would be subject to the question, is it absolutely true, right? And as we already demonstrated, any answer the relativist gives, whether yes or no, makes for a contradiction. Now, the no answer is also problematic because it makes the relativist claim trivial. And I touched on this in passing. Remember, we asked, is it true? And we said the relativist doesn't want to say, no, because then why would he be making the assertion in the first place? Well, think about it. There are three ways to see the triviality of our relativist friend saying no to the question, is it true? Number one, he'd only be expressing a mere preference or taste, something other people don't need to be concerned about. And that makes the claim trivial, right? Number two, for the relativist to say that the statement, there is no absolute truth is relatively true for him, means that it happens to be a member of his personal set of beliefs and opinions. By saying that his belief that relativism is true is among his personal beliefs and opinions, the relativist is implying that such a belief is not among the personal beliefs and opinions of non-relativists. So it amounts to saying, I don't myself believe an absolute truth, but other people do. But folks, this tells us nothing. This doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. And so it's trivial. And finally, the relativists appeal to disagreement as an argument for relativism would be futile. Why argue for something if you don't think it corresponds to something that really is? Why try to convince the non-relativists that there's no absolute truth when the idea that there's no absolute truth is true only for the relativists who believes in? So I'm coming up on our second break. Stay tuned, you're listening to the Catholic reason. I'll talk to you on the other side of the break. Well, welcome back my friends to the Catholic reason. If you're just joining me, my name is Dr. Carlo Broussard. I'm a staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers at catholic.com. I'm also a member of the Chancery Evangelization Team here at the Diocese of Tulsa in Eastern Oklahoma, promoting and doing Catholic Answers work locally here throughout the Diocese, hopping around from parish to parish, helping the good bishop David Conderlin, all his priests throughout the Diocese, assisting them in whatever needs they have for adult faith formation. And here's one of the ways in which we're doing that, providing a weekly radio show entitled The Catholic Reason. So thank you for joining us. We're talking about a version of relativism known as total or global relativism, which states that there is no truth, regardless of what we're talking about, morality, religion of science, history, et cetera. And we've already responded to the strong version of total relativism. And before our last break, in our last segment, we were responding to the weak version of total relativism, which says, "Well, maybe truth is not merely a fiction, but truth is relative to an individual or group of individuals' set of beliefs. And that's all truth is." And so the claim there is, rather than there is no truth, like in the strong version, the weak version says there's no absolute truth. And in our response, we said that, well, that's problematic as well, because it's going to be self-defeating or self-referential incoherent, because if the relativist who says there is no absolute truth, thinks that statement in and of itself is true, well, then there would be at least one absolute truth, a truth that applies to all peoples' all times and all places, a truth that is not relative, namely that proposition itself. And so therefore, would falsify this weak version of total relativism, namely, there is no absolute truth. And then secondly, to think that the statement itself is true would entail an inherent contradiction. It's absolutely true, that there's no absolute truth. Now, even if the relativist says, no, it's not absolutely true, well, it's just going to make things trivial. He would just be expressing a mere taste or preference, something that doesn't really, that we don't really need to be concerned about, which seems to go counter purpose. It's contrary to the very purpose of making the assertion itself. Secondly, all he basically is saying is that this is a belief among my set of beliefs that other people do not have. And that, of course, doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. And his appeal to disagreement as an argument for relativism would be futile. Like, why argue for something if you don't think it corresponds to something that really is? And why try to convince us, non-relativists, that there's no absolute truth, and the idea that there's no absolute truth is true only for the relativists who believes in. So it makes it trivial. So whether our relativist friend answers yes or no to the question, is it absolutely true, or is it true, whether for the strong version or the weak version, respectively, he ends up in a bad place intellectually. Now, a relativist may try to counter everything we've said so far and my critique of total relativism in both its strong and weak versions and say that, well, we're committing our own logical error. Recall, I argued that we should reject total relativism in both its forms because to affirm it is to affirm my contradiction. Now, here a relativist might say that, well, we're guilty of assumptions as well because we're merely presupposing that the principle of non-contradiction, which says that a claim cannot be both true and false at the same time and the same respect is true. Most people that you talk to probably won't be so radical as to deny this principle. But in my experience, there were enough out there that do. And so I've had many conversations where people have expressed doubt about it. And I've had college students ask me how to defend it against their