“It was not only at the cost of rigorous discipline that the thought schooled in the Middle Ages learned to train its sights on the sole and immaculate truth: it was thanks as well to a distinctively Christian love of the sanctity of truth….
“It is because , at a certain moment in history, men knew that God was Subsisting Truth; and because they loved above all One who said: “The truth will set you free,” and “I am come into the world to give testimony to the truth,” and “I am the truth;” it is for all this that despite every obstacle, a religious respect for truth has—or had—developed in the heart of our culture, and that all truth even the most obscure, the most importunate, or the most dangerous, has become sacred, simply because it is truth.
“When we declare that the Christian state of philosophy is a superior and privileged one, it is first and above all because in this state alone philosophy can fully recognize that truth is holy insofar as it is truth, and approach holy truth with a respect that is plenary and universal—with a respect that is so human in the highest sense of this word that its supra-human origin must be acknowledged.”
~Jacques Maritain: from An Essay on Christian Philosophy
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“When the original version of An Essay on Christian Philosophy appeared in France, it was accepted in many quarters as the definitive statement of the Thomistic position on the subject. Some questions were raised, however, regarding certain theses upheld by Mr. Maritain in that study, and this led to further elucidations by him in another work, which was translated into English under the title Science and Wisdom.” ~from the Translator’s Foreword (1955).
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