The Ashes As a society we are far past the general disaffection of Europe in the 20’s, following the Great War, when repudiation of religious sensibility was traceable to eye-opening atrocity joined to soul-deadening ideology. Now a similar disaffection from great questions exists, but seems to be more the result of a wide-scale spiritual listlessness. […]
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The Materialist Epoch
The Pagan and Christian Epochs The predominant worldview in the west before Christianity was paganism, which assumed the existence of something beyond the here-and-now of matter in space and time; gods who must be honored in their prescribed ways and seasons, for orderly human life. We discussed this in The Pagan Epoch. That “something beyond” […]
Read more...“The river’s just a river”
In the musical version of Les Miserables, Eponine sings “On My Own,” a poignant expression of her disappointment that Marius does not requite her love. Imagining that he is with her, she describes the enchantment of her surroundings: In the rain the pavement shines like silver All the lights are misty in the river In the […]
Read more...Review (Part Five): The Experience of God — Being Consciousness Bliss, by David Bentley Hart
Bliss Mind over matter There is a mystery at the base of all of our ruminations about consciousness, and that sense of mystery resists reduction to material causes. Reality is one, embraced within the totality of being. “[P]erhaps we really should look elsewhere for the source and sustaining principle of that unity.” And Hart does: […]
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