It’s natural for most human beings to seek simple understandings. They correspond at least roughly to the simple (or elegant) understandings which are a goal of many theorists in the sciences which have a large mathematical component. Einstein pointed out that a theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler. Closer to ordinary … [Read more…]
Due to some volunteer projects followed by a sinus infection, I’ve been writing little for publication. My energies have been devoted to early drafts of a couple of novels as well as reading background material to the next stage of understanding the world from a traditional Christian viewpoint—where `traditional’ should be taken in the dynamic … [Read more…]
In Colossians 1:24, St Paul writes: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…” [From the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version as published by Ignatius.] I suspect, partly on the … [Read more…]
Whatever he means to be saying, Pope Francis sometimes seems to be strongly implying exactly the title of this essay: We Christians Don’t Do Truth But We Do Poor People and Immigrants. He’s in line with a good number of Catholics, including many of the bishops and Cardinals of the West and most certainly the … [Read more…]
In a typically erudite book review, The barbarism of reason: John Gray on the Notebooks of Leopardi , Gray tells us: With astonishing prescience, [the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)] diagnosed the sickness of our time: a dangerous intoxication with the knowledge and power given by science, mixed with an inability to accept the humanly … [Read more…]
In a recent essay, Cafeteria Catholics and Ghetto Catholics, I claimed: From an intellectual viewpoint also simple, the problem with many traditionalist Catholics is that they don’t think in terms of a world in which new facts and knowledge emerge over time, forcing our understandings to develop over time in a “communal process” as the … [Read more…]
The essay, Disorder on the March, by Joseph Wood ends with the paragraphs: The confusion of the moment is so comprehensive, as demonstrated in just the recent examples above from popular culture, law, science and politics, that any kind of coherent political or public square response is difficult to envision. As a friend recently reminded … [Read more…]
From a simple intellectual viewpoint, the problem with “cafeteria Catholics” is that they don’t think in terms of a God of reason, in terms of a Creation which is a well-ordered multitude and unity of manifestations of divine reason. Of course, if they were to place their thoughts and feelings and behaviors in better order, … [Read more…]
Good news from genetic research. At least it’s good news for those of us who believe in the value, and truth, of moral purposefulness. A recent article, Be Happy: Your Genes May Thank You for It, tells us: People who have high levels of what is known as eudaimonic well-being—the kind of happiness that comes … [Read more…]
I’ve often referred readers to one of my early essays, Einstein and Bohr’s debate on the meaning of reality:, for a very short discussion of Bohr’s insights into the primacy of relationships over stuff—in fact, it’s not clear to me that Bohr fully realized the implications of his stance but that’s true of many a … [Read more…]