Books Every Catholic Should Read - Dr Peter Kreeft

good evening everybody and welcome to fourth week in human society talk we're absolutely delighted this evening to welcome dr. Peter Kreeft one of the unforeseen benefits of the online human society now I think for most of you he's written roughly as many books as professor of philosophy at Boston College and he'll be speaking to us today thank you well thank you for that very short introduction I find that talks are usually boring and question answer sessions are usually interesting so I will try to shorten your purgatory with the most boring thing of all is introductions so thank you for a very short very very favorite introduction of all time was for an American TV shows Johnny Carson show it was here's Johnny two words books every Catholic should read well let me see now the usual form that question is put in is if you were plonked on a desert island and knew you had to be there for the rest of your life he signs the Bible what book would you want if you can only have one and I think I would answer how to build a boat that's not your situation even though we're relatively imprisoned with pirates were still white on an island oh I will the question directly let's start with 70 Q answers book to the Bible is a library virtual library it is of course inexhaustible the greatest theologian has ever plumbed its depth and not they various beginner has missed everything in it the obvious on the surface and incredibly deep its deaths it's like the ocean and if you were to pick just two of the books of the Bible I would pick the Psalms in the Old Testament because that's God's own prayer book that he inspired for us and then when the Jesus and the Apostles you this and that is kind of magical it grows on you it does something for you at first it seems rather unimpressive and rather primitive and you think unconsciously I could have written a better one and then you realize you couldn't possibly have it works that kind of a fire you'll like sails and in the New Testament certainly the Gospels and of the Gospels John's Gospel is the profoundest and the deepest so I would pick that in fact I wrote a book called probes which lists of over a thousand questions about God's gospel and that just surface beyond the Bible though what they're books what what let's start with fiction and then let's go to philosophy in theology well I think the greatest novel had written and probably the most profoundly Catholic is nasty-ass kiss off whenever I teach philosophy and literature I include that and students are always it's one of the it's messy who any names it violates many of the rules the author interrupts himself and talk to you and it is not a kind of finished final polished product like the novels of Tolstoy and yet it is life itself it is a volcano it will stretch your spirit out in the directions more than you can endure both into heaven and into hell and you'll see that in yourself and you'll see all these strange characters all characters are strange by the way dusty if he seems to be incapable of a boring character you will see them all yourself which is the key to a good novel both writing it and reading it also includes I think the profoundest and most moving argument for atheism I have in Carolina one of the brothers is a moral atheist rather like Albert Camus as regular reasons for atheism he's wrong and at the end of the book he seems to go almost insane but dusty esky writes in his notes that he was planning to have him be the hero of the next novel that interrupted so it's almost as if Dostoyevsky is inviting you to write Brothers Karamazov to centers on this servant 8 but Ivan's arguments for atheism are passionately moral and passionately honest and if your faith is weak don't read it it's interesting that the most sympathetic villains or anti characters or anti protagonists from a Christian point of view are almost always the the ones who are are wrong rather than the ones who are right when I teach philosophy religion or apologetic I often make this little firm they say we're going to argue today about existence of God can you prove it or can't you and I divide the class into into two halves and usually about half of them say yes there's good reasons for believing that God exists and I think we can prove it and the other half says either no you can't prove it yet skeptic or an atheist I think the prove it is no I divide them into those two halves and I have all the atheists argue for theism and I have all the things to argue for atheism and they have first protest and I say well how can you possibly argue and let you see the other side and they that the argument goes on I know this maybe half a dozen times every single time the same thing happens if real fierce where are green for atheism do a very very good guy probably better than the atheists could argue for themselves the atheists who are arguing for theism do a horrible job any theist could do a better job so we all agree that the fake atheist one that he made against the ZigBee and then I asked why and the really this who arguing for theism table you can bet you made us argue for the weaker Santa Clause just said no as we see both size and they don't and then we argue about that the real argument but that always happens it takes a great believer to understand and sympathize with a theist just usually after the other way around and dusty if he does that the protagonist the hero of OSHA is a saint ain't in the making a young and inexperienced and imperfect st. and both movie versions of this great novel the American one and the Russian one totally and radically misunderstand on the ocean the American ruin which is an embarrassment makes him out to be less even than Prince Myshkin and the idiot nice fool and the Russian one which was done under communism makes him out to be as pathetic as you sta see his little thirty says that he is his hero and he is a robust and honest and passionate the interaction among the characters and the dialogues among the characters are I think unsurpassed in normal human literature well that would be my hand eight for the greatest novel classified multi Lord of the Rings as a novel I classify and in the millennial year 2000 there were four polls taken of leaders one started with you know with water stones the in England as polled English readers and the polls came out with result that said possible namely the Lord of the Rings is the greatest book of the 20th century so they expanded the poll to a worldwide poll and again brings won by a wide margin so they changed the question what is the greatest book of the last millennium and again the Lord of the Rings came out number one the fourth poll I think was worldwide and included translations or languages and again almost every country in the world said this is the greatest book so I would say give it a try even if you don't like the genre but not everybody fantasy is not everyone's coming no a number of very wise people who say they don't like anything and therefore they don't enjoy reading it so that's a personal taste not everybody likes tea some of us prefer but there are great ease and and this is certainly the range or what reason well oh it's real it's true it's the way things are and healed you it delivers you from illusions the real fantasy you'll find after you've been in the Lord of the Rings for a while and you close the book the real fantasy is the world outside