Thought provoking article from David Brooks of NYT

David Brooks is an inconsistent writer. He jumps from one school of thought to another. He's a classic liberal, though he's branded as a conservative thinker. (There's a difference between today's political liberalism and "classical liberalism"... we won't get into that right now!)

Anyway, here are some tidbits from a recent Brooks article that I found interesting.

"How to Fight the Man" by David Brooks

A few weeks ago, a 22-year-old man named Jefferson Bethke produced a video called “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” The video shows Bethke standing in a courtyard rhyming about the purity of the teachings of Jesus and the hypocrisy of the church. Jesus preaches healing, surrender and love, he argues, but religion is rigid, phony and stale. “Jesus came to abolish religion,” Bethke insists. “Religion puts you in bondage, but Jesus sets you free.”

[...]

Right away, many older theologians began critiquing Bethke’s statements. A blogger named Kevin DeYoung pointed out, for example, that it is biblically inaccurate to say that Jesus hated religion. In fact, Jesus preached a religious doctrine, prescribed rituals and worshiped in a temple.

Bethke responded in a way that was humble, earnest and gracious, and that generally spoke well of his character. He also basically folded.

[...]

Bethke’s passionate polemic and subsequent retreat are symptomatic of a lot of the protest cries we hear these days. This seems to be a moment when many people — in religion, economics and politics — are disgusted by current institutions, but then they are vague about what sorts of institutions should replace them.

This seems to be a moment of fervent protest movements that are ultimately vague and ineffectual.

[...]

But rebellion without a rigorous alternative vision is just a feeble spasm.

Read the thoughtful conclusion here.

BXVI on Integrated Education

GKC, Aquinas, Children, Grass: The Primacy of Existence

As we read McInerny's distinction between the Modernist View vs. the Classical View, I thought this quote by the great G.K. Chesterton to be well worth our consideration:

Without pretending to span within such limits the essential Thomist idea, I may be allowed to throw out a sort of rough version of the fundamental question, which I think I have known myself, consciously or unconsciously since my childhood. When a child looks out a nursery window and sees anything, say the green lawn of the garden, what does he actually know; or does he know anything? There are all sorts of nursery games of negative philosophy played round this question. A brilliant Victorian scientist delighted in declaring that the child does not see any grass at all; but only a sort of green mist reflected in a tiny mirror of the human eye. This piece of rationalism has always struck me as almost insanely irrational. If he is not sure of the existence of the grass, which he sees through the glass of a window, how on earth can he be sure of the existence of the retina, which he sees through the glass of a microscope? If sight deceives, why can it not go on deceiving? Men of another school answer that grass is a mere green impression on the mind; and that he can be sure of nothing except the mind. They declare that he can only be conscious of his own consciousness; which happens to be the one thing that we know that the child is not conscious of at all. In that sense, it would be far truer to say that there is grass and no child, than to say that there is a conscious child but no grass. St. Thomas Aquinas, suddenly intervening in this nursery quarrel, says emphatically that the child is aware of Ens. Long before he knows that grass is grass, or self is self, he knows that something is something. Perhaps it would be best to say very emphatically (with a blow on the table), "There is an Is". This is as much monkish credulity as St. Thomas asks of us at the start. Very few unbelievers start by asking us to believe so little. And yet, upon this sharp pin-point of reality, he rears by long logical processes that have never really been successfullly overthrown, the whole cosmic system of Christendom.

Ens is the present participle of the Latin verb esse. It means "being" or "existing." Existence is glorious! It is the hallmark and the sublime mystery of God Himself, Who named Himself "I Am Who Am." It is upon this foundation of ultimate reality, Existence Himself, that every thing else hangs.

On science & stem cells

In the excerpt below from the pope's recent address to an international conference on stem-cell research, he summarized well the gifts and limits of scientific inquiry:

"Scientific research provides a unique opportunity to explore the wonder of the universe, the complexity of nature and the distinctive beauty of life, including human life. But since human beings are endowed with immortal souls and are created in the image and likeness of God, there are dimensions of human existence that lie beyond the limits of what the natural sciences are competent to determine. If these limits are transgressed, there is a serious risk that the unique dignity and inviolability of human life could be subordinated to purely utilitarian considerations. But if instead these limits are duly respected, science can make a truly remarkable contribution to promoting and safeguarding the dignity of man: indeed herein lies its true utility. Man, the agent of scientific research, will sometimes, in his biological nature, form the object of that research. Nevertheless, his transcendent dignity entitles him always to remain the ultimate beneficiary of scientific research and never to be reduced to its instrument."

