This from Elements of Faith, by Christos Yannaras:
“The history of western man is a dialectic of submission and rebellion, where rebellion means in each case the choice of a different authority, consequently of a new submission, while the goal remains always the same — individual security, the protection of individual certainty about the truth to be believed.”
And now this from Edward Tingley’s very fine piece in June’s Touchstone magazine:
“Ask any sensible person if it is possible that God exists, does not present himself to us by way of material evidence, and yet seeks our acknowledgement on some other basis, one in which we are deeply invested. Could there be a God who does not want to be known the way the facts of nature are known or sums are known? The rational person will say: ‘Yes, it is possible’…
We are told we should face the facts. Well here they are: The only world in which strictly empirical evidence is the road that we should take in our views about God is a world in which God either shows himself by such evidence or simply does not exist. Those are the options that the agnostic and the atheist like, and it is because they like them that they never pay any attention to the further fact that accompanies these: God might await us down another road. There are three options, not two.”
Both suggest that Modern, Scientific Man may be using the wrong instrument, assuming he is really looking at all. Which brings to mind St. Paul’s words: “Professing to be wise, they became fools…”
