The Perils of Sophistry, Sacred and Profane

Persuasive and powerful words ignite us. Their commanding rhetoric moves our emotions, giving us energy to follow. As powerful as persuasive speech is, however, a question arises. Is it true? Or are we just listening to eloquent arguments drafted by rhetoricians seeking to persuade us to follow?

Sophistry – the formal term for this – uses superficial and fallacious arguments that deceive a person into buying into the cause or pursuing the change. Worse, such arguments manipulate our rational powers by taking weaker or even fallacious arguments, making them seem stronger, deceiving a person from seeing the whole truth. They redefine terms, hiding behind traditional teaching but giving them a different twist.

Such is sophistry, as Pope Benedict XVI explains:

Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. (Caritas in veritate, 3)

This is true, sadly, not only in secular political circles but in religious ones as well.

Sophistry proceeds by not defining terms or giving a clear expression of what it wants to achieve. It promotes ideals rooted in ideologies that seem attractive, plausible, and even admirable. The words rhyme and the arguments rouse, yet the arguments rely on half-truths, not the fullness of the truth.

Truth, as the Catechism states, “carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself.” (No. 2500) Jesus is beauty because He is Truth incarnate. Believers behold Him through the power of the Holy Spirit so that our “faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (I Corinthians 2:4)

Jesus comes as Truth. He declares Himself to be the “Way, the Truth, and the Life.” His truth penetrates our minds, giving us clarity, revealing the whole truth, not just parts. His truth sets us free. No longer deceived by persuasive arguments and eloquent speech, our minds penetrate to the substance of an argument to see if it is harmonious with Truth.

Made for truth, our minds grasp and then hold on to the truths revealed by Jesus. His truth touches our hearts and, once touched, nothing separates us from the love of the Truth, not even “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword.” (Romans 8:35)

Suffering tests the truth. Believers willingly die for it. The Maccabean martyrs, seven brothers, along with their mother, witnessed to the truth and were horrifically killed. They were “ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” (Maccabees 7:2) Their bold witness encourages all believers to realize the power of the truth. It sets us free from sophistry so that we live in what is, what’s real, rather than lies.

So too Jesus, the King of martyrs, witnessed boldly to the truth. He is God and man. This unexpected truth created controversy during His public ministry and still does today. Our minds balk at the idea that an all-powerful, loving God would become human to lift us from the denial of God as the source and fullness of truth.

Yet that is exactly what He did. “Being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) Believers confessing Jesus as the God-man should rather die than commit a single mortal sin. St. John Paul understood this deeply. In his declaration on the “Splendor of Truth,” he states.

Martyrdom, accepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order, bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God’s law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God’s image and likeness. (91)

Being made in God’s image means we are made for truth. Truth sets us free from disorder. God’s Truth gives us freedom, and freedom gives us the Truth, creating a reciprocal dynamic not just powerful in words, but also in heroic action.

Free, we turn to the truths revealed through Scripture and Tradition, accepting them in their totality. Freedom then has responsibility to form our consciences to know, then adhere to the truth. This discernment needs the Advocate, the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus promises: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13) The Spirit penetrates, inspiring our minds to receive his truth, and protecting us from sophistry.

Amidst the turmoil of our age, created by sophistry, Divine Truth protects us from error, but more importantly, guarantees the truth of Jesus cannot be corrupted, not even by the Father of Lies. Jesus and the Holy Spirit protect us from the gates of Hell – a double protection to ensure that those who seek the truth sincerely in light of Scripture and Tradition will not be misled by sophists.

Hence, St. Paul tells us, “Hold fast the traditions which you have been taught whether by word or by our epistle.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15) Divine Beauty draws us in to contemplate this Truth revealed to us by Christ Himself. In contemplation, his Truth, which surpasses our human understanding, gives us supernatural insights. These insights sharpen our minds to wade through the complicated assertions that surround us in order to find the pearl of great price, Jesus.

Truth also calms the heart, especially in the face of adversities. All of us struggle with anxiety. Yet St. Paul tells us, “have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

Prayer seeks – and finds – God’s truth and “keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) Putting on the mind of Christ means we live in the truth of Christ, and His truth creates holiness. Holiness, the prerequisite of peace, dispels our anxiety and gives us the wisdom to discern and adhere to the Truth in all its glory, making us beautiful in God’s eyes.

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