In our recent discussions on The Rule of St. Benedict and Thomas Woods' "How the Monks Saved Civilization", we were reminded that the monks developed modern scientific inquiry from the fundamental belief that God's creation is good.  It is easy to forget this, but it is the fundamental reason why the west surpassed the east in scientific inquiry: faith in the God of Jesus Christ.  How can we have "science" if the cosmos isn't intelligible (random, chance, just an explosion) and if it hasn't been ordered by a Creator?  The image at right is of Monseigneur Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and scientist who developed the "Big Bang" theory; clearly this priest believed that we are more than simply the product of an explosion.

It is rewarding to have these conversations; it is even more rewarding to have them with high school seniors!

Read the rest of the pope's address at Vatican Radio.

Pupils Delighted

This article very much summarizes what we are attempting to do with the seniors in the Capstone Seminar.

"Pupils Delighted"
by Anthony Esolen

Here's an excerpt in medias res: 

"The Pearson Integrated Humanities Program must have violated every educational truism of our time. Two hundred freshmen and sophomores, for six hours a week for two years, sat in the company of three professors, John Senior, Frank Nelick, and Dennis Quinn, who discussed art, poetry, music, history, philosophy, and Scripture with one another, while the students overheard them and eventually learned to participate in the discussions themselves. The students also recited poetry, learned to waltz, and were introduced to such words as truth, faith, honor, love, courtesy, decency, simplicity, and modesty, not words much used in an Age of Iron, but then, Don Quixote was sent into that time precisely to bring back something of the Age of Gold.
The motto of the program was Nascantur in Admiratione, “Let Them Be Born in Wonder.” One of the pages of the brochure explains why:

In our day wonder has been so cheapened by sensationalism and so crippled by skepticism that the college freshman, instead of being as one newly awakened to the excitement of learning, is often, rather, as one who has never been born. To such a young person learning is so much drudgery and routine, alien to his real interests, remote from reality itself. To revive wonder may be said to summarize the aims of the Pearson Program. Hence it should be regarded as an elementary or elemental course, where one discovers the love of wisdom; a course for beginners, who look upon the primary things of the world, as it were, for the first time.
An ancient philosopher said that to look at the stars is to become a lover of wisdom—a philosopher. Since the Pearson Program aims to make all students philosophers in that sense, we say, with a modern poet, “Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!” Not only are students in the program required to look, literally, at the stars, but they are also expected to look up through poetry and through all that is great in Western civilization. It is by the light of the stars (or “something like a star”) that we discover the world, ourselves, and our destination."

Read Anthony Esolen's entire piece at Touchstone Magazine.

DeJak's latest: "For University Students..."

Dear students,

After panning the modern academy, Mr. DeJak's musings in his latest article also wisely apply to high school students, and so you are advised to read and pay attention to his recommendations from "How to Survive the Academic Environment: A Practical Guide":

4. Have a Right View of Education.  Reject outright the pragmatic notion that education is job-training. If that is your notion of education, then stay at home and “train for a better career” with Sally Struthers and her correspondence schools. True education is about the apprehension of truth, goodness and beauty—in a word, about seeking the ultimate reality—God. Indeed, reading Cicero or Shakespeare will not bring you money, but it may bring you happiness and provide you a habit of mind that will make you successful in any terrestrial endeavor.

St. Augustine of Hippo

5. Read Augustine and Aquinas.  No modern master can surpass these guys. (Indeed read modern masters, such as Chesterton, as well!) In order to cultivate common sense and a solid grounding in authentically Catholic thinking, no Catholic can afford to be ignorant of these thinkers. To start out, gather your cadre and read together Augustine’s Confessions. Later, read Aquinas on anything—might I suggest selections from the Summa on God’s existence and law.

6. Read Good Poetry and Literature.  C.S. Lewis once said, “If you must read the newspapers, be sure to give yourself a good mouthwash with [J.R.R. Tolkien’s] The Lord of the Rings.” I don’t think that I can improve upon that statement.

7. Shun Technology, Engage the Human Things.  I will be accused here of contradiction by the very fact that I have posted this article online. The point is not to condemn technology or to become a full-fledged Luddite; rather, it is to maintain one’s sanity and freedom in a world that is increasingly made up of robots. No IM-ing will ever take the place of a real face-to-face conversation, nor will email ever have the same savor or feeling as a handwritten letter, nor will a fake fireplace on a screen come close to the real thing. Take walks and converse with your friends—preferably in wooded areas. Look at a tree. As I have written elsewhere: “Today it is easy to be taken with the advanced mechanical things of man’s intelligence: iPads, iPods, and the world wide web. Aren’t lily pads, pea pods and spider webs equally—if not more—fascinating?”

In the Capstone Seminar we've read Augustine.  And we're gonna read Aquinas... after we read Anselm, of course!

Read the rest of Mr. DeJak's post at the Wanderer Forum Foundation blog.