A few years ago, a dear friend of mine was dying (pancreatic cancer of the worst sort). Visiting her in the hospital sometimes meant she'd be alert and awake for a chat, but often it just meant sitting beside her as she rested. One time she woke up and saw me beside her. She just smiled softly and closed her eyes. I thought she had gone back to sleep, but then she started talking. "I feel like I'm falling," she said. "Like I'm falling and falling and I'm scared of hitting the bottom. But I also feel like the falling is like being held, like there are hands holding me so that I won't hit the bottom, but they're also the hands that keep me falling." I sat there quietly for a few moments, not quite knowing what to say in response, if anything. "I don't want to die," she continued. "I'm scared. I just want to keep falling and being held."
Be careful, reading too much Ratzinger might just bring you across the tiber:)
I have a close friend who's wife is pregnant with a child conceived by IVF.
He and I do not dare discuss the matter as he knows where I stand
I think the IVF debate is almost the perfect test case re mans desires over nature.
On one side you have a man, hands in the air, trying to conceive a child with his wife...the most primordial of volitional acts, the furtherance of the dna, the achievement of the bodily telos of reproduction..and yet his will is circumscribed, seemingly, by fate.
Or is it?
We have designed means by which to "create" or facilitate to a large degree, life creation(in the end the miracle of sperm and egg creating new life of course remains).
What are the consequences of my friend engaging in said pursuit?
Life is hard after all, we have been given a means to ameliorate the difficulties that nature confronts us with.
We build houses to keep out the harshness of the elements, we make babies in test tubes in order to solve another problem we are presented with by the cruel hand of fate.
It is powerful logic, especially when confronted by the reality of the wonderful child that I am sure will transform my friends life in a love hitherto not experienced.
My cousin did the same due to testicular cancer and now has beautiful twins who have been the light of his life.
And yet.
And yet what is forgotten, or obscured when we rush into this mysterious cave with out headlamps on full blast?
I am so grateful that the Church has provided me/us with a different view of these sacred mysteries.
A view of the human person that both acknowledges the sufferings he must endure(infertility etc) and yet is able at the same time to ascribe a dignity, a wholeness to human life that rests upon the great mysterious substrate of reality-the generative love of God.
The thing is, we owe this mystery, we have a duty greater than we have to our earthly parents to understand what we are, what we may do and what we must never do.
I think in the fundament it is that we are not the author of life.
We are not machines of our own making.
That is the beauty of your reflection here Matthew, that if we accept no boundary to our voluntas then we end up as human robots, not human beings.
We abolish ourselves in our search to control.
I give lectures locally ostensibly about happiness(the happiness framing puts butts in the seat) my only project really is to make an argument that things have a nature, that we did not invent this nature but are the kind of things that can discover it(as we share some elements with its creator) and while we have some purview for action within this created order we do not have final purview.
That is reserved for the creator Himself.
Any efforts that can be made at the restoration of a humilitas around such is to be encouraged and welcomed. Your contribution with this series is greatly appreciated. Have a great trip and I look forward to your next musings.
Thanks for this train of thought, Armand. I recently had the privilege of hosting an outstanding essay by Jeff Shaffer on the deeper anthropological significance of assisted reproductive technology: https://mcrawford.substack.com/p/to-whom-do-children-belong
my reaction to it?...a thought crossed my mind about all those people who suddenly started wearing WWJD? wristbands. I used to think it was somewhat silly, only a virtue signaling device and commercialized to boot. but then I began to appreciate that it is helpful in life to pause a moment before acting...in anger, in envy and in many other modes, so I try to internalize a WWJD? moment in my life at moments when I think I might do something I might regret. no bracelet just internalization.
after reading your piece, I reread your line, thinking WWJD "when confronted by the reality of the wonderful child that I am sure will transform my friends life in a love hitherto not experienced." seems to me the answer is clear enough.
Hi Matthew. I sent this piece to Professor Tracey Rowland, who is a member of the International Theological Commission and a member of my faculty (I'm currently Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia). https://www.notredame.edu.au/about-us/faculties-and-schools/school-of-philosophy-and-theology/fremantle/staff/tracey-rowland. She has just replied in the following terms: "Thank you so much for this. I not only enjoyed it but it is directly on the subject of my lecture today at Navarre Uni in Pamplona. I gave a paper on Ratzinger’s genealogy of modernity. I will be able to add a bit to it before publication and will cite Crawford." Kind regards, David
This is really good, Matt. Super perceptive about the diminished role of serendipity and "serendipity talk" in modern life. There's something deeply troubling about this, as is the loss of enchantment in the technophile's world.
belief does not begin where knowledge ends, even though that is your customary parlance, as if "I am not sure but I believe that..."
belief is where my roots are, intellectual, social, aesthetic, emotional etc roots, all intertwined to support me right here, right now, to be as I am, for better or worse.
