Americans, perhaps most human beings of the Modern Age, don’t perceive what’s inconvenient to their desired worldview. This is hardly a new observation — Tocqueville was puzzled by this trait back in the 1830s and others since, including Hawthorne and Melville and Solzhenitsyn and Ray Bradbury have at least spoken of this problem. Perhaps Tocqueville … [Read more…]
John Michael Greer blogs as the Archdruid, The Archdruid Report. I find it interesting that his worldview is radically different from my Thomistic existentialist worldview, but my views align with his on a number of issues rather than aligning with those of the Catholic mainstream. I would argue this happens for a simple reason: like … [Read more…]
[Discipleship as Political Responsibility, John Howard Yoder, Translated by Timothy J. Geddert, Forward by Stanley Hauerwas, Herald Press, 2003] In speaking of the temptations which the crowds presented to Christ, to make Him King after He multiplied the bread on the mountainside and again after His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, Yoder says: [T]he political temptation … [Read more…]
I’ve spoken about the nature of evil as related to the individual creature in my previous two entries: Good and Evil: Simpler Than We Pretend and Good and Evil: The Instability of Evil. But evil takes shape on a large scale far too often, especially in this modern age of genocidal wars, this age where … [Read more…]
More than 1500 years ago, St. Augustine of Hippo told us that evil was not a positive force but rather a privation in being. He reasoned that all being comes from God and has to be good. He had, so to speak, a devil of a time justifying the existence of Satan, a being who … [Read more…]
[Part 3: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] As a passing matter, I noted a hint of modal logic in a passage beginning around the middle of page 324 with: “Thus, before every moment in time, God foreordains… Here is it that we encounter the … [Read more…]
Even an armchair historian can tell you that a good general prepares for his retreat as soon as he sees the need for it. He tries to arrange an orderly retreat to minimize casualties and loss of equipment and other materiel. He knows not to try to hold ground which is indefensible, being well aware … [Read more…]
As-if is a strange and wonderful language that we all speak inside our normal language — whether English or French or Japanese. Even an Enlightenment rationalist like Adam Smith spoke of the Invisible Hand when he found himself not able to speak directly about what might now be called a self-organizing system. This is not … [Read more…]
I want to enlarge upon what I’ve said in a prior posting, What is a Conservative?: Most modern politicians or thinkers who call themselves ‘conservative’ are better described as ‘right-wing liberals’. By definition, conservatives conserve, but those — Rush Limbaugh is a good example — who call themselves conservatives are mostly concerned with the marketplaces. … [Read more…]
Is any existing human language a general purpose tool that can deal with all raw materials and produce all possible objects of utility and beauty? Can any existing human language deal with reality as we discover more about the world around us and even more about what lies inside of us? Is there any possible … [Read more…]