CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - "What is truth?" famously stated Pontius Pilate to Jesus who had proclaimed himself to be "the Truth."  (Cf. John 18:38; John 14:6).  As an unbelieving pagan blind to the Incarnate Truth before him, the Roman procurator was oblivious of the irony in his words.

Pilate, it should be noted, was not asking Jesus the question as a philosopher or a religious seeker.  He was asking the question as a human judge, as the holder of authority, of temporal power.  "Don't you realize I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?"  (John 19:10). 

Truth, however, does not rely on human or temporal power.  Truth and temporal power are altogether different categories.  Whether freed or crucified, Truth remains what it is: Truth.

It is a mistake of tyrants to believe that power makes truth, that might makes right.  It is a mistake of the advocates of democracy to believe that the majority makes truth, that the majority makes right.

In fact, it is more than a mistake; it is a lie.  The cross is a reminder of that.
 
He who, from a temporal perspective, appeared to be the least powerful man in the world, a man adjudged guilty of a capital offense, bound with nails to the wood of the cross as a result of Pilate's power and the blind finagling of the religious powers of the day, was, in fact, God the Truth, God the Good. 

On the Cross, Jesus was a minority of one.  Unus Christus contra mundum.  And though a minority of one, He is the sole Truth, and there is no other, no matter how many votes, like the lots of the Roman soldiers, are cast against him.

There is a common saying among trial lawyers which sort of reflects Pilate's concept of truth.  The old saw goes that there is the plaintiff's "truth," there is the defendant's "truth," there is the jury's "truth," and then there is the truth, which apparently is impossible to know and irrelevant to practical decision-making.  Under this view, the legal or political system is unconcerned with the truth, not unlike Pontius Pilate was unconcerned with truth.

The cynicism of lawyers and procurators and politicians and voters aside, however, is there such a thing as the truth, something above and beyond the fickle and tendentious "truth" which is nothing other than opinion or nothing other than what is to one's advantage?

If there is such a thing as the truth, what is it in us capable of finding find it?  Finally, if there is such a thing as the truth, and we have the faculty to find the truth, then does that mean that there may be a Truth behind the truth we discover?  If the answers to these questions are yes, this takes us to the threshold of faith whereupon we ask the question: "Is this truth a Person?"  "Does He have a name?"

The effort to answer these three questions led St. Augustine to a proof of God's existence.  The proof is set forth in its most complete form in the dialogue he wrote entitled De Libero Arbitrio (On Free Will). 

Relying on St. Augustine's insights in this dialogue allows us to propose another "converging and convincing" proof of God: if truth, then God.

Before we turn to truth, we have to start with skepticism, if only to depart from it.  Skepticism is a self-defeating proposition.  It is nonsensical to say that there is no truth except that there is no truth.  It is absurd to say all truths are relative, except that truths are relative.  It is the same as saying all colors are black, except black.  This absurdity is the heart of skepticism.  It is therefore an intellectual cul-de-sac unworthy of any but the feeblest of minds.

The one thing Augustine did not have was a feeble mind.  He knew that even the failure to grasp the truth proves at least one certainty, namely that one exists and that the truth exists since one recognizes that one has failed to attain it.  Si fallor sum.  Even if I am mistaken, I am.  That is a truth that all should recognize.

In his famous dialogue De Libero Arbitrio, using the vehicle of a conversation between him and a certain Evodius, St. Augustine addresses the issue of whether there is such a thing as truth, whether man is capable of attaining truth, and whether the existence of truths means necessarily points to the existence of God. 

St. Augustine begins his exploration by observing that there are three levels of existence, of being, each more comprehensive than the level before it. 

There is being (esse) in the most general sense, a reality man shares with ...