In 1970, Michael Polanyi wrote an essay called “Why Did We Destroy Europe?” In it, he reflected on the cancerous spread of ideologies and war in the twentieth century. He argued that scientific rationalism had initially “been a major influence towards intellectual, moral and social . . . . Continue Reading »
Since its founding, Harvard has been the “first light” to dispel the myth that faith and reason are antithetical. Continue Reading »
Some of the great fathers of modern science were Catholic priests—proof that faith and reason can exist in harmony, as they still do today. Continue Reading »
Blaise Pascal spoke of the contradiction in every human heart. Man is an animal at once godlike and depraved. It is not that our dreams are great and our behavior base, but that our dreams are simultaneously wonderful and vile. Perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in our treatment of other . . . . Continue Reading »
At the March for Life this past January, I saw a teenage girl holding a sign that read, “She could be the next Beyoncé!” the “she” referring, of course, to the baby inside the womb. Her sign reminded me of the quirky movie, Juno, in which the protagonist, a young teenager, decides not to . . . . Continue Reading »
I learned in these pages not long ago that it is perilous to express doubts regarding the persuasive power of most natural-law theory in today’s world. Not that I would dream of rehearsing the controversy again; but I will note that, at the time, I took my general point to be not that natural-law . . . . Continue Reading »
A theologian’s comment on a sociologist’s theological category mistake. Continue Reading »
We need not see doubt as an impediment to . . . . Continue Reading »
Though the most Deistic of the Founding Fathers, even Jefferson was not a full-fledged Deist if we accept that philosophy as having had two fundamental tenets: a rejection of biblical revelation and a conviction that God, having created the laws of the universe, had receded from day-to-day control . . . . Continue Reading »
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