An incomplete truth is not an error

"By and large, progressive Catholics represent a mere reaction to the narrowness and legalism of a former age. This reaction is all the more false and evil because the kind of change called for in the Church today is mainly the completion of an incomplete truth or the replacement of an ambiguous formulation by an unequivocal one. We have seen that truth is above a wrong thesis and antithesis, and not a mere synthesis of them; and that is is above a wrong action and an equally (or more) wrong reaction, and not the mean between them. Therefore it is all the more naïve to believe that the truth consists in a reaction to past errors."

This is from Chapter IV of Trojan Horse in the City of God, called False Reactions.    Hildebrand is following up on his points about Hegelian dialectic in Chapter III.    He is reinforcing his point that truth is ABOVE errors or incomplete truths, not a reaction to them. 

Though the days when progressivism was simply a reaction to narrowness and legalism are over, this chapter is still timely because Hildebrand points out a temptation common to all of us in opinion formation.  In fact, it is a well recognized human temptation.   You see it in overcorrection, overcompensation, counterdependency, and so on.   You see it when you find your car swerving too far in one direction and you wrestle it too far to the other side.   It probably accounts for some of the polarization everyone is so worried about.   

It has to do with logic, in fact.   Hildebrand goes on to give several examples.    Let's take the first one:

Free will is a truth, but an incomplete one.   The opposite of free will is determinism.  But determinism is erroneous; it can't be sustained.   The concept of free will has to be qualified though, or completed, in order to be thought of correctly.

Hildebrand goes on to say:

"It is most important to see that an incomplete truth is not an error. .... Of course, the degree of incompleteness varies a good deal.  In certain cases, incompleteness is the normal concomitant of the discovery of any truth, for many other equally important aspects of the same being or topic remain to be seen.  This incompleteness can also appear as incorrectness when the incomplete truth is not adequate to the particular question it claims to answer.   But here, progress in the conquest of truth consists in completing the incomplete truth and not in replacing it with its opposite.  An opposite reaction is much worse than the former incomplete truth, for not only will it stress some thing equally incomplete, but in explicitly denying the former incomplete truth it will introduce an express error."

Here are some of the topics he discusses in this chapter, but briefly:

• The purpose of marriage -- procreation and conjugal union

Salvation of self and salvation of neighbor

Love of Christ and love of neighbor

Our love for natural and supernatural goods

Natural and worldly goods

Human loves and holiness

Holy friendship and comradeship

Authority and obedience, abuses of the same

Secularization and authority

Coercion and evangelization

True science and revealed truth

Philosophical judgments and true sphere of science

Legitimate and illegitimate scriptural exegesis

In most of these examples, we are talking about truths that need to be balanced ... what Pope Francis following Pope Benedict's tradition has called "both/and" rather than "either/or".     Please note here that "both/and" does not work with logical contradictories or with error vs truth.      I will bring in Tolkien here; he remarks that even in fantasy, the "laws of contradiction" apply.    When you have legitimate "both/and" you have a hierarchy or ordering of truths, or a unity on a higher level.

For ordinary humans who are not trained philosophers, and even for many of those, examples and stories help "incarnate" the principles.    Newman talks about how ideas ramify outward and show better what they are through history.   This itself seems like a both/and because stories and examples alone are not sufficient, and logical syllogisms are only as good as their premises, so most sensible thinkers crosscheck.