Jose T Thomas & Prof.Leena Jose T.
In the early years of the 21st century, Pope Benedict XVI issued a sharp warning against the “dictatorship of relativism,” identifying it as a cultural force that erodes the foundations of truth, morality, and meaning. His stance was intellectually rigorous, grounded in classical metaphysics, and oriented toward safeguarding the timelessness of Christian revelation. Yet, despite its clarity and depth, this critique struggled to take deep root in a world increasingly shaped by fluidity, pluralism, and relational interdependence.
By contrast, Pope Francis has articulated a vision of truth that is no less serious but profoundly different in orientation. His theological grammar is not built primarily on metaphysical fixity, but on relational coherence—truth emerges in lived encounter, in mercy, in the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. This shift aligns more intuitively with contemporary sensibilities informed by systems thinking, ecological ethics, and even quantum entanglement.
Benedict’s Absolutism and Its Limits
Pope Benedict was deeply concerned with the rise of relativism—particularly its moral and cultural forms. For him, relativism represented the loss of any grounding in objective truth and the rise of individualist subjectivism. His antidote was a return to foundational truths revealed by God, preserved and proclaimed by the magisterium of the Church. In this framework, truth was eternal and unchanging, much like the metaphysical structures of classical theology.
However, this articulation often lacked resonance with the postmodern world, where truth is increasingly understood not as static but as dynamic, emergent, and relational. The problem wasn’t the rejection of truth, but the lack of a compelling relational ontology that could reframe truth as fidelity within networks of connection.
Francis’ Relational Turn
Francis does not deny truth, nor does he embrace relativism. Instead, he relocates truth in the terrain of relationship. In Laudato Si’, he proclaims, “Everything is connected.” In Fratelli Tutti, he speaks of social friendship and dialogical truth. For Francis, to know God is not merely to assent to dogma but to embody mercy, to listen deeply, to encounter the other. This move is not anti-doctrinal, but trans-doctrinal—it transforms dogma into a living relational process.
This theological posture speaks a new language, one that resonates with the quantum worldview: reality is not substance but relation, not isolation but entanglement. Just as particles are defined by their interactions, so too is truth in Francis’ vision shaped by love, encounter, and mutuality.
The Deeper Shift: Relativism vs. Relationality
The tension between Benedict and Francis can be read as a deeper philosophical transition—from relativism vs. absolutism to relationality as a third path. Relativism dissolves all grounding; absolutism freezes it. Relationality, by contrast, sees truth as emergent from fidelity in relationship—not arbitrary, but co-constituted.
Relationality is not a compromise between relativism and absolutism; it is a new paradigm altogether. It finds resonance across theology, quantum science, and interreligious thought. It echoes in the Christian kenosis of divine love, the Hindu concept of rta as cosmic relational order, and the Buddhist principle of interdependent origination.
Toward a Quantum Theology of Truth
In this emerging theological horizon, truth is not best defended by reasserting fixed propositions, but by reimagining truth as compassionate coherence within the field of being.
The God of “I Am” is also the God of “I Am with You.” Love is no longer simply an attribute of God; it is the very logic of divine relationality—echoing the Johannine insight: “God is Love.”
The future of theology, then, may not lie in resisting relativism through stricter dogma, but in evolving a relational intelligence that makes truth both credible and livable in a world that now sees itself as profoundly interconnected.
In this light, Pope Francis is not relativizing truth but recontextualizing it—restoring its vitality by rooting it in mercy, community, and relational being. A theology of relationality may well be a/the bridge between faith and a world awakening to quantum consciousness.
Thank you for clearly differentiating between the viewpoint of the two of the most influential people in the world.
Excellent article!