Monday, May 16, 2011

Absence of a meaningful cosmos becomes an absence of meaning itself

It is worth reflecting (as is not always done) that... if mankind had to choose between a universe that ignored him and one that noticed him to do him harm, it might well choose the second. Our own age need not begin congratulating itself on its freedom from superstition till it defeats a more dangerous temptation to despair.
E.M.W. Tillyard discussing the place of superstition in Elizabethan England, from "The Elizabethan World Picture" 

In spending time with both the scriptures and contemporary church life, I continue to find that while our current cosmology may be scientifically "correct" (whatever that really means, as we continually learn that previous understandings were erroneous), the great vacuum of space has left a similar vacuum of meaning and substance in post-modern life. Various "revival movements" come and go, but as long as we take our cue from the current cosmology, we will lack both vision and holiness as a people and as disciples. This is, perhaps, the great challenge for coming generations of Western Christians: choosing the radiant holiness and beauty of relationality in the Holy Trinity, or the isolation and despair of a meaningless and random universe.

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