In the very first year of his papacy, Pope John Paul II planted a time bomb in the Church that is not likely to go off until about twenty years from now. Beginning in September 1979, he devoted fifteen minutes of each weekly general audience over a five-year period to sustained, dense, and rigorous . . . . Continue Reading »
In early July 1759, three friends met at an inn called the Windmill outside the German city of Königsberg, for what might be called an “evangelistic” or “counseling” session. Intellectuals all, the three friends had earlier been cobelligerents in the cause of rationalism and the . . . . Continue Reading »
Joseph Conrad prefaced one of his novels by announcing that the task of a writer is, “by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see !” Here is Salman Rushdie on The Wizard of Oz : “Imagination puts us in the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Arts that sensuously address The raising of the consciousness Bloom in a spread of themes and tones –Geology of various zones Some scale the great volcano–sky, Flame, precipice, immensity. While some tread, in the charming vale, The villages-and-vineyards trail. The grandeur group (though . . . . Continue Reading »
Last Christmas our parish hall displayed a Nativity painting by a local artist, showing a dark-haired woman in a wheelchair holding an infant, with a man in hospital scrubs standing solicitously behind them. The scene was instantly recognizable to anyone who has had a baby in this country in the . . . . Continue Reading »
evil in modern thought: an alternativehistory of philosophy by susan neiman princeton university press, 358 pages, $29.95 René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, begins his Meditations(1641) on the self and its place in the world by supposing that a demon, no less powerful than God, . . . . Continue Reading »
In Book Three of Tolstoy’s epic, War and Peace, the hero, Pierre Bezukhov, arrives at the battlefield of Borodino to find that the fog of war has descended, obscuring everything he had expected to be clear. There is no order, there are no familiar patterns of action, all is contingency. He . . . . Continue Reading »
Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Mythby Stephen F. Knott University Press of Kansas, 336 pages, $34.95 Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth is a book from which one can learn a great deal, but neither about Alexander Hamilton nor the persistence of myth. It is concerned with . . . . Continue Reading »
intelligent design creationism and its critics: philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectivesedited by robert t. pennock mit press, 805 pages, $45 Advocates of Darwinian naturalism would like us to believe that the universe simply flashed into existence one fine day all on its own; . . . . Continue Reading »
human cloning and human dignity: the report of the president’s council on bioethics with a foreward by leon r. kass, m.d., chairman public affairs, 352 pages, $14 paper On the cover of Human Cloning and Human Dignity: The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics is the image of a . . . . Continue Reading »
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