The practice of excellence presumes that there are truths that are not arbitrary. It assumes that there is some truth or standard outside the individual person (like the Ten Commandments) that exists, that can be discovered. When we do discover it we use it to judge or ascertain what is the truth according to that standard. If one denies that there are truths that exist outside the individual person then each person defines his/her own "truth" by what he/she chooses to believe.
I discovered the word Existentialism in an early 1950's edition of the Education Encyclopedia, where the entry "Existentialism" appeared for the first time. There is an article by Jean Paul Sartre, an atheistic existentialist philosopher who believed that each person is a "god unto himself. " I am born, come into existence, and when I am mature enough I determine my "essence", who I am as a human, by freely choosing what I believe to be the truth. I am the arbiter for what is "truth" for me, and what the truth is for me is the only truth there is! There is no such thing as "objective" truth apart from what I choose. My freedom to choose is the ultimate truth for me. I cannot, in Sartre's view, impose my values on others unless they freely choose to believe and accept the values I have chosen as their own. Sartre is the existential modern father of relativism.
No one approves of everything so your "better" is as good as my "better" so "we are left with a world full of preferences" but no truth.
As I related in paragraph one of this article the practice of excellence presumes that there are truths that are not arbitrary. It answers that there is some truth or standard outside and beyond the individual person's preferences. Otherwise we cannot have a rational conversation about the truth of two or more things that contradict each other because everything one chooses to believe is true no matter how contradicting. Apostolic Christianity posed that we can know the truth and that knowledge and acting on it would set us free. Jesus' teaching as recorded in the New Testament is that objective truth. It is the word of The Word, Jesus himself, who is The Truth. We can know this truth by faith that informs our consciences, makes our mind, our "within", recognize The Light (God). Our faith filled mind then is in sync with the mind, (Will of God), and we know the truth.
An uninformed or erroneous conscience can be a deadly weapon to the pursuit of excellence and to the people who have such a conscience. A modern Radical Islamic Jihadist who justifies his acts because his religion justifies and promotes his actions, like murdering innocent others (infidels and Muslim alike) and calling it "martyrdom" is a modern prime example of a movement that systematically develops an erroneous conscience in its followers.
The foundation of liberalism and ecumenism are destroyed by such a belief. The heart of Christianity is the uniqueness and value of every human life. The Christian's uniqueness is an adventure that he is on every day of his earth life.
Truth must be freely chosen and the pattern of choices we make determine whether we are on the pursuit of excellence or the road to destruction, Heaven or Hell. Belief in Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, are not irrational or indifferent. As Pope Benedict relates in "Spes Salvi" (Hope of Salvation), they are precisely the doctrines that insist that our individual lives are intended forever.
So, it is well worth the cultivating of habitual patterns of excellence in our earth lives which lead us to fulfillment and eternal life.
Bibliography: Schall, Fr. James V., "The Practice of Excellence", Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Volume CX, No. 9, June/July 2010, pp. 24-31.
Dr. Bernard J.Fleury's lifelong interest in History from the perspective of the people who lived it is evident in A Bee in His Bonnet, Print, E-Book, Audio Book, on website: http://www.greatgeneration.net. His firm belief in the synthesis of faith and reason (theology and science) as two aspects of a single reality-The Light - God, is clearly evident in his book Called into Life by the Light, Print, E-Book, Audio Book, on website: http://www.intolifebylight.com.
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