Humility and Conviction
In his Introduction to Caritas in Veritate, Love in Truth, Benedict XVI provides the essence of his letter in a nutshell:
To defend the truth,
to articulate it with humility and conviction, and
to bear witness to it in life
are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.
How often in this polarized age have you sat with a group of people from the Other Side, listening to their easy generalizations and ideological hooks, and finally had to speak up? “I’m sorry, but Netanyahu will save Israel from destruction!” you blurt out, after your friends have voiced the opposite sentiment from every possible angle. You think about how former President Trump moved the capital to Jerusalem, and how he brought about some important alliances for Israel. And Netanyahu was on the same, pro-Israel, path.
Or maybe you were in a What’s App conversation with people who were trashing Lula in Brazil, and you have to jump in to correct this idea you hear developing—that Bolsenaro really won the election. So you jump in with a long discourse on Lula’s history in bringing justice to the workers, on how the Right Wing trumped up charges against him to remove him from power.
And there’s a big argument, because everyone has heard a lot about the issue from their own media and are quite sure they have the story straight, while God knows where the other side is coming from. You feel it’s important to speak the truth, and if people are your friends they should appreciate the fact that this is an act of love, that you are saving them from the darkness of ignorance and the throes of error.
Speak the truth in love, you think. Ephesians 4:15.
Or Love in Truth, says former Pope Benedict XIV.
I find his nutshell version of this concept, above, to be instructive for all of us.
To articulate the truth with humility and conviction.
First, articulate the truth. It’s hard to articulate, to express clearly, what you haven’t already thought through. Hearing the story on PBS NewsHour doesn’t always provide an articulated understanding of the issue at hand—especially not if you were playing Words with Friends at the same time. Nor is it necessarily helpful to search out the issue at Breitbart or at Mother Jones, where you know you’ll get support in your viewpoint. If it’s Lula vs. Bolsenaro, Reuters would give you a basic understanding of the issue; or, if you want to go more in depth, a story from Americas Quarterly, a journal focused on affairs in the Americas, has a story on Lula that differs from some of the opinion reporting issuing from popular media outlets.
If it’s an issue of faith you need to defend, make sure you have support for your position. If it’s a contemporary faith issue, the Religion News Service or Catholic News Service have fairly good coverage. I like to consult Crux Now with John Allen for a Just-the-facts reporting on the subject.
Humility
I know how I feel about various contemporary issues. While I was not a Trump supporter, I liked some of the things he did—like, moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. I mean, if you read the Bible, isn’t that where it belongs? So I guess that’s a side I might have come down on in a discussion. But what do I really know? It’s just how I feel.
So recently we had a Christian family from Bethlehem, whose ancestors go back to the time of Christ, selling their hand-made olive wood articles at our church. I asked one of them how things are in Israel right now. “Not good,” he told me. They said the prejudice against Christians is worse than ever, and from both the Muslim and Jewish sides. He went on about the ongoing conflict over holy sights in Jerusalem.
“And how do you feel about the capital being moved to Jerusalem?” I asked.
“Terrible!” he replied. He said it does not help having the capital be in the center of all the disputes.
That made a lot of sense. I never would have known that had I not heard it from one who lives there.
Humility in articulating the truth mean that you recognize what you don’t know. Own up to having an opinion that might not be founded on the real situation. Our understanding of the truth is limited. We see through a glass darkly (I Cor. 13), which is the premise of this blog. We tend to be in our valley-bottom place looking up at one side of the truth, but not seeing its entirety. That is okay. Humility means we ask questions. We listen to others who may know more, or even just to get their take on an issue, even if they may not be completely right.
With Conviction
This is what conviction is not: being loud, insulting, mean-spirited, mocking, ridiculing, boasting, bullying. These are usually signs of a lack of conviction, which we cover up in ourselves by making fun of our opposition.
Conviction is the assurance that we have, in all humility, looked at an issue and have some certainty about it. It doesn’t mean that we know everything about it, or that we have no more to learn. But at this point we can say what we understand in love. This takes courage. Others may bridle and push back. It’s okay. Either they do not yet fully understand, or you don’t. You can assure them that this is what you understand without trying to make them agree.
Bear Witness
And this is the bearing witness part, that you summon up the courage of your convictions to put out there what you have already researched and learned to articulate and humbly accepted as undoubtedly inadequate in the grand scheme of things. You say what you are sure of, not what you are still just in the surmising stage on.
This is how we defend the truth.
Probably all of us would spend more time listening and less, speaking, if we operated according to this view of Love in Truth. Yes, love speaks the truth, but does so with humility, having made sure that it is truth we speak and that we articulate it so that it is understood.
For more on Caritas in Veritate, click here.
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