Monday, August 27, 2012

Buckley on the indispensability of "a specifically religious intellectuality"

"It was not the opposition of science to religion; it was much more the endorsement of [religion by] science that generated modern atheism.  It was not because science was indifferent or antagonistic; it was because it was too enthusiastically affirmative and comprehensively supportive that atheism emerged.  Science smothered religion by adopting it."

     Michael J. Buckley, S.J., Denying and disclosing God:  the ambiguous progress of modern atheism (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2004), 2.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

"the unjust steward with his impious economy making up for his own private thefts by grudging honour to his Master."


"'To what purpose is this waste?'the unjust steward with his impious economy making up for his own private thefts by grudging honour to his Master."

     John Henry Newman, Meditations on Christian doctrine II ("Hope in GodRedeemer").i.2 (August 18, 1855) (Prayers, verses, and devotions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 342).

"I see now the meaning of that else inexplicable humiliation: He preferred to regain me rather than to create new worlds."

     John Henry Newman, Meditations on Christian doctrine I ("Hope in GodCreator").iii.2 (Prayers, verses, and devotions (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2000), 340).