‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ Without truth there is no Christianity, and without knowledge of Christian truth one cannot be a Christian. And the end of this knowledge is not power, what science wishes; nor is it consolation or comfort or security or ego-bolstering, whatever the cults of the subjective desire. Its end is freedom, Christian, Divine-human freedom, the freedom of men, the sons of God.
The knowledge that brings freedom is beyond any subject-object categorization; it is knowledge in which the whole man participates, which informs the human being in his entirety. It is gained not by research or special experiences, but by living a Christian life, with the aid of the sacraments, prayer, fasting–and our encounters with other human beings. It is not a knowledge of which one can say, ‘I know (or have experienced) this or that,’ but one which is revealed in all that one does, alone or in company, and is present in all that one thinks. The Christian desires to be one with the Truth, Who is Christ Jesus; and so the Christian is what he knows. He who rejects Christ does not know Him; he who accepts Him but does not live the fully Christian life, does not know Him fully. Only the deified man knows fully–as fully as man may know; the rest of us are merely striving to be Christians, that is, knowers.
–Eugene Rose, Philosophical Journal of Eugene Rose (1960-1962), 1 Jan 1961.
