Introduction to Christianity is the first book of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI that I have attempted to read. I started out writting a synopsis of my daily readings in order to implant them in my mind. So, here they are...

Monday, October 4, 2010

Section 4 A: The Boundary of the Modern Understanding of Reality and the Place of Belief

Pages 57 -63 

The modern age sees the development of these two thought processes.  Descartes moves us toward pure fact or mathematics, and Vico’s thoughts move toward an exploration of cause and effect or the study of history.  Mathematics and History come to dominate science and History in particular devours the whole field of learning, transforming it fundamentally. Through Hegel and Comte, philosophy becomes a historical question "in which being itself is to be understood as a historical process."  F.C. Baur turns theology into a rigorous search for proof to be found in history and Marx gives economics a historical slant.  Darwin’s classification of living beings is a history of life in which all things descend from one another.

As this movement expands we find that speculation on the metaphysical mind of God as revealed in our being has been replaced with the pursuit of facts which add up to our being as just another fact in the development of the history of all life. 

FACTS:

Here we hit the rube; we can’t know all the facts.  And so we come to the development of Technology.  Here at last we come to the pursuit of truth being centered on the future and action.

No comments:

Post a Comment