David Burrell on truth and friendship

a full-blooded understanding, one which engages the entire person in a discriminating and discerning assent to what one has come to regard as true, can never be a solitary endeavor. We are too much in our own way, and are especially led astray by the multiple desires of our wayward hearts. This observation should remind us that, far from being the first autobiography, Augustine’s Confessions represents anti-autobiography, seeking not for an elusive self but for its transcendent source, which is nonetheless closer to us than our very selves. And it is more dependable, as being the very truth of ourselves, the “light of the light of our souls.” If that sounds like will-o-the-wisp language, the invitation of the Confessions is to entrust our own search for our self to Augustine’s tutelage. If we can place that search in his hands, he will attempt to teach us how to displace it altogether, showing how one of our potential friends – himself – let it be transformed into a search for the source of all, including that precious self. Then we will be empowered to spend it in the service of others, as a part of our project of returning it to the One who gives it so freely and abundantly.

What may have appeared to be an excursus on friendship turns out to show us that a commitment to truth may be barely intelligible in other than personal terms. And attempting to understand the shaping convictions of others persons becomes the best access we can have to a view of truth as personal. It will take a tradition shaped by revelation to give proper voice to truth as personal, where God speaks in a language accessible to us. Significantly enough, those traditions which are shaped invariably speak of a path and a journey of faith. God’s word presents a challenge to understanding rather than a certitude made easily available.

from Friendship and Ways to Truth, (UofNotreDame Press, 2000), 60-61.