Category Archives: Christianity

Review of Daniel A. Connor’s “The Relation Between Religion and Culture”

Introduction

The subtitle of the book named above is “A Synthesis of the Writings of Christopher Dawson”.

This is the introduction to my notes on this book, and therefore on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson.

I’m particularly interested in the connections that exist between of the idea of progress and Christianity.

Christopher Dawson (12 October 1889 – 25 May 1970 [I’ve just realised that I’m posting this on his 132nd birthday – I honestly did not plan this!] ) is a now largely forgotten scholar, who was once called “the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century”. Here’s one of his quotes:

“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.”

That is, IMHO, the 20th century described in a nutshell. And the first two decades of the 21st too. And the third, so far.  

The tragedy of our time is that the notion of “ends justifying means” is thoroughly anti-Christian, yet the Christian churches have been incapable, in the past century or two, of standing up against it, let alone turning its rising tide. If they even tried. One big exception in the 20th century was Pope John Paul II, whose very presence in the Vatican, let alone his words, inspired the Catholics in his mother country Poland to rise up, peacefully, against their communist oppressors. This was the beginning of the end of the most atheistic empire there has ever been. And it died with hardly a gunshot fired, hardly a loss of life (except a few in Rumania and the Baltic states).  

Anyway, back to Christopher Dawson. He wrote a large number of books, some of which I have recently read. To make my life a bit easier, I also read a book which claims to be “A Synthesis of the Writings of Christopher Dawson”, the title being “The Relation Between Religion and Culture” (TRBRAC), by Daniel A. Connor, first published in 1952. The next few posts are my notes and thoughts on the parts of that book I found interesting. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. I precede my own thoughts with the acronym “PwG”.)

Content of the review (so far):

  1. On the beginnings of “Europe”
  2. On religion and medieval science
  3. On the Renaissance
  4. On Lutheranism and Calvinism
  5. On the Enlightenment as a “Religion of Progress”
  6. On the industrial revolution
  7. On natural science
  8. On the return to Christian unity and the predicament Christianity is in now
  9. On Christianity and International Order
  10. From the conclusion of “The Relation Between Religion and Culture”

Let’s colonise space – but for what reason?

Review of Stephen Hawking’s “Brief Answers to the Big Questions” - Part 5

Hawking is a huge advocate of manned spaceflight. He sees it as our only chance to escape the “almost inevitable . . . nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe [that] will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years”, although he hopes that “we can avoid dropping the basket [currently containing all our “eggs”] before we learn how to escape from Earth”. (150)

At no point does he explain how, by going into space, we escape “nuclear confrontation” in space. This is a real possibility in the future, as it’s improbable we will become sinless this side of eternity. Hawking obviously hopes that the exploration, use and colonisation of space and extra-terrestrial objects will be advantageous for human development and flourishing. And he is probably right. However, he is not helping this cause by saying we need to do this to “escape” something. The general advice for anyone moving places, jobs etc. is that they should make sure of what they are moving towards before they start moving away from.    

Considering that, let’s see how Hawking tries to convince us of space colonisation, in the chapter titled “Should we colonise space?”

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Truth dissolving

A symptom of believing in salvation through government

“What is truth?”, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, mockingly asked Jesus Christ shortly before condemning Him to death (John 18:38). The Lord didn’t answer him. Pilate had reacted to Jesus’ claim that He had born into the world “to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (John 18:37, NIV) He had already told his disciples: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6, NIV)

Against this background, consider this entry by economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo yesterday:

On page 163 of his infamous The Road to Serfdom Friedrich Hayek wrote that in totalitarian societies:

“The word ‘truth’ itself ceases to have its old meaning.  It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort [to enforce totalitarianism] and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”  This last segment reminds you of Anthony Flipflop Fauci, doesn’t it?  (“Masks are useless,” then “Masks are mandatory”, bla, bla, bla).

This is the passage from The Road to Serfdom that I was thinking of in my blog in response to Google’s cutting off the ad revenue for the site, accusing us of contradicting “authoritative” consensus (aka the pronouncements of Biden, Fauci, Pelosi, Schumer, and all of their other commie comrades).

Hayek was right in seeing that “truth” and “totalitarianism” are irreconcilable. He was wrong however in thinking that the “individual conscience” is the “sole arbiter”. Our consciences need something to measure against, when considering an action or non-action. This standard is something that needs to be discovered. It was, arguably, discovered a long time ago and “set into stone”, so to speak. I’m thinking of course of the Ten Commandments. Jesus came to testify to the truth revealed in the Old Testament. That is what governments around the world and throughout history find so uncomfortable about Jesus and the Bible. Not just governments – but also those who hope to profit off them; and of course habitual private wrongdoers.