Pilate's Pondering: What is Truth?

Most people know who Pontius Pilate is, and that, in the Gospels, it is accounted his line of questioning our Lord about what is truth. Because it's common knowledge, and people can Google 'Pilate' and 'What is Truth?' to find the exact passage, I'm not going to cite it. Plus, this posting isn't about the passage as much as how Pilate represents a particular aspect and attitude within our world, both among believers in God, and those that don't believe.   

 
One might even call Pilate's question and world view to be something common of the human condition, at least, if not especially for fallen humanity, and even found in those of us who are deemed saved in the Lord, particularly through Baptism. For even though Baptism may wash away Original Sin, we still have concupiscence, and thus still able to be tempted toward sin. 

What this post is about has to do with a response I gave on a Facebook posting in a Catholic group I'm in, where a person stated, and I paraphrase:

"I am trying to defend the faith, be a good apologist, but I'm not always able to give a good response where I know one should be given. Why can't I always take what I've learned about the Church and apply the right answers when needed?  Why do other Christians and atheists seem so bent on tearing us down so often?"

In thus manner I responded:

I used to go into a couple Christian forums back as early as 2002, which also had a space for atheists. By and large, the internet is full of trolls that just like to argue, regardless. Their opinions are always better than the opinions of anyone else. Or, they flat out say their opinions are the gospel or scientific truth, and nothing you can say will convince them otherwise. They've closed their hearts and minds to listening to reason, and yet, they claim the be the most reasonable person they know. Some are deluded by various forms of skepticism, or, if Christian, are wary about anything a Catholic says, believing that the Catholic Church does not have the truth, and, therefore, anything a Catholic says is a lie. If a Catholic does get something right, to certain Christians, it has less to do with a person being Catholic, but instead being a 'True Christian (TM)' that needs to get out of the Catholic Church and into a real Christian Church, which conveniently tends to be whatever Christian (inter-/non-)denomination that the non-Catholic Christian happens to go to. Atheists that might consider a Catholic 'smart' in like manner considers that the Catholic is an ok fellow, save for their delusional attachment to a make-believe sky god, and, in their own dogmatic, atheistic faith, hope that such a person may be cured of their insanity. At the most polite attitude, non-Catholic Christians and atheists that might befriend you and agree with you in part, have their own particular hopes for your conversion more fully to their side, just as you might hope they could one day cross the Tiber and become Catholic.

For us Catholics, we certainly look forward to the day of universal conversion. However, most of us are realists and don't expect that universal conversion to come any time soon - or at least not as soon as we may like. For it may not happen in our lifetime, even if we may see a few glowing embers of examples of that day coming. For we believe that we are indeed in the End Times, yet, this has been our belief for the past 2000 years or so. We have continued to anticipate Christ's second coming for all these years, and the Church has survived countless internal and external conflicts since the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down, as our Lord promised on the day of his Ascension. Therefore, we are not just Apostolic, but even the first and original Pentecostal Church. When people are willing to undo their spiritual and intellectual blinders, it becomes impossible not to see the truth about the Catholic Church. Until then, most the rest of the world is found in some level of denial, and even a certain adversarial relationship with the Church. If they are inclined to wrestle with the truth that the Church has, that's at least a possible start toward eventually accepting that truth, assuming the person wrestling with the truth is actually seeking the truth, and not merely pushing their pet agendas with no regard for the truth. Therefore, a person needs to be on that path of earnestly and honestly seeking the truth before they may eventually find the truth.