DEARER STILL IS TRUTH--AN EXHORATION TO GRADUATING SENIORS
Jason Caros | June 26, 2024
The following is adapted from a Baccalaureate speech given by the headmaster, Jason Caros, on May 24, 2024, to the Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville seniors, guests and faculty on the day before senior commencement.
A pericope from the School of Athens, painted in 2017 by a Founders senior, Audrey Williams
You’ve seen the painting of Aristotle and Plato in our high school cafeteria innumerable times. I suspect, like most of us, you’ve seen it so many times that you may have taken it for granted. Do you remember the quotation that appears on it? It is: “Dearer Still is Truth.” It is part of a longer quote, which is: “Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.” This saying has come down to us from antiquity, likely a paraphrase of something Aristotle wrote of his teacher, Plato. It says something important about the order of Aristotle’s loves. As you know, Plato was one of the world’s greatest philosophers and teachers. Aristotle greatly admired him and showed him gratitude, and yet, there’s something higher for Aristotle. His greater affection was for truth.
You are likely aware that many people live by lies. A good many of these lies in the public square involve sophistry, the anti-art of rhetoric, which can be described as the intentional use of fallacious reasoning, verbal flourishing, and moral unscrupulousness to persuade others of something. It is a disease that initially infected some Ancient Athenians and now it is in vogue and widespread in OUR culture. It is seen in many ways, including in the nutty arguments some people make to distort the most obvious of realities, trying to get us to believe that up is down, down is up; cold is hot and hot is cold; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter—I’ll spare you the specific examples. Sadly, as a people, we seem to be losing our minds and losing hope. But seniors, I am hopeful about you.
An important goal at Founders has been to prepare you to be both wise and eloquent—to shun sophistry and truly embrace reality. In this preparation, knowledge is essential, of course, but it is accomplished first, by cultivating a love of the true, good, and beautiful in you. In short, our instructors have promoted virtue. They also aimed for your mastery of our language, for much of the attraction of sophistry is in its use of language, and by teaching you to think logically, not merely teaching you to think critically in some nebulous sense of the phrase. Finally, our instructors have emphasized the art of rhetoric. That is, the art of persuading an audience of the truthfulness of one’s convictions by using the appropriate and available means to do so; you put this on display during Senior Thesis Night in January, in your Economics presentations, and in other ways over the years.
To underscore the importance of rhetoric, I’ll use a civic example and note that in The United States we do not consider ourselves to be subjects. We do not owe allegiance to pharaohs or monarchs, as did people in the past, or to petty tyrants or dictators like the ones that still exist today in some countries. We are not supposed to be subject to the whims of power-hungry rulers. No, we are NOT meant to be subjects but citizens. Our political leaders are supposed to be subject to us. This means we not only have certain God-given natural rights, but we also have essential obligations, one of which is to be well-educated and people of good character who will serve the common good, and part of this service is to speak our minds rationally, systematically, truthfully, and passionately to our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and others on important matters of consequence in our culture—political, religious and so on. Why? First, it helps to inform others and spur them to action. Second, we learn things as we promote our views, and third, if we don’t speak our minds, others will speak theirs, and we may not like the consequences of our silence. While there are definitely times when silence is golden, there are also times when silence produces fools’ gold. It is vitally important that each and every one of us speak the truth and live in reality, or we will be led by lies and live in delusion, and therefore, without hope. But, seniors, I am hopeful about you.
There was an award-winning film in 1992 that many of your parents likely saw when they were younger. Perhaps some of you have seen it as well. It’s called A Few Good Men. It was about an investigation and a trial for a crime that had been covered up by authorities on a military base. The film is memorable because it includes one of the more iconic scenes in all of cinematic history. Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholas, is accused of conspiracy. He is being interrogated by the prosecuting attorney during the military tribunal and at one point angrily says to the lawyer—“You want answers?!” Lt. Kaffee, the attorney played by Tom Cruise responds: “I WANT THE TRUTH!” Colonel Jessup famously responds: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” This was powerful theater.
Moving from the big screen to a bigger picture and the question of truth, in the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel, The Lord Jesus Christ revealed something incredible to His apostles. He said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” A few chapters later, Jesus Himself is being interrogated. He tells the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate: “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” And Pilate responded by asking Him one of the most paradoxical questions in history. Pilate asks, Τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια in the Greek, “What is truth?”, not knowing that The Truth, the source of all reality was standing before him. Pilate only understood truth as a proposition, but Christ had revealed to his disciples and to Pontius Pilate that truth is a Person.
Would that qualify as a truth bomb?
I submit the following to you about truth: you have learned good, true and beautiful things at Founders, but the whole of your education—at home, in school, and elsewhere means little unless you 1) recognize that there is truth, 2) that you seek the truth with all of your mind, heart and strength, and 3) that you order the whole of your life according to the truth, by that I mean the reality of your existence as a human being created in the image and likeness of God. If you live this way, you’ll lead a good life and you’ll be truly happy, even in this confused time in which we live—in the midst of a so-called “meaning crisis.”
Without diving far beneath this surface, because my time is almost up, I’ll share something that sages from previous ages have always known. If you want to be truly happy, not just temporarily “happy” in the emotional sense, you MUST live a good life. How do you live a good life? There are lots of things that could be said about this, but in the interest of time, first and foremost, you have to live according to your nature, your human nature, that is. What do I mean?... [Pointing to the microphone] This microphone has a microphone nature. It's supposed to amplify my voice so that you can hear me clearly and strongly. It’s a good microphone when it does this well. [Holding up a water bottle] This bottle has a bottle nature. It is made to hold and preserve water and to allow someone to drink from it. It is a good bottle when it does those things well. You do not have a microphone nature or a bottle nature, nor do you have a dog nature, a cat nature, a beetle nature, or a tree nature, but a glorious human nature, latent with great potential. And you are good when you live according to your human nature. Each of us is made for good and great things, to live virtuously, to use our gifts well and to live in harmony with others. Too many people don’t realize they have a “human” nature and live as something lesser.
Living according to your nature means that you live in reality (or in TRUTH), that you know yourself, pursue the good life, and that’s when you truly live a happy life. If you don’t believe me, believe one of the greatest philosophers of all time, the one I noted earlier, Aristotle. Read his Nicomachean Ethics, or better yet, if you don’t believe me or Aristotle, believe the greatest teacher ever, Jesus—just review a handful of sentences in the gospels called the Beatitudes. I’ll give you just one—"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” You know that the New Testament was written primarily in Greek. The Greek word in this passage for “blessed” is Makarios and it translates as “happy.” Knowing that, you can substitute the word happy for blessed. Now that beatitude says: “Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” So, strive every day to live well and by God’s grace you will become the person you were created you to become, a good and happy one.
With all of this in mind, I’ll conclude by alluding to Lt. Kafee’s question from a Few Good Men—a serious question for you is: “Can you handle the truth?” Another is, “Are you prepared to live it?” And a final one is, “Are you prepared to defend it?”
In the midst of so many lies, so many distortions of reality, and the loss of hope in our culture, people are hungry for the truth. Seniors, I am hopeful about you. God be with you all.
Jason Caros is a husband, a father, and an educator. He served as headmaster at Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville, Texas, from 2012-2024.