A Catholic, liberal-arts college’s course of study, being an integrated one ordered to and by natural and supernatural wisdom, is an excellent apprenticeship into the contemplative life, which does not replace the active life, but only crowns it and makes it worthwhile… Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for [...]
Agnosticism is the ultimate stupidity and wickedness because it doesn’t so much reject God as ignore him. If I were God, I’d be more angry at such cold indifference than anything else. “Either God is, or he is not. But to which view shall we be inclined? Reason cannot decide this question. [Remember that Pascal’s [...]
Our civilization needs zealous and dedicated young men and women to convert the barbarians. However, because the barbaric culture is pervasive, we are all barbarians now to a certain extent, and thus, we must first civilize our own souls… Nowadays the devil has made such a mess of everything in the system of life on [...]
Just as the good philosopher needs to be a master of the Christian philosophical tradition and adept at the dialectical, analytical, synthetic, and imaginative skills with which his trade is plied, the good Christian college also requires a rigorous and sophisticated curriculum and pedagogy firmly rooted in the Christian philosophical tradition... As Alasdair MacIntyre has [...]
If you have an open mind and inquiring heart, you will recognize something incomparably wonderful in Plato’s writings, if only their profound resonance with Christian teachings. The Cave is a masterful metaphor for the soul trapped in sin. “All education is conversion” —Pierre Hadot I. Why Read Plato? We know as Catholics, from the Divine [...]
A.G. Sertillanges sees the intellectual life as essentially a vocation, and in the most spiritual sense of the word. It is, as he says, “a sacred call.” “More than ever before thought is waiting for men, and men for thought. The world is in danger for lack of life-giving maxims. We are in a train rushing [...]
Our situation is a gift, for God will give each of us who ask for it the grace to endure the darkness, barbarism, and loss of our customary sensible and cultural signs of God’s love and presence… Only someone who has broken out of the restricted horizon of ideology can see clearly what has [...]
There is tremendous need for conscious and vigorous action to shape and reshape our behavior in accordance with virtue, the common good, and God’s Law. What could studying grammar have to do with saving our culture..? In his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell sounds an almost despairing note: Most people who [...]
Philosophy is many things to many people, but to me it is the art of questioning. If we can learn to ask the right questions in the right spirit, then the answers for which our hearts yearn will be given to us… “What are you majoring in?” “Philosophy.” “Oh…” Translation: “You’re one of those weird [...]
The Relative Absoluteness of Truth The first false dichotomy I would like to expose is the one between relativism and absolutism. From this viewpoint, truth is either “absolutely absolute” or “absolutely relative,” with no tertium quid. However, truth is neither of these. If we understand truth as a relationship between what are relative, human beings [...]
Liquidation does not mean punishment, subjugation, conquest, or even execution. Liquidation means extermination merely on the basis of otherness…. ‘Whoever is different will be liquidated,’ works like a poison, a constant temptation to human thought, destroying or at least menacing it. —Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues One of the most distinctive and, I would [...]
It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation. —St. Thomas Aquinas The trouble with mere pragmatism is that it doesn’t work. —G.K. Chesterton What is education? I emphasize “is” because I am not here asking what education is thought to be, or what [...]
René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, by Scott Cowdell (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2013) The work of René Girard would not seem all that relevant to Thomists. A French literary critic turned anthropologist and amateur scripture exegete, one who identifies ritual murder as the basis of all religion, culture, myth, [...]
Editor’s Note: This essay was originally given as a talk to participants in Wyoming Catholic College’s PEAK camp. I hope you all enjoyed your summer camp at Wyoming Catholic College, what we call PEAK (Powerful Experience of Adventure and Knowledge): stimulating classes on dialectic, astronomy, theology, humanities, and philosophy; wonderful outdoor adventures repelling and horseback riding; [...]