Great. This is timely for me as I ache over what is to be done about a lack of curiosity, or wonder, awe. We can slip into well trodden polemics about the distractions of the modern world (which I often do), but I tend to think this has come downstream from an earlier malaise, also well trodden in the meaning crisis discussion. That malaise stems from the primacy we place on productivity and the world of material things; our reductive materialism, markets, etc. St Paul says he puts away childish things, but the contemporary ear now also puts transcendent things, the things of God into the kiddies cabinet too. Not sure if you’ll agree there Sam? But that’s essentially my experience when endeavouring to talk to my old friends about God. I try and rack my brain as to how we may persuade our society to ponder again on the transcendent, on Christ and, I suppose I’m taking great comfort in what He is saying here. As always, genius in its apparent simplicity. I guess the Tolkien stuff is an appeal to wonder and awe via narrative and mythos. Strange that so many are painfully unaware of that longing for more than “this” in that kind of fandom. Many Conservative types like to rail against the infantilism of the current generation(s), yet in a strange way Christ could be seen as asking us to go deeper with that rather than rail against it. All the way down to toddler level. I’m thinking of my own child staring at the moon. Perhaps there, paradoxically, we shall find that gates to the Kingdom again?

@samuelglenn123

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for this Oliver. Yeah it’s an interesting one - Dawkins particularly would frame theistic belief as ‘childish’. I remember Dawkins’ message being that our culture needs to ‘grow up’ and that we have taken steps in that direction with rationalism and the scientific revolution. The St Paul quotation you mention seems to conflict with Matt 18:3 I was referencing here. So that’s something to ponder. Regarding speaking about God to “secularists” - I think that is simply a matter of calling attention to the metaphysical assumptions underlying their worldview (ie, that there is a truth and it is worth pursuing etc). Clark’s “From Athens to Jerusalem” is really quite brilliant on this point.