Thought, technology can never capture the whole (holy)
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
To me this is what Ratzinger is talking about, [T]he act of believing does not belong to the relationship “know-make”, which is typical of the intellectual context of makeability thinking, but is much better expressed in the quite different relationship “stand-understand”.
As Ratzinger states, “affirming that the meaning we do not make but can only receive is already granted to us, so that we have only to take it and entrust ourselves to it.”
Arendt puts another way, man seems possessed by ‘a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself’.
What is most difficult, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
Or as Sauls grandmother says, The universe is a great mystery. Mystery that fills us with awe and wonder. It is the foundation of humility and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel it. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.
It seems to me we can’t unravel good from evil. But we can seek to live in the mystery and cultivate humility
As a footnote to what you quote Ratzinger as saying about the word "Amen" I would add that this word has the same root as "emet", truth, and yes it goes with the image of a rock, as in Deuteronomy 32: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." In the Revelation 3,14 Christ himself is called "the Amen": "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God". All this helps make sense of the last (impressive) quote of this wonderful and thought-provoking piece, or so I would think.
This is my first comment. Pardon my english, which is not my native tongue!
A few years ago, a dear friend of mine was dying (pancreatic cancer of the worst sort). Visiting her in the hospital sometimes meant she'd be alert and awake for a chat, but often it just meant sitting beside her as she rested. One time she woke up and saw me beside her. She just smiled softly and closed her eyes. I thought she had gone back to sleep, but then she started talking. "I feel like I'm falling," she said. "Like I'm falling and falling and I'm scared of hitting the bottom. But I also feel like the falling is like being held, like there are hands holding me so that I won't hit the bottom, but they're also the hands that keep me falling." I sat there quietly for a few moments, not quite knowing what to say in response, if anything. "I don't want to die," she continued. "I'm scared. I just want to keep falling and being held."
Wow, beautiful.
We are all in various stages of dying and of falling, and of being held.
Be careful, reading too much Ratzinger might just bring you across the tiber:)
I have a close friend who's wife is pregnant with a child conceived by IVF.
He and I do not dare discuss the matter as he knows where I stand
I think the IVF debate is almost the perfect test case re mans desires over nature.
On one side you have a man, hands in the air, trying to conceive a child with his wife...the most primordial of volitional acts, the furtherance of the dna, the achievement of the bodily telos of reproduction..and yet his will is circumscribed, seemingly, by fate.
Or is it?
We have designed means by which to "create" or facilitate to a large degree, life creation(in the end the miracle of sperm and egg creating new life of course remains).
What are the consequences of my friend engaging in said pursuit?
Life is hard after all, we have been given a means to ameliorate the difficulties that nature confronts us with.
We build houses to keep out the harshness of the elements, we make babies in test tubes in order to solve another problem we are presented with by the cruel hand of fate.
It is powerful logic, especially when confronted by the reality of the wonderful child that I am sure will transform my friends life in a love hitherto not experienced.
My cousin did the same due to testicular cancer and now has beautiful twins who have been the light of his life.
And yet.
And yet what is forgotten, or obscured when we rush into this mysterious cave with out headlamps on full blast?
I am so grateful that the Church has provided me/us with a different view of these sacred mysteries.
A view of the human person that both acknowledges the sufferings he must endure(infertility etc) and yet is able at the same time to ascribe a dignity, a wholeness to human life that rests upon the great mysterious substrate of reality-the generative love of God.
The thing is, we owe this mystery, we have a duty greater than we have to our earthly parents to understand what we are, what we may do and what we must never do.
I think in the fundament it is that we are not the author of life.
We are not machines of our own making.
That is the beauty of your reflection here Matthew, that if we accept no boundary to our voluntas then we end up as human robots, not human beings.
We abolish ourselves in our search to control.