skeptic friends. So let's give it a shot. And remember, everything I'm gonna say here is actually in written form in my book, "The New Relativism." Now, it's important to keep in mind that we're not offering a demonstration for the truth of this principle of non-contradiction. A demonstration is a way of showing that something is true by using a syllogism, say, all men are mortal, for example, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. The truth of the principle of non-contradiction can't be demonstrated because it's a first principle of knowledge. And as we'll see in a moment, it's a first principle of being as well. You can't appeal to anything more fundamental to demonstrate its truth of value. In as much as the ultimate ground of our reasoning, you can't rely on the truth of some other premise, right? But this doesn't mean we can't defend the principle against those who attempt to deny it. And so now we come to our defense of the principle. One way to defend the principle of non-contradiction is to show that if you attempt to deny it, you necessarily have to assume it's true. To state it differently, you gotta assume it's true in order to deny it, right? For example, if a skeptic of the principle of non-contradiction says, "The principle of non-contradiction is false," well, then he would be saying that it's not true. But in so doing, he assumes that the principle of non-contradiction itself can't be true and false at the same time, in which case he'd be invoking the principle of non-contradiction in the very act of denying it. To say it's not true and tells that it is false, not true, right? You can't have false and true at the same time, the same respect, in the very denial. Here's another way that we can show how a skeptic has to assume the principle is true in order to deny it. Consider that for a person to deny the non-contradiction principle and intend for us to take him seriously, he must first believe that he exists, right? If he doesn't exist, why should we even listen to him? For if our skeptical friend believed that he didn't exist, we would have no reason to consider his denial of the principle, and that should be pretty clear. But if our skeptic friend believes that he exists, rather than that he does not exist, with it again, he's invoking and assuming the truth with the principle of non-contradiction, that he either exists or he doesn't, not both and at the same time. Now, a skeptic might counter and might dig his heels in and say, no, I'm not assuming the principle of non-contradiction. I may exist and not exist at the same time. And you might be thinking, well, how in the world are we gonna respond to this? Well, here are a few things that we can consider. First, if someone is willing to be so irrational to deny the principle of non-contradiction, well, then it's possible that no argument is going to convince him. Because any argument you put forward presupposes the principle of non-contradiction. Ultimately, there may be no point in using reason with someone who denies a fundamental principle of reason. In order to reason, you gotta take the principle at face value, you gotta assume it's true. And so if you deny that fundamental principle, you can't even play the game of reason. Second, rather than arguing with him, you might consider inviting your skeptic friend to think about his own experiences. You might get him to recognize how 99% of the time, when he does something, he probably acts as if the principle of non-contradiction is true. For example, when he eats food, he probably assumes that it's not poisonous. He doesn't mentally allow for the possibility that it is both poisonous and not poisonous at the same time, the same respect. When he tells you that he doesn't think the principle of non-contradiction is true, in the act of telling, right? He at least seems to act as if he believes he exists rather than not existing. So in the very act of denying the principle of non-contradiction, he's believing, presupposing, that he believes he exists rather than not. And so we could ask him, well, why is it that in your life, you seem to act as if you believe the principle is true. But then in conversation and in philosophical discourse, you deny it. Are you denying the principle of non-contradiction just because it's convenient for you to avoid some other conclusion or implication that we might logically arrive at from that principle, such as the existence of God, which can be done philosophically. And by asking these sorts of questions, you can challenge your skeptic friend to be consistent in practice and in philosophical conversations. Now, there is another objection that we need to be aware of, an objection that's posed to our defense of the principle of non-contradiction. Someone might say, well, maybe I'll accept the principle of non-contradiction is true as it applies to the way our mind works. Philosophers call this the logical version of the principle of non-contradiction. That is, something cannot be both true and false at the same time and then the same respect. That applies to how the mind works. And so it's logical, but so the skeptic might counter, I don't have to accept what philosophers call the ontological version of the principle of non-contradiction. A version of the principle that applies to being or to reality outside the mind. So the logical version would be mapping and tracking and describing how our mind works, but maybe perhaps divorced from and not pertaining to the way the world really works in reality and being itself, right? And so this is a strong counter-argument posed by some philosophers and so the question becomes, well, how do we respond? What can we say here? Well, first, if this principle or a law of reason were to hold true only for reason itself and not for reality or being, well, then reason would be useless to tell us anything true about