{"id":2231,"date":"2013-02-07T11:03:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T11:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/theologian-calls-beauty-starting-point-for-faith\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T11:03:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T11:03:00","slug":"theologian-calls-beauty-starting-point-for-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2013\/02\/theologian-calls-beauty-starting-point-for-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Theologian calls beauty ‘starting point’ for faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Denver, Colo., Feb 7, 2013 \/ 04:03 am (CNA<\/a>).- Prominent theologian Dr. Michael Waldstein said that despite the modern world's dismissal of the connection between goodness and truth, the beauty of the natural world and human relationships can lead to faith in God.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cNatural beauty and human love are an important starting point. If you take true beauty seriously, you are a far way toward being open to an even greater love,\u201d Waldstein told CNA on Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

\tA professor of theology at Ave Maria University, Waldstein gave his remarks following an address at Denver's Augustine Institute concerning \u201cFaith, Science and Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg Address.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe said that \u201cglimpsing Christ's beauty and taking it seriously\u201d is a challenge for modern man because of the tendency to see a \u201cdichotomy between faith and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWaldstein\u2019s address began by contrasting two understandings of the word \u201cfaith.\u201d One, he said, is displayed by individuals such as Richard Dawkins and sees faith as \u201cbelief that isn't based on evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tAnother understanding of faith, one more compatible with Christianity, is accepting the testimony of a reliable witness, he said, adding that faith understood in this way is necessary for human existence, and the rejection of it is irrational.<\/p>\n

\tFrancis Bacon, an important figure in the scientific revolution, articulated the principle that \u201chuman knowledge should be for the sake of power over nature,\u201d he continued. That choice led to the reduction of the sphere of knowledge to mere \u201cmechanics\u201d \u2013 mathematics and physics, what can be made.<\/p>\n

\tWith this choice, Waldstein said, \u201cthe good was displaced from reality.\u201d This resulted in a distinction between goodness and beauty \u2013 or values \u2013 on one side, and truth \u2013 or facts \u2013 on the other.<\/p>\n

\tModernity therefore sees science as concerned with objective \u201cfacts,\u201d he explained, while values are viewed as a subjective phenomenon divorced from reality.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cHere you see, I think, why Richard Dawkins cannot but judge anything that's not in the very traditional scientific mode, as being unable to refer to something real,\u201d Waldstein reflected.<\/p>\n

\tThis separation between truth and goodness, he said, means that \u201cunavoidably, values are seen as imposed on you by somebody else. If everything except the mathematical aspects of nature are simply projections, then that projection came from somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWaldstein linked this to two current debates in American culture, namely contraception and the concept of gender.<\/p>\n

\tThe Obama administration's recent contraception mandate requires employers to offer health insurance coverage of contraception and sterilization, even when employers object to supporting their use on moral or religious grounds.<\/p>\n

\tThe dichotomy between truth and goodness \u201cis why it is so difficult in our culture to understand the argument\u201d surrounding contraception and conscience, the scholar said.<\/p>\n

\tWhen truth and goodness are linked together, he explained, then it is possible to have an intrinsic link ordering the conjugal act towards the resultant good of openness to life.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThat is impossible for our contemporaries to understand, because for that ordering to take place, what you have to focus on is the goodness of the act. Because of that goodness, the act, through a nature in itself, has an orientation to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe explained that when facts and values are separated, then people cannot see why contraception is an objective evil.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cBut if goodness is a mere value imposed, then this idea is insensible \u2013 you can't make sense of it. You see it as a religious argument, because any value is going to be a subjective projection into the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWaldstein also explained how the idea of gender, as opposed to sex, represents a worldview in which \u201cour body is a neutral machine with no meaning in itself, but all meaning is projected by us into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cIt follows then that men and women aren't, in virtue of their bodies, men and women. As far as gender is concerned, that is not the realm of fact but of value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cis a consequence of the choice of mechanics as the master science \u2013 the separation between fact and value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWaldstein said that recapturing natural philosophy \u201cplays a central role\u201d in the new evangelization and overcoming the separation of truth and goodness. Natural philosophy's view allows an objective understanding of nature while also keeping goodness and values within the sphere of the objective.<\/p>\n

\tThe scholar told CNA that the encounter between persons is a way to help people think again about nature.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cExpression is such an amazing thing. I look at you, and I see you look, and it's fabulous, it's stupendous.\u201d He said that rather than being a \u201ccomplicated process\u201d of thought and analysis, the encounter of persons can be summed up in this experience: \u201cI see you look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cIn the Gospel of John, in the prologue, when it talks about the Word becoming flesh, it's interesting that the very first effect of that\u2026 is that 'we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,'\u201d he said. \u201cThat's beauty; glory and beauty are very closely related to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWaldstein concluded that \u201cto have a glimpse of that beauty which appears in Christ \u2013 glory, the glory of love, giving himself unreservedly, that, according to John, is the real motive of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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