Sublime

Psalm 14 shows up in Paul’s letter to the Romans. David and Paul both say humans aren’t good people; we have nothing to offer God.

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The other chief commitment of secular people is to compassion. Secular ethics relies not on obeying the edicts of this or that god, but rather on a deep appreciation of suffering. For example, secular people abstain from murder not because some ancient book forbids it but because killing inflicts immense suffering on sentient beings. There is somet

You don’t have to be religious to know that murder, cruelty, theft and violent crime are wrong.

Augustine is our contemporary. He has directly and indirectly shaped the way we understand our pursuits, the call to authenticity.

We look at every child as a miracle and a fresh creation from God. We rejoice in the passion of a lover as a creation of God. We cherish the love of our family and are reminded all the time that God, as creator and miracle worker, rewards us with all good things—not for anything we have done or not done but because of God’s unavoidable nature of gi

Don’t worry, be happy. As modern people we have chosen Montaigne over Augustine. We traded pious self-cultivation for undemanding self-esteem. But is love of self really enough to be happy? You know the answer to that, dear reader. And so did Augustine.

The virtue and wisdom produced through the proper operation of our faculties are properties we acquire and lose depending on the exercise of our free will. It is consequently not our nature to be virtuous or wise in the way it is our nature to be rational or alive.