the real world, which means reason would be of no use to us at all. What's the point of reason about anything? Science or philosophy or morality or anything else if all that reason tells us remains trapped in our minds. The laws of reason must be laws of reality or those laws of reason mean nothing, right? So I think the point here is that to say that the principle of non-contradiction only describes the way the mind works and not reality, it actually makes reason useless because the tool that we need to utilize in order to track and know reality is taken out of our hands. We're prohibited from even using it, so to speak. And so therefore reason becomes useless, which of course, hopefully most people would not want to go that far and arrive at that logical conclusion. And so therefore ought not to want to hold to only the logical version of the principle. Friends, I'm coming up on our third break here. Stay tuned on the other side. We'll pick back up with more of you listening to the Catholic reason. Well, welcome back to our last and final segment of today's episode of the Catholic Reason, a radio production produced by St. Michael Catholic Radio here in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. My name is Dr. Carlo Broussard, staff, apologists and speaker for Catholic cancers and a member of the Chancery Evangelization Team at the Diocese of Tulsa in Eastern Oklahoma. So before our last break, we were responding to a counter-argument or objection that would state the principle of non-contradiction is only a description of how the mind works and doesn't track being or reality, such that we could say something cannot be, something cannot be and not be at the same time the same respect or something cannot exist and not exist at the same time or same respect. This counter states that the principle of non-contradiction doesn't apply to reality or being, so you can't say that. It would only apply to the way the mind works. And I was responding to this counter-argument and saying, "Well, listen, this is just gonna make reason useless." What's the point of reasoning about anything if all reason tells us remains trapped in our own mind? If we can't know something about being, when we say something cannot be both true and false, if that doesn't track being, well, then I think reason just falls apart itself. You can't use the tool of reason to track anything about reality and thus reason becomes futile. Now, a second response here is that if the principle of non-contradiction didn't apply to reality, but only to our ways of thinking, whether the principle would be false, even as applied to reason. If, for example, the oak tree outside, my window say, both existed and didn't exist at the same time and in the same respect, well, then I'd have to say that it's both true and false at the same time and in the same respect that the oak tree exists outside. But if I say that, well, then I undermine the truth of the principle, even as it applies to reason. So no matter how you roll the dice or slice the pie, right, you cannot restrict the principle of non-contradiction to mere reason. You cannot say that the principle of non-contradiction only describes the way the mind works and not reality. We must say, lest we be led to absurd conclusions, logically speaking, that the principle of non-contradiction not only maps or tracks the way the mind works, but it also maps onto and tracks reality and being itself, such that something cannot both be and not be, exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. So if we accept how reason must work according to the principle of non-contradiction, we must allow for the principle of non-contradiction to apply to reality. This means that just as something can't be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect, sold to something cannot both exist and not exist or be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. This principle, therefore, doesn't just govern the way our mind works. It applies to reality as well. And if it applies to reality, well, then we know at least one truth that's absolute. There is truth, right? Okay? So we showed and refuted how relativism, which says there is no truth as false. And given that that's false, within its contradictory, namely there is truth, must be true. And even the presupposition that you can, even the presupposition of the principle of non-contradiction, we can defend it to show that that is true. The statement, something cannot both be and not be at the same time and the same respect, that is true. Why? Because the very attempt to deny it, as we said earlier in today's broadcast, presupposes it's truth. You cannot deny it without assuming that it's true. And that's rock solid evidence, man, that the principle of non-contradiction is true. Okay. So for the remainder of today's episode, friends, like I said, in our introduction, I'd like to take a few questions that came in via email. Again, you can email me for an answer to your question on a future episode of the Catholic reason, Carlo, K-A-R-L-O at stmichaelradio.com. So I have two questions here that we're gonna look at in the remainder of our time today. The first is this. Is it a correct understanding of the Catholic faith to say that when Jesus suffered and died, that only his human nature suffered and died and not the divine person? Well, in response, the answer is this would be incorrect. Natures of persons don't undergo any sort of experience or action. Persons undergo sorts of experience and action, okay? So Orthodox Christology, the study of Christ, affirms that the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the word of God that was in the beginning and was God and with God, is the subject of action that experiences things in and through his human nature. So the word is the subject of action who experiences via through the human nature. This being