Webinar on the Thought of Richard De Smet
Invitation to Inaugural Webinar through ZOOM Theme: INDIAN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHIZING Thinking Along With and Ahead Richard De Smet Date: 27th Feb, 2023 Time: 11:00 Brazilian time !! (17h30 – 19h30, Indian Standard Time) Presentations: Inaugural Address: (20 minutes) “Birth and Initial Growth of ACPI – Role of Richard De […]
Common Confusions about Saints and Scripture
Along with the undeniable benefits brought to us by modern science and technology, our thinking has also been encumbered by a few intellectual missteps. So much has been attained through the prioritization of mathematics in dealing with the material world, this quantitative, calculating mode of knowledge has dared to intrude into areas it […]
Translation: The Only Sacred Language of the Church
Over 35 years ago, I wrote an essay on the importance of the Latin language as cultivated in the Middle Ages (more recently republished here). I still hold the views I presented in that article. They highlighted the purpose a classical, canonical language can serve in maintaining minimal normative formulations of philosophical and theological truth. I […]
The Nestorian Stele
After making my way from Beijing, Mount Tai, Qufu and Harbin in the east of China, I took a plane to one of the country’s former capitals, Xi’an. This was home to the massive translation project which taught Buddhism the Chinese language. That was in the mid-centuries of the first millennium A.D. I had come […]
Amor e união – apenas sinônimos?
Há uns 40 anos passei duas horas conversando em Kalady, Índia, com esse monge da Missão Ramakrishna. Eu havia estado doente por seis semanas antes desse encontro, de modo que estava mais magro e pálido que o usual. O monge era amável e muito disposto a conversar. Então, durante o chá, discutimos os méritos comparativos […]
The Past – behind us temporally, around us spatially
In a world that glorifies the future, treasures progress and tends to look down its nose at the past, we are presented with a literally astronomical paradox. Since the Age of Discovery and its disclosure of ancient cultures, along with the revelations of archaeology and paleontology in the last 200 years, knowledge of our chronological […]
O passado – atrás de nós no tempo, em volta de nós no espaço
Em um mundo que glorifica o futuro, que valoriza o progresso e que tem a tendência de desprezar o que veio antes, existe um paradoxo literalmente astronômico. Desde as viagens de descoberta a partir do século XV, e as revelações da arqueologia e paleontologia dos últimos dois séculos, o conhecimento do nosso passado cronológico tem […]
The Faux Humility of Arrogant Scientism
Carl Sagan (1934-96) Humility is easily the most basic of the virtues, as charity is the highest. They are similar, however, in one thing. Both must display their acts with a self-forgetfulness and spontaneity that is spoiled by any semblance of design. The words “I love you” ring hollow unless they emerge from the mouth […]
Things We Cannot Learn from the James Webb Telescope
For two of my adolescent years I was convinced I would become an astronomer. I even saved up over 200 dollars to buy a reflector telescope. Although other intrusive events of the 1960s soon diverted my attention – I ended up using the money to buy a guitar – I have remained a keen amateur […]
A vida e o tema de G.K. Chesterton
Versão portuguesa da minha Introdução à edição inglesa da Autobiografia de G.K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press, 1988; 2ª ed. 2006): A vida e o tema de G.K. Chesterton