The great danger that bedevils any powerful heuristic or interpretive discipline is the tendency to mistake method for ontology

Quote of the Day for Friday, September 30th, 2011: David Bentley Hart, from an On The Square article today over at First Things, on the inherently epistemologically-limiting nature of intellectual methodology, and the dangers of ignoring that fact: The great danger that bedevils any powerful heuristic or interpretive discipline is the tendency to mistake method for ontology, and so to mistake a partial perspective on particular truths for a comprehensive vision of truth as such. In the modern world, this is an especially pronounced danger in the sciences...

On a Nationalized American Religious Disposition

I don’t take many calls that come in from 800- or similar area codes, but I took one this morning, because I am expecting a call-back for a warranty replacement issue. The call turned out to be from an organization looking to add my name to a petition allegedly being submitted somewhere or another as a token of protest against the legal successes of a militant atheist group committed to outlawing the observation of the National Day of Prayer. This militant anti-religious campaign, I was assured, represented an affront or assault (I can’t remember which n...

American Religion’s Dismissal of Apostolicity

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, November 24th, 2010: Henri de Lubac, from The Splendor of the Church, translated from the 2nd French edition (1953) in 1956, and re-published by Ignatius in 1999 (p.86f): When we recite the Credo we profess our belief in the Church; and if we believe that the Church is both a universal and a visible community, then we cannot – without betrayal of our faith – be content to grant that the universal Church is made visible and concrete to the individual by that particular community which is his, regardless of the separation of...

Where Is This Heading?

I came across a couple of interesting studies today – whether there is any kind of correlation, I’ll let the reader decide. In a poll done by the Knights of Columbus, the religious attitudes of the so-called Millennial generation are compared to the older surviving generations, breaking out the Catholics among the generations as well. This is a bit of a fluffy presentation – looking more like a PowerPoint deck than a real study – but the results are intriguing, in a morose way. I must say that I question some of the analysis, as presented on the KoC site...