I give lectures locally ostensibly about happiness(the happiness framing puts butts in the seat) my only project really is to make an argument that things have a nature, that we did not invent this nature but are the kind of things that can discover it(as we share some elements with its creator) and while we have some purview for action within this created order we do not have final purview.
That is reserved for the creator Himself.
Any efforts that can be made at the restoration of a humilitas around such is to be encouraged and welcomed. Your contribution with this series is greatly appreciated. Have a great trip and I look forward to your next musings.
Thanks for this train of thought, Armand. I recently had the privilege of hosting an outstanding essay by Jeff Shaffer on the deeper anthropological significance of assisted reproductive technology: https://mcrawford.substack.com/p/to-whom-do-children-belong
I will check it out.
very thoughtful piece. I appreciate reading it.
my reaction to it?...a thought crossed my mind about all those people who suddenly started wearing WWJD? wristbands. I used to think it was somewhat silly, only a virtue signaling device and commercialized to boot. but then I began to appreciate that it is helpful in life to pause a moment before acting...in anger, in envy and in many other modes, so I try to internalize a WWJD? moment in my life at moments when I think I might do something I might regret. no bracelet just internalization.
after reading your piece, I reread your line, thinking WWJD "when confronted by the reality of the wonderful child that I am sure will transform my friends life in a love hitherto not experienced." seems to me the answer is clear enough.
Hi Matthew. I sent this piece to Professor Tracey Rowland, who is a member of the International Theological Commission and a member of my faculty (I'm currently Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia). https://www.notredame.edu.au/about-us/faculties-and-schools/school-of-philosophy-and-theology/fremantle/staff/tracey-rowland. She has just replied in the following terms: "Thank you so much for this. I not only enjoyed it but it is directly on the subject of my lecture today at Navarre Uni in Pamplona. I gave a paper on Ratzinger’s genealogy of modernity. I will be able to add a bit to it before publication and will cite Crawford." Kind regards, David
Loved this — a beautiful synthesis. Thank you!
I still struggle with the problem of not being able to make myself believe what I don't believe.
On another note, you're moving to Winnipeg? That's ice, mud, and mosquitoes. Those mosquies will fly away with your dog.
Ah. You’ve been there.
This is really good, Matt. Super perceptive about the diminished role of serendipity and "serendipity talk" in modern life. There's something deeply troubling about this, as is the loss of enchantment in the technophile's world.
enjoyed the elaboration of belief.
belief does not begin where knowledge ends, even though that is your customary parlance, as if "I am not sure but I believe that..."
belief is where my roots are, intellectual, social, aesthetic, emotional etc roots, all intertwined to support me right here, right now, to be as I am, for better or worse.
What a magnificent wrap of the series. Thank you.
Thought, technology can never capture the whole (holy)
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
To me this is what Ratzinger is talking about, [T]he act of believing does not belong to the relationship “know-make”, which is typical of the intellectual context of makeability thinking, but is much better expressed in the quite different relationship “stand-understand”.
As Ratzinger states, “affirming that the meaning we do not make but can only receive is already granted to us, so that we have only to take it and entrust ourselves to it.”
Arendt puts another way, man seems possessed by ‘a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself’.
What is most difficult, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
Or as Sauls grandmother says, The universe is a great mystery. Mystery that fills us with awe and wonder. It is the foundation of humility and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel it. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.
It seems to me we can’t unravel good from evil. But we can seek to live in the mystery and cultivate humility
Exceptionally helpful. Good luck with the upheavals, and thank you.
This was so beautifully said. Thank you!
As a footnote to what you quote Ratzinger as saying about the word "Amen" I would add that this word has the same root as "emet", truth, and yes it goes with the image of a rock, as in Deuteronomy 32: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." In the Revelation 3,14 Christ himself is called "the Amen": "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God". All this helps make sense of the last (impressive) quote of this wonderful and thought-provoking piece, or so I would think.
This is my first comment. Pardon my english, which is not my native tongue!
Thx for this engaging series Matthew!
Will the summaries or at least the audio be available for sessions 8 and 9 at some point?
Greatly enjoyed this "heady" seminar. Never hurts to challenge the mind a bit. Good luck with your endeavors. See you on the other side.
https://open.substack.com/pub/graziotto/p/matthew-crawford-lardore-della-fede?r=19nmhx&utm_medium=ios
Roberto has translated this post into Italian. Thank you, Roberto!
It was a pleasure to be in touch with the three of you