the covers of the book world of political headlines and coronaviruses and the rest of the and then when you return to the book you say ah finally this is the real world remember the first time I discovered the book I didn't like it I only read maybe 30 or 40 pages and I said well this is nice but I'm not that interested in hobbits and he's a good writer but I don't understand what everybody's getting excited about and I put it down and didn't pick it up again for another five years or so and all my friends were thinking this is a great book so I picked it up again and I lost I think three meals in one night sleep I had to finish all three volumes and you look like wonderful addiction there was one twelve-year-old girl well and she read The Lord of the Rings couldn't stop weeping for a whole day and her mother thought she was seriously mentally ill it was bad you're taking with a psychiatrist when the girl said mother you don't understand it's because I'm so happy that I'm weeping this book is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen how many books have readers better that I must have read throw the Rings at least a dozen times he doesn't have two dozen and I get something more out of it every time I've used this image before it's like the scene not only it's full and deep but the you have to go back to it not all of us are see addict I am and I in that every couple of months or so I say why am I getting antsy and the answer is I haven't been missing I haven't found my favorite rock and wash waves for a few hours and gotten pain and that's how I feel about the Lord the race when I go back to that I get into myth but it's a flight to Rio rather than a flight from Maui well there are my two favorite long books couple short ones since we're talking about fiction I didn't prepare this that's was providential what I was going to deal with another topic and I'm glad to deal with this one but this is totally off the top of my head I would certainly say you should read the greatest play ever written which is certainly am it but you go into Bartlett's familiar quotations you'll find that there are more familiar quotations from Hamlet than from the other book ever written except the Bible even though it's a very short play the critics are still uncertain and in unmitigated disagreement about the meaning of it which is strange because if this is indeed a masterpiece how come everybody see something different that's precisely print oh really because what a masterpiece is all right let's see greatest poem for written leave myself questions I don't even know that I can answer oh it's got to be the Divine Comedy but that's not everybody's cup of tea either and I must confess that I like cheating as long as it's not immoral and the best way to cheat on reading Dante is to read since Louis is the Great War which is the Divine Comedy in miniature in less than a hundred pages but very much up-to-date all those little enemies that they had are not there you know the historical references that you don't quite understand or not there and the long Italian rhetoric is not there I've seen that book put on as a play on four different occasions who for different audiences once was an audience executor once was it always a Catholic one that was mixed once they had scenery one that was a barricade but all four time they were totally faithful book and I have never seen Rory in so transfixed the Peter I'm very tense to go to the reaction I know when they're bored and how bored they are my audible signs or the visible time if there's noise in the classroom and there's whispering and papers are shuffling I know that I'm totally boring if there's an ordinary amount of a little bit of noise I say well that's okay and if they suddenly become quite silent and you don't hear any shuffling you know that you've made a point and then maybe maybe once a year you'll make a point that is so startling that you won't hear breathing literally well a couple times I've seen that in an audience in or only in two or three movies ended in The Passion of the Christ I've seen it in the Alec Guinness movie The Prisoner the torture of pardon limits nd and I saw it in dead man walking movie about execution but very rare I thought three or four times in the audience of play great its masterpiece it's comedy a follow Bowl form another play and movie that I would highly recommend is judgment at Nuremburg it's not only good drama and good characterization but it's utterly up to date because it's a very powerful defense of what usually called natural law morality poses a question how could a whole advanced civilizations apart from that that it's people could not confess their guilt and let's see more book almost anything by Caesar who says that is a mask many of the things but not all the things by GK Chesterton there was an absolute genius like Johann Sebastian Bach he wrote too much so some of it is not it certainly is pre greatest masterpiece I think one of them being a novel man was Thursday is a supernatural fantasy about the problem of evil that were together another one is an orthodoxy is a summary of his philosophy which is utterly unorthodox he turned you on your head and makes you realize that you were upside down to begin with and the third one is the everlasting man which was the one book that most converted CIA thoughts so it's the the role of Christ in history intellectual history well now we're getting into philosophy and theology I would that the two books that every Catholic should read here are certainly the two greatest masterpieces of of Kappa hotter than theology one being the confession to say to Dustin and the other being Zima Theologica that's acquainted everyone loves the confessions the first time I taught a whole course on confession I thought that I might have to do with pills let's pitch to the students and I might have to end the course with something exactly the opposite the students were so into it that they persuaded me not to guess but let the right journals their reaction to the convention and I trusted them and I let them do it and every single journal was at least 100 pages long some of them were more than 200 I could meet one saint in heaven and have a long dinner conversation take over because he's the complete human being head and heart medieval statuary always has him extending two hands and in one you can see a burning heart passion and spiritual physical passion and in the other he see an open book and there have been thinkers who were more brilliant than Agustin not too many they only won the Aquinas and there have been thinkers whose heart was was was wrinkled found or maybe dusty have schemes but their thought wasn't that clear but Agustin's late and fire go together as nobody else in history and the confessions is the archetypal conversion story even though it was written 1500 years ago utterly up to date utterly modern he's not a man of his time using man Carosi kind of intro please another great play an even greater movie my hand today for the next greatest movie ever made back if you want the story of a saint a modern saint a relevant saint royalty the best movie I've ever seen frankly I find most classic movies and most graphic novels rather embarrassingly bad ones fundamentalist sadly the first prize there please don't read Tim LaHaye or Frank for Eddie there they're astonishingly net but it's very hard very difficult make a convincing movie about a saