The "aims and objectives" of some "core curricula"

"adults seem often to want to suppress such childish thoughts, seeing that they energetically set about systematically destroying a child's capacity for them by means, principally, of compulsory education in properly ordered questions which you can answer in accordance with teachable methodological routines:  this is nowadays called the 'core curriculum', or otherwise what you are asked to do when you spell out your 'aims and objectives'."

     Denys Turner, "How to be an atheist," New Blackfriars 82, nos. 977/978 (July 2002):  331 =How to be an atheist:  inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge, 12 October 2001 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2002), 34.

Remaining an atheist "requires much hard work, not a little training, and a powerful mental asceticism."

     "So, 'how to be an atheist?'  It is not easy; you need to work at it.  Be intellectually adult, get an education, get yourself a discipline; resist all temptation to ask such questions as you do not know in principle can be answered, being careful to suppress any which might seem to push thought off civilised limits; be reasonable, lest you find yourself being committed to an excessive rationality; and have the good manners to scratch no itches which occur in intellectually embarrassing places—at least in public.  Then I shall argue with you on behalf of the child, not in the name of God but in the name of a question which remains about the world, not yet in the name of theology, but in the name, merely, of an intellectual possibility you have excluded, not on account of how the world is, which seems a relatively sensible and obvious state of affairs to me, but out of amazement of intellect, and a sort of primal gratitude of spirit, that there is anything at all, rather than nothing, and that there is anyone at all, rather than no one, for whom it exists.  For, of the two possibilities there are, that there is anything at all must be by far the more unlikely outcome.  If you want to be an atheist, then, it is necessary only to find that the world is to be a platitudinously dull fact.  But, I warn you, to be as resolute as it takes in the conviction of such cosmic dullness requires much hard work, not a little training, and a powerful mental asceticism.  Anything less resolute, and you run the risk of affliction by theological itches which, the atheists will no doubt be distressed to hear, my theological colleagues and I will be paid at the same rate as them to scratch."

     Denys Turner, "How to be an atheist," New Blackfriars 82, nos. 977/978 (July 2002):  333-334 =How to be an atheist:  inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge, 12 October 2001 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2002), 38-39.
     Spot on, except, probably, for the "paid at the same rate as them".
     When Turner says "Be intellectually adult", he is not, of course, proposing something absolutely positive (331 ff. =33 ff.).

"theologians in an arrested condition of denial"

Many atheists "lag well behind even the theologically necessary levels of negation, which is why their atheisms are generally lacking in theological interest.  So, I repeat:  such atheists are, as it were, but theologians in an arrested condition of denial:  in the sense in which atheists of this sort say God 'does not exist', the atheist has merely arrived at the theological starting point:  theologians of the classical traditions, an Augustine, a Thomas Aquinas or a Meister Eckhart, simply agree about the disposing of idolatries, and then proceed with the proper business of doing theology."

     Denys Turner, "How to be an atheist," New Blackfriars 82, nos. 977/978 (July 2002):  321 =How to be an atheist:  inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge, 12 October 2001 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2002), 10.

I am here trying to encourage the atheist, not the theist, to have a decent go at denying God. All I am saying to the atheist is that she had better sharpen up a bit on her denials, for on the score so far, Thomas is well ahead. 

     That said, now for some words of encouragement for the atheist, for, poor bewildered chap, having abandoned a merely parasitical anti-fundamentalism, he must by now be feeling quite at a loss to know how to set about denying God. 

Ibid., 323 =15. 

An effective charade (δράμα)

"There was a money-changer in a city, one of whose inhabitants came bringing him a precious stone worth five hundred pieces of gold.  'Take this stone,' he said, 'and provide me with a portion of its value when need arises,' but there was nobody there when he gave him the stone.  One of the illustrious persons of the city, however, was outside the Exchange walking back [home].  He was listening and saw that he gave him the stone, but the money-changer did not know he was listening.  Some days later, he who gave the stone came and said to the money-changer:  'Give me [something] on the stone, for I have need.'  He, confident that there was no one present when the other gave him the stone, refused, saying:  'You never gave me anything.'  As he came out of there in an agitated state, that illustrious person met him and said to him:  'What is the matter?'  He told him about the affair and the other said to him:  'Did you really give it to him?'  Yes', he said, and [that person] said to him:  'Tell him:  'Come and assure me at Saint Andrew's' and that will suffice for you',—for there was a martyrion of Saint Andrew there.  When [the money-changer] was going to take the oath, that illustrious person took his slave and went to Saint Andrew's, saying to his slave:  'Whatever I do this day, do not be disturbed; just be patient.'  Coming into the martyr's chapel, he took off his clothing and began behaving like one possessed of a demon, crying out in a disorderly manner.  When they came in, he began to say:  'Saint Andrew says:  "Look:  this wicked fellow took the man's five hundred gold pieces and he wants to swear falsely by me."'  Then he went out and took him by the throat saying:  'Saint Andrew says:  "Give up the man's five hundred gold pieces."'  The other, troubled and terrified, confessed, saying:  'I am bringing them', but [the person] said:  'Bring them right now.'  Off he went and promptly brought them; the pseudo-demoniac said to the owner of the money:  'Saint Andrew says:  "Put six pieces of gold on the [holy] table"' and he gladly put [them there].  When they were gone [that person] took his clothes, dressed decently and went walking by the Exchange again, as usual.  The money-changer looked him up and down when he saw him and that illustrious person said to him:  'Why are you staring at me, friend?  Believe me, by the grace of Christ, I have no demon; but, since I was walking outside when the man gave you the stone, I heard and saw clearly.  And in case they said to you:  'You have to say that a single [witness] is not believed' I decided to enact this charade to prevent you from losing your soul and the man from being wickedly deprived of what is his.'"

     Anonymous saying of the Desert Fathers no. 48 (=BHG 1328g, de ponderatore).  The anonymous sayings of the Desert Fathers:  a select edition and complete English translation, ed. & trans. John Wortley (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2013), 44-45.
     This one is striking for its secularity.  The saint does nothing overtly, and the city father (Εἷς . . . τῶν λαμπρῶν τῆς πόλεως) everything.

Comber on the use of forms

"we can pray by this Form with as much Zeal and more Knowledge, with as much Spirit and more Truth, than by any other kind of Prayer."

     Thomas Comber, A companion to the Temple, or A help to devotion in the use of the Common prayer (1672-76/1684), as quoted in Prayer book spirituality, ed. J. Robert Wright (New York:  The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1989), 36, under "The mistaken dissenters".

Johnson on the use of forms

"let me farther assure you, that now after near forty years use of our excellent method of worship, . . . it is so far from growing tedious or a matter of formality, as some imagine, that every opportunity seems to add fresh life, and I see fresh beauties, and find further advantages in it from time to time."

     Samuel Johnson, On the beauty of holiness in the worship of the Church of England (1749), as quoted in Prayer book spirituality, ed. J. Robert Wright (New York:  The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1989), 51.

"the habitat of natural gifts is the natural man."

"beware of showing God's grace and its work at such disadvantage as to make the few whom it has thoroughly influenced compete in intellect with the vast multitude who either have it not, or use it ill.  The elect are few to choose out of, and the world is inexhaustible.  From the first, Jabel and Tubalcain, Nimrod 'the stout hunter', the learning of the Pharaohs, and the wisdom of the East country, are of the world.  Every now and then they are rivalled by a Solomon or a Beseleel, but the habitat of natural gifts is the natural man."

     John Henry Newman, The idea of a university defined and illustrated, Discourse IX.7 (ed. I. T. Ker (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1976), 196).