Paradoxical as it may seem, it remains true that man is perfect in exact proportion to the subjection he gives his superiors, to that subjection given the Supreme Being who is the First Cause and Last End of every creature. As a matter of fact, there cannot be atheism. Man may vociferously deny that he [...]
Creation is the accuser of the ungodly. For through its inherent spiritual principles, creation proclaims its Maker; and through the natural laws intrinsic to each individual species it instructs us in virtue. The spiritual principles may be recognized in the unremitting continuance of each individual species, the laws in the consistency of its natural activity. [...]
Editor’s Note: Author Siobhan Nash-Marshall recently passed away. Please enjoy this wonderful essay, one of many she penned for us. I have escaped the City, as I do every year in Summer. I know that this sounds trite, and perhaps even a tad snobbish, like a line from The Great Gatsby. But that heat that [...]
Although Pythagorean mathematics bears little resemblance to what we find in today’s textbooks, its foundation was laid by ancient lovers of wisdom. By rediscovering its original significance, mathematics might guide our minds not toward engineering aimed at mastering nature, but toward contemplation, preparing us for deeper contact with the realm of spirit and its magnificent, [...]
We don’t believe in a God who can only show his power by fiddling with a material world as if it weren’t already his own. No, our God made the world, and at every moment upholds it all in existence, down to every last atom. God doesn’t need a miracle to manifest his power, everything [...]
If we really think of God as a Who and not a What—in other words, if we think of him as a Someone capable of speech, then there is no “security” against revelation. And man’s only meaningful response to revelation is faith! The Weight of Belief, by Josef Pieper (Cluny Media, 326 pages) The difficulty [...]
During the last few centuries, while exploring the material world more deeply, many people have lost the way towards their own self, that inner sanctum where they can meet the Creator of both Man and of World. Thus the symbolic universe seems to have been forgotten, even though it is always there to be discovered. [...]
Most people don’t have a problem with some of the Ten Commandments. There are atheists, for example, who will admit that one should not kill, steal, or lie. Thus, posting those specific Commandments in public classrooms or buildings would pose no problem. The problems begin with the First and most important Commandment, which deals with [...]
Can we imagine that a good and loving God would allow the presence, in a world degraded due to human sin, of other rational beings who would have suffered, although innocent, its consequences? Formulated around 1950, the paradox bearing the name of Enrico Fermi was sparked by a rhetorical question: why haven’t we encountered intelligent [...]
I live among the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the ambitious and the lazy, the good and the bad, the loving and the hateful. Grappling with death taught me how to live in this world. I now see that every person I meet in ordinary, daily affairs is part human and [...]
Francis Bacon imagined a glorious future for us once our ancestors made themselves the masters and possessors of Nature; however, the ever-ascending arc of science and technology turned out to be not under human control. Physicists, neuroscientists, and computer and genetic engineers are the new sorcerer’s apprentices, having summoned great forces they can now not [...]
Trained to believe that every object as well as every act in the universe is matter, an aspect of matter, or produced by matter—that is, schooled to be a materialist—I scoffed at the two fellow students of mine in graduate school who regularly attended church. For me, at that time, the brain was the mind [...]
Christ was not only born on the level of the world, but even lower than the world. The first act of the divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set up above the sightseer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of sight. This sketch of the human story began in [...]
At its core, superstition is treating as God things or persons that are not God. Superstition is a failure in faith and reason. It is a key human pitfall, one that will be around as long as human beings are human, and one we must guard against whatever its source. “Superstition” is a word encountered [...]