"The Holy Spirit is at once more selective than we, and apparently more democratic."

      Samuel M. Shoemaker, With the Holy Spirit and with fire (1960), chap. 7 ("The Holy Spirit and the church"), The Samuel Shoemaker library (Waco, TX:  Word Books, 1972), 95.

Ultimately, a rejection of the Incarnation

IHES news

      "In our time, the rejection of the flesh and body [of the truth that can be known and of intelligible knowledge considered] as [an] organic whole takes different forms in the world of knowledge:  [1] that of the refusal of the transmission of specific findings [(savoirs)] among the new doctrinarians of the primary and secondary schools; [2] that of the postmodern rejection of the structuration of [such] findings [(savoirs) into a [good and] beautiful whole (?)], [the] fruit of understanding, on the part of many influential university [professors] and their epigones in the world of teaching; [3] that of the indifference, disinterest, or contempt displayed by the majority of scholars for the heart of rational knowledge:  the philosophy, the theology, and the great literature that is, nonetheless, the true science of man."

     French mathematician and 2002 Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, "En université, une communauté de personnes passionné par la verité," an address delivered to a "Conférence . . . à Rome le 6 mars 2009, dans le cadre d'une réunion d'universitaires organisée par le mouvement 'Communion et Libération'," translation mine.  Lafforgue claims to be channeling Edith Stein by way of Emmanuel Gabellieri.

In the world of [2] the universities, the learned, and the scholars, the refusal of th[e] intrusion [of the light of truth], that is to say the determination to keep a prudent distance from the truth, takes the form of positivistic objectivism and, in particular, scientism.

the rejection of the transmission of specific findings [(savoirs)] in [1] the schools of our time is a kind of rejection of the Incarnation.

the postmodern refusal of [2] the structuration of [human] knowledge [(connaissances) into a [good and] beautiful organic whole (?)] is tied to the rejection of the church as the mystical body of Christ.

Etc.  Thus,

the intuition of the trinitarian structure of the truth . . . is . . . at the root of the 'idea of the university' invented by medieval Latin Christianity.

More strikingly,

the appearance of the first fact, of the first particular truth, can be considered a prefiguration of the Incarnation.

God is still incarnate

"What benefit do we receive from Christ's ascension into heaven?"

". . . that we have our flesh [(unser Fleisch)] in heaven, as a sure pledge that he, as the Head, will also take us, his members, up to himself. . . ."

     Heidelberg Catechism, Quest. 49.  Cf. Quest. 57.

"everything is in confusion, because you have made people believe that everything is in danger."

"tout se remuë [(is all stirred up)], parceque vous faites entendre que tout est menacé."

     Blaise Pascal, Provincial letters no. 18, trans. M’Crie (GBWW, 1st ed. (1952), vol. 33, p. 166).  =p. 57 of tom. 7 of the 1904-1914 edition of the Œuvres ed. Bruschvicg.

de foi, de fait

"the Church, with divine authority, decides the points of faith, and cuts off from her body all who refuse to receive them.  But she does not act in the same manner in regard to matters of fact.  And the reason is that our salvation is attached to the faith which has been revealed to us, and which is preserved in the Church by tradition, but that it has no dependence on facts which have not been revealed by God. . . .  In the determination of points of faith, God guides the Church by the aid of His unerring Spirit; whereas in matters of fact He leaves her to the direction of reason and the senses, which are the natural judges of such matters."

     Blaise Pascal, Provincial letters no. 17, trans. M’Crie (GBWW, 1st ed. (1952), vol. 33, p. 147).  =p. 358 of tom. 6 of the 1904-1914 edition of the Œuvres edited by Brunschvicg.  =p. 789 of the 1998 Pléiade edition of the Œuvres edited by Le Guern.

Duty to defend

"Evil speaking . . . is a poison that extinguishes charity in both of the parties; so that a single calumny may prove mortal to an infinite numbers [sic] of souls, killing not only those who publish it, but all those besides by whom it is not repudiated."

"la médisance . . . est un poison qui éteint la charité en l’un et en l’autre.  De sorte qu’une seule calomnie peut être mortelle à une infinité d’âmes, puisqu’elle tue non seulement ceux qui la publient, mais encore tous ceux qui ne la rejettent pas."

     Blaise Pascal, Provincial letters no. 16, trans. M’Crie (GBWW, 1st edition (1952), vol. 33, p. 140).  Pascal attributes this to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermons on the Canticles 24[.4] de vitio detractionis), but is only paraphrasing (Pléiade edition ed. Le Guern, p. 1266).  What St. Bernard actually says (SC 431, 245) is (as trans. Kilian Walsh, vol. 3 (Cistercian Fathers series 7), p. 45),

The venomous tongue strikes a blow at charity in the hearts of all within hearing, and if possible kills and quenches it utterly; worse still, even the absent are contaminated by the flying word that passes from those present to all within reach.  See how easily and in how short a time this swift-moving word can infect a great multitude of men with its sickly malice.

I have yet to read the whole.

 

"the fitting of as many as possible to survive"

"The propounders of what are called the 'ethics of evolution,' when the "evolution of ethics" would usually better express the object of their speculations, adduce a number of more or less interesting facts and more or less sound arguments, in favour of the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are on the right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the one as the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. . . .
     "Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. . . .  But the influence of the cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilization.  Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best.
     "As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which lead to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.  In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive.  It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. . . .  The struggle for existence, which has done such admirable work in cosmic nature, must, it appears, be equally beneficient in the ethical sphere.  Yet, if that which I have insisted upon is true; if the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends; if the imitation of it by man is inconsistent with the first principles of ethics; what becomes of this surprising theory?
     "Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."

     Thomas H. Huxley, Evolution and ethics, The Romanes Lecture 1893, delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, May 18, 1893 (London, Macmillan & Co., 1893), 31-34.  I was put onto this by John Gray's dismissive review of The evolution of moral progress:  a biocultural theory (Oxford University Press, 2018) in The New York review of books 66, no. 20 (December 19, 2019):  78 (76-78).