“[I]t is no secret that, since the philosophers tossed out the four causes of Aristotle in the seventeenth century, things as such have absented themselves from the mainstream of modern thought, and from respectable intellectual conversation, as though pouting over their unmerited dismissal. In modern times, things seem to have lost their substance in reality, their significance in modern scientific and intellectual discourse, and their credit in modern minds. . . .
“Would I be far wrong were I to suggest that our modern intellectual culture convinces us that we ought not to really believe in things anymore? Or at least, that our intellectual culture discourages such ‘primitive’ belief? I must explain myself. You and I handle things as we make our daily rounds, and we may respond to things with feeling and imagination as we read the poets. We do not think things, that is, with scientific or intellectual rigor. We do not let things enter into the ‘serious’ passes of our minds. . . . As evidence of this, I offer the following reflection. Initiated into modern culture, if we were asked to give a rational account of some thing such as the tree in the garden, I suspect that we would first of all describe a set of colours and shapes, its bark rough or smooth; well enough! But if we were pressed to penetrate more deeply to its ‘real constitution’ in an effort to understand the makeup of the tree and to give a rationally coherent account of it — would not the tree as a thing dissolve into a cloud of particles and processes, of cellular structures and photosyntheses? For we are taught to think that there are particles, waves, and processes governed by systemic laws, but not things.
“Is the tree, then, more than a collection? . . .”
“[I]f we persist in asking for an intellectual account of the tree in terms other than cellular structures and processes, we will have fallen — perhaps unintentionally, even unwillingly — into the pit of metaphysics, unless we have the imagination and good fortune to fall onto the pad of poetry.”
—from Kenneth L. Schmitz, The Recovery of Wonder: The New Freedom and the Asceticism of Power (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005)
Related reading and listening
- A metaphysics of realism, relationality, and personalism — John Milbank gives a survey and critique of the efforts of 20th and 21st century theologians to articulate a Trinitarian ontology that reflects reality and counters secularization. (61 minutes)
- Everything about everything comes from God — Theologian Andrew Davison discusses how the idea of participation informs our understanding of God, of Creation, of being, of knowing, of loving, of law, of economics, etc. (28 minutes)
- Earthly things in relation to heavenly realities — In this lecture, Ken Myers argues that the end of education is to train students to recognize what is really real. The things of this earth are only intelligible in light of heavenly realities. (59 minutes)
- On Earth as it is in Heaven — FROM VOL. 108Hans Boersma — author of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry — explains why Christians should reject the modern separation of Heaven and Earth and recover a “sacramental ontology.” (26 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 158 — FEATURED GUESTS:
David Setran, Vigen Guroian, Michael Dominic Taylor, Thomas Pfau, Jason Paone, and Matthew Levering
- Once there was no “secular” — Carlos Eire on the metaphysical assumptions championed in the sixteenth century
- Faith born of wonder — Theologian Andrew Davison echoes a theme in the work of G. K. Chesterton, describing the work of apologetics as awakening a sense of wonder in the reality of Creation as a beautiful gift. (23 minutes)
- Shrinking sources of causality — David Bentley Hart on the loss of a recognition of inherent meaning in the natural world
- Cosmology without God — Modern science is practiced in the context of beliefs that are intrinsically metaphysical and theological, even though practitioners of science claim (and usually genuinely believe) that their disciplines are philosophically neutral. David Alcalde challenges such claims within a sub-field of astrophysics. (21 minutes)
- The reality that science cannot see — Philosopher Paul Tyson illustrates features of daily life that science cannot “see,” such as love, friendship, justice, and hope, and argues that such things are nonetheless real. (20 minutes)
- Recovering the meaning of reason — James Peters discusses how Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Pascal, and many others understood the nature and purpose of reason quite differently from the common modern understanding. Also, D. C. Schindler explains how consciousness and reason necessarily involve reaching outside of ourselves. (24 minutes)
- Why “Creation” is more than “origins” — In this archive interview from Volume 121 of the Journal, Michael Hanby talks about why we shouldn’t assume that science can ever be philosophically and theologically neutral. (32 minutes)
- James Matthew Wilson: “T. S. Eliot: Culture and Anarchy” — James Matthew Wilson examines T. S. Eliot’s cultural conservatism and religious conversion in light of his intellectual and familial influences. (79 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 143 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Mark Regnerus, Jessica Hooten Wilson, John Henry Crosby, John F. Crosby, Wynand De Beer, and Sørina Higgins
- The essential meaning at the heart of reality — Paul Tyson discusses how the modern preoccupation with doing has distracted us from the meaning of being. To meet the cultural challenges of our moment believers must recovery the ontological richness of the premodern Christian heritage. (21 minutes)
- The mythic song of modernity — In his book Returning to Reality, philosopher Paul Tyson imagines a grand “Song of Modernity.” In it, he captures the triumphant sense of enlightenment characteristic of modern thought. Ken Myers summarizes some of the key themes in Tyson’s book. (17 minutes)
- Not “mere” matter — David Bentley Hart on the spirituality of the material world
- Modernity’s fateful encounter with weird, wayward sisters — Richard Weaver describes the cultural consequences of a decisive metaphysical mistake
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 121 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Daniel Gabelman, Curtis White, Michael Hanby, Alan Jacobs, James K. A. Smith, Bruce Herman, and Walter Hansen
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 115 — FEATURED GUESTS: Arlie Russell Hochschild, Andrew Davison, Adrian Pabst, Gary Colledge, Linda Lewis, and Thomas Bergler
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 103 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven D. Smith, David Thomson, Adam McHugh, Glenn C. Arbery, Eric Miller, and Eric Metaxas
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 51 — FEATURED GUESTS: Nigel Cameron, David Blankenhorn, Robert Wuthnow, Mortimer Adler, Roger Lundin, Dana Gioia, Mary Midgely, and Ted Libbey
