Sublime

All his writings are imbued by a quintessentially ‘Greek’ optimism regarding the dignity and divine destiny of the human being.

You might think of Augustine as offering a hitchhiker’s guide to the cosmos for wandering hearts.

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The tears of Peter were therefore indicative of a profound shift in moral imagination and sensibility. Something had become visible that had formerly been hidden from sight. For Christian thought, God had chosen to reveal himself among the least of men and women, and to exalt them to the dignity of his own sons and daughters. And, as a consequence,

from the troubles of life in a way that only God can.

But we must not set compassion and justice in opposition to one another. Compassion needs moral guidelines; without the ingredient of justice it is bound to go astray.

Because God is above nature, we—through our capacity for self-consciousness, imagination and choice—are capable of rising above our nature, brutal and aggressive though it often is.

Secular reason, all by itself, cannot give us a basis for “sacrifice, redemption, and forgiveness,” as Paul Kalanithi concluded in his final months.

“The nature of man is ennobled with his rather than its own excellences, when it is found to have ought (sic) that is noble . . . For ‘what have you that you did not receive’ [1 Cor 4:7]? For together with being, the well-being, after such and such wise, is God’s gift to the creature and it has nothing of its own, but becomes rich only with the mun