the case, we can predicate, that's to say, we can say of the Son of God, the word, things that humans do and experience, such as laugh, cry, suffer and die. The word of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, laughed, he cried, he suffered, he died. Notice, he is the subject of those activities, but yet he experiences them and he is the subject of those activities in and through the human nature that he has assumed to himself. The incorrect reasoning in the question is similar to some Christians who say that Mary is not the mother of God, but only of the human nature of Jesus. But think about it, friends, mothers don't give birth to natures, they give birth to persons. And the person to whom Mary gave birth is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the word. He is the subject who is being birthed in the detivity of our Lord. So to the word of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity is the subject who experiences suffering and death when Jesus suffers and dies. So when Jesus suffers and dies, that's the word suffering and dying, precisely because Jesus is the divine word. He is the subject of action, experiencing and undergoing that action in and through the human nature. And this is based on the Christian belief that in Jesus there is a single divine person or subject of action. There's that phrase again, who acts and undergo certain things via two natures, human and divine. So when Jesus is raising Lazarus from the dead, that the subject of action, the divine person, but working in and through the divine nature in order to have the power to raise the dead, but even the subject of action, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, also acting in and through his human nature, using his human intellect and his human will and even experiencing the human emotion. Remember Jesus cried when Lazarus was in the tomb. So we can say the subject of action is the divine word. The suffering and death that Jesus experienced, right? The suffering and death that Jesus experienced was something that the second person of the Blessed Trinity experienced. It is he who experienced it in and through the human nature. Now, question number two, is it a correct understanding of the teaching of the catechism of the Council of Trent to say that the expression God died is not to be understood literally but figuratively, i.e. an anthropomorphism of some sort. And this relates to the first question. It's not to be understood figuratively or anthropomorphically. We can truthfully predicate of or say about God, understood here as the second person of the Blessed Trinity as experiencing the human experience of death. Again, it was the divine word that experienced this human thing we call death. An experience that is human nature afforded him to experience. Without a human nature, the second person of the Blessed Trinity would not have been the subject of that experience. But via the human nature that he assumes to himself, the second person of the Blessed Trinity can now be and is a subject of that experience. And this is why many have called the death of Jesus deicide, the killing of God. Now, it's important to emphasize again that such an experience was undergone only in and through the human nature that the word or the second person of the Blessed Trinity assumed to himself. And this experience in no way affects the divine word in his divine being. The divine being that he is identical to, that is he the word is identical to with the Father and the Holy Spirit remains unaffected or unchanged because there is an infinite gulf, an ontological metaphysical divide between the divine being and created being. And nothing on the creaturely side, which is the experience of death can spill over into the divine being that the word is identical to with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is why we can say the divine word, the second person of the Blessed Trinity does not change or is not affected by in his divine being what Jesus is experiencing in and through his human nature. And so we can correctly predicate of and say about God, God died. What we mean by that is that the second person of the Blessed Trinity who is divine is a subject of the experience of human death, which is afforded to him in and through having a human nature that he assumed to himself. Well, my friends, that's all the time we have for this week's episode of The Catholic Reason. Our claim is that there is truth. And the way we went about defending this claim is arguing that it's denial is false. To say there is no truth entails an intrinsic contradiction, which in turn means that it's contradictory, namely there is truth is true. And so friends, I just wanna thank you for listening to The Catholic Reason, a production of St. Michael Catholic Radial based here in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Remember you can download the show through whichever podcast platform that you use by subscribing to the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic Podcast. That's the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic Podcast. You can also access the archived episodes of The Catholic Reason along with all of my other work that I do for Catholic answers at my website coralbrewsour.com. The Catholic Reason episodes are located under the audio tab. Also, again, feel free to submit a question for me to answer on the air in a future episode. You can do so by emailing me at Carlo@stmicroradio.com. I'll do my best to try to work it into a future episode. And so friends, I just wanna invite you to join me again next week for The Catholic Reason as we continue looking at Catholic claims concerning issues of faith, morality, and culture and the reasons behind those claims. So tell a friend about the show and I'll talk to you then. God bless. 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