Category: quote
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“…enlightenment rationality cannot make us happy…”
I think a lot of people know in their gut but have not yet thought it that enlightenment rationality is not adequate for a viable human society. It does many good things, like give us the capacity to fly an airplane or advance health care, but underneath that, enlightenment rationality cannot make us safe and…
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“…cruel optimism…”
Take the well-known slogan on the atheist bus in London. I know, I know, that’s an utterance by the hardcore hobbyists of unbelief, but in this particular case they’re pretty much stating the ordinary wisdom of everyday disbelief. The atheist bus says: “There’s probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life.” All right:…
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“…humanity as a privilege.”
People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that…
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“…sinners rather than saints…”
How does the Catholic vision differ from other traditions of Christianity? To answer that question would require a shelf of books. There are so many Christian traditions. But let me mention one aspect of Catholicism that affects the writer. All Christian denominations believe in original sin and humanity’s fallen nature, but Catholicism emphasizes the slow…
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“…a recovery of personal, relational, revelational language…”
The language we are really fluent in, the language we are most used to, deals with impersonal data and functionalized roles. The practice of prayer, if it is going to amount to anything more than wish lists and complaints, requires a recovery of personal, relational, revelational language in both our listening and our speaking. -Eugene…
David W. Swanson 