The religious, the secular and the Truth

The University of Notre Dame generated plenty of headlines recently – most of them critical – when it named political science professor Susan Ostermann to lead the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs. While no one challenged Ostermann’s scholarly bona fides, Catholics around the country were profoundly distressed by the announcement, given Ostermann’s zealous advocacy for abortion, her role in the eugenicist Population Council, and her characterization of pro-life activists as misogynists, racists and white supremacists.

A number of American bishops spoke out against the appointment, including Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, who leads the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which includes Notre Dame. And while the university consistently expressed its support for Ostermann, she eventually withdrew from the position, which was to have started this coming summer.

Last week, the head of Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, Jennifer Newsome Martin, published a thoughtful essay on the matter in Public Discourse. In that essay, titled “How Catholic Should a Catholic Institution Be?” Newsome references the writings of the late Alasdair MacIntyre (a de Nicola Center Senior Distinguished Research Fellow until his death last year) who argued that today’s research universities “do not share any clear agreement on what constitutes rational inquiry,” and will therefore “simply tolerate ‘limitless disagreement.'” Martin agrees with MacIntyre that at Catholic institutions like Notre Dame, “there are foundational points that ‘by their very nature cannot accept the indifference presupposed by such tolerance; standpoints which invite rejection rather than toleration.'”

Martin states that among those foundational points is the magisterium of the Catholic Church that “recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception until natural death.” Policies that articulate the university’s commitment to the teachings of the Church must be reflected by its decisions. “These commitments,” Martin concludes, “cannot be affirmed in the abstract while being undermined in the concrete.”

Martin’s admonitions for a Catholic university are clear. But what of those institutions of higher education that are not religiously affiliated? Where can they find common ground?

The most important point of common ground between both should be the recognition, pursuit and dissemination of truth.

In that vein, a recent trend is worth noting.

Across the United States (and elsewhere), individuals who were disciplined or let go from their employment because they refused to refer to biological males as females (and vice versa) or to use factually incorrect pronouns (male versus female, plural versus singular) have sued. Some of these suits have resulted in large settlements or awards, the courts agreeing with plaintiffs that their rights of free speech and religion had been violated.

Despite the victories, however, these precedents rest upon a foundation that is both overly broad and unduly narrow. It is overly broad because all religious beliefs, without more, are not automatically entitled to legal or societal deference. It is unduly narrow because no one should be forced to refer to a man as a woman, or to an individual person as plural people; not because doing so violates their religious beliefs, but because it isn’t true.

Yes, some religions – Judaism and Christianity, for example – advocate for telling the truth and condemn lying. Even so, the ability to identify and defend truth should not be characterized as a purely religious tenet. To do so relegates the idea of “truth” to being something akin to the belief that consuming pork is haram; that wearing sacred undergarments reflects a private covenant with God; that the human soul is reincarnated multiple times until reaching a state of perfection; or that the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Believers and nonbelievers of the above would no doubt dispute whether such things are “true.” That’s not the point. That there is such a thing as “truth,” is.

Contemporary universities have lost their way because they have “tolerated” (to use MacIntyre’s analysis) the notion that there is no such thing as truth; an inherently contradictory statement. (Thus, it’s true that there is no such thing as truth?) Similarly, the popular premise that “truth” is purely a matter of individual perception – “your truth,” “my truth,” “their truth” – is a non-definition that erodes the very meaning of the word.

One need not be religiously affiliated to be committed to the idea of truth, its discovery and dissemination. Indeed, if the pursuit of truth is not at the heart if everything all our colleges and universities do, then why should they exist at all?

Catholic and other religiously affiliated colleges and universities risk losing their distinctive identities and missions in two separate but interconnected ways. The first is by seeking to emulate the most prestigious secular universities in pursuit of public approval, expressed typically (though not exclusively) through rankings. Martin’s analysis sets forth why such efforts are doomed to fail. If America’s best secular institutions fall prey to what Martin calls their “systemic incoherence,” then modeling their methods is following them off a cliff.

The second way is by compromising truth in service to softer considerations like “compassion”; an approach which is all too easily grounded in distorted understandings of Catholic doctrine or Christianity more generally. “Compassion” cannot change the fact that an unborn child is biologically a human being, or that chromosomal biology – which dictates sex in humans – cannot be changed chemically or surgically. Nor should “compassion” be used as a bludgeon to force people to make statements that are factually and scientifically false, notwithstanding whatever their religious beliefs are.

It is here that universities like Notre Dame have a special – and desperately needed – role to play. While secular universities are arguably just as capable as religiously affiliated ones of defending the principle of truth, schools like Notre Dame, Georgetown, Brigham Young and Brandeis must be able to clearly promote the primacy of truth within the context of Christianity and other religious traditions.

Institutions of higher education were established to improve and elevate human society. That is impossible without an inviolable commitment to truth.