Men are subject to subtle temptations. The most dangerous of these temptations suggests that, by our own power and ingenuity, we can both identify the root problem causing human ills and eliminate it. At bottom, it is a technical, rather than a personal problem. We can solve it without solving the question of our souls. … Read more
Walking across the campus to class, I saw a panel truck parked on the street with a sticker on the tailgate that read: “The Power of Pride.” Below the words was a red, white, and blue patriotic banner with stars on it. The phrase struck me. It contains many paradoxes. Pride can be a dangerous … Read more
On Tuesday, May 14, 1751, Samuel Johnson wrote in The Rambler that “it is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious, and severe. For, as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form … Read more
Over the years, I have enjoyed doing a Christmas column in this Sense and Nonsense series. But since columns usually need to be submitted a couple of months before publication, I find I am writing something about Christmas not on the Night Before Christmas, but sometime in September or October, not very Christmas-like months. Having … Read more
One Saturday in July, I was at the Jesuit community at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles, where a number of my old classmates dwell. On one of the campus lawns that afternoon was a display of vintage classic automobiles—Packards, Daimlers, Stuts, Delahayes, Lincolns, Duisenbergs, Cords, Cadillacs, Willis, Rolls-Royces, Pierce-Arrows. Some of these touring cars, cabriolets, … Read more
“You cannot act for twenty-four hours without deciding either to hold people responsible or not to hold them responsible. Theology is a product far more practical than chemistry. Some Determinists fancy that Christianity invented a dogma like free will for fun—a mere contradiction. This is absurd. You have the contradiction wherever you are. Determinists tell … Read more
“Social justice” can be a dangerous phrase. How so? Justice is to render each his due. Justice is always in motion from an inner source, but never complete or automatic. Classically, justice is a moral, practical virtue. I must acquire it and practice it toward others. No one can make me just. I can always … Read more
Giving advice to high school graduates entering their freshman year of college is the privilege, if not the disease, of elderly professors. Such academics soon realize that all their students are always the same age. By Platonic standards, they are quite young, probably too young to yet be candidates for that wisdom that comes from … Read more
Following the election of Benedict XVI, Web sites and my e-mails were filled with wonderments about “when is the new pope going to act?” By “act,” writers mean things like, “defining an infallible position, say, no contraception,” or “tossing out an inept or heretical bishop or two (names provided on request),” or “confronting the universities … Read more
Recently, Newt Gingrich predicted that God would be legally driven out of public life in the United States. James Hitchcock’s The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life recalls the various “conscientious objection” cases in which the “Supreme Being,” in which one had sincerely to believe for exemption, was expanded to mean “belief in and … Read more
The Holy Father’s last encyclical on the Eucharist reads: “The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing.” Such words have haunted me—”Everything is there!” Karol Wojtyla could explain things tersely. The purpose of the Incarnation is first … Read more
Richard Kraut argued that Aristotle’s best form of rule is a “polity” or democracy in which virtuous citizens alternately participate in rule that does not discriminate against the best or the ordinary. Aristotle also thought democracy, technically, was the “best of the worst” forms of rule. It usually meant the rule of “liberty.” Here, liberty … Read more
The last day of the fall semester was the feast of the Immaculate Conception—not a holy day that trumps class on our university calendar. For this occasion, however, in a class devoted to Aristotle himself, I read the first chapters of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. He explains that “all men by nature desire to know.” Proof of … Read more
In his treatise on the Lord’s Prayer, the African bishop St. Cyprian asks, “Why does the fact that God has taught us such a prayer as this astonish us?” Cyprian figures that Christ did not want “His disciples to be burdened by memorizing His teaching.” With this famous prayer, He stated the basics, something that … Read more
Flannery O’Connor said that “poetry is the proper naming of the things of God.” Genesis is a book full of “naming.” Adam names the animals. In Hebrew, a relation of identity exists between a name and the being it names. In a real way, we only “possess” something when we name it, when we call … Read more
A colleague mentioned hearing “White Christmas” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in Japanese during Christmastide, seasonal music popular among those who generally do not believe in what Christmas represents. Similarly, during my European years, I was struck by the different cultural expressions surrounding Christmas among those who did historically hold it. My Australian … Read more
Anyone can learn about religion by examining how the media report it. On August 17, 2004, for example, the Washington Post’s David Cho described a local convention of the 31-year-old San Francisco- based organization, Jews for Jesus. Two photos and two headlines were included in the two-page article. The first headline read, “Conversion Outreach by … Read more
Every election year in October, I write an “opinion.” My views have, astonishingly, been known to be wrong from time to time. I write under my academic hat as a political science professor, a member of a group likewise not known for prophetic accuracy, having been surprised both by the fall of communism and the … Read more
In his Confessions, the young Augustine proudly tells of coming across a copy of Aristotle’s Categories, which his professors were having a difficult time understanding. Augustine boldly says that he read the short treatise and had no difficulty whatever. The Categories is generally a brief treatment of the ten ways of predication that we can … Read more
Nulla est homini causa philosophandi nisi ut beatus sit. This sentence is found in Book 19, Chapter 1 of Augustine’s City of God. I was first consciously alerted to it because it is cited, in both Latin and English, on the first page of E. F. Schumacher’s A Guide for the Perplexed. In English, it … Read more