There is a statement in Father Pierre Teilhard’s spiritual masterpiece “The Divine Milieu: An Essay on the Interior Life” (Harper & Brothers, 1960) that seems to me to be especially important today. Teilhard is writing about the contribution that those who are often described as “unbelievers” might be making to the sanctification of the world. I believe that the Holy Spirit is operative in every person’s life and that it is quite possible that someone who does not believe in the Holy Spirit might be engaged in actions that amount to cooperating with the Spirit’s presence.
Arts and Culture
Fr. Robert Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University and the author of “Pope Francis’ Spirituality and Our Story” (Resurrection Press).
A Cosmic Eucharist
John Haught’s vision of evolution calls us to deepen our view of evolution and to see it as a drama that has been happening for billions of years. I find this view of evolution both awesome and exciting.
Truth, Freedom and Drama
Reading Haught’s book I had a strange experience. For both philosophers and theologians, and indeed for everyone I have ever heard discuss or write about the topic, the mystery of why an all-loving God, indeed a God Who is Love, allows so much suffering seems to be too great a mystery for any human mind to comprehend completely.
The Drama of Evolution
In his insightful and provocative book “Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life” (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 163) John Haught argues that if evolution is studied over the billions of years that it has been taking place, what can be discerned is that there is a narrative or story to evolution.
The Drama of Evolution
I am amazed that even today many people believe that science and theology contradict one another. I am also amazed at the number of people who believe that to know some reality in the best and most profound way is to know it scientifically. To know a reality scientifically is wonderful but it is also wonderful to know a reality philosophically, theologically, or poetically.
Natural and Supernatural
For much of my life I thought I lived in a kind of a “two level universe.” There was the supernatural world and there was the natural world. They were separate. For me the supernatural world included the Eucharist and the other sacraments, sanctifying and actual grace, heaven, hell, purgatory, the bible and other “spiritual books.”
Divine Providence
One of the most encouraging truths of Christian faith is that God is providential. We are never alone. God accompanies us on every step that we take. I find the truth that God is providential, that God is leading history and each one of us to a deeper relationship with God, is one of the most consoling Christian doctrines but also one of the most mysterious.
To Exist Is to Co-Exist
I have come to believe that on every level of being a human person we co-exist with other human persons.
A Great Teacher
During the pandemic I have frequently looked through my bookcase. Finding Cooke’s book, which I had not looked at from the time I first read it, probably 40 years ago, seemed like a special grace. It was like meeting an old friend.
Misreading Religious Literature
As I was reflecting on how to end this series of columns in which I have tried to use the novels and essays of Walker Percy (1916-1990) to provoke thought about the mystery of the human person, I spotted in my bookcase a book that I had read and enjoyed many years ago. It was Ralph McInerny’s “Some Catholic Writers” (St. Augustine’s Press, 2007).