Tom Dillon vs. the Relativists | Dr. Paul Kengor | April 22, 2009

Carl Olson posted a portion of this to the Ignatius Insight Scoop blog. It is a very fine tribute by Dr. Kengor, and I pray that many have a chance to read it. The employment of the Socratic method in a "great books environment" suggests that Thomas Aquinas College is something very special.

Speaking of which, I remember one particular anecdote that Dillon shared with me, which illustrates the sorry state of American higher education--and the uniqueness of Dillon and his college. Dillon had been at a recent meeting of university presidents. A matter of morality came up. One of the presidents, naturally assuming they were all secular relativists--excellent odds--casually chimed in: "There are no absolutes."

It was sophistry as old as Pilate, "What is truth?" and, more ancient still, as naked as the Garden of Eden, "Ye Shall Be as Gods." The first of sins that precipitated the fall: pride.

Dillon's students and faculty dispatch these things in their education, whereas the inhabitants of the universe of the other presidents flee these truths like a vampire bolting from a cross. As they converse with Truth, neither Dillon nor his school suffer post-modern platitudes. Their pope, Benedict XVI, decries the global scourge that is the "Dictatorship of Relativism." Nowhere is the specter as pervasive as in the American classroom.

And so, amid the nods and chuckles of the other university presidents, Dillon, no shrinking violet, refused to tolerate this affront to faith and reason. He quickly protested: "Are you absolutely certain about that?"

"Quid est veritas?" A question we heard only recently on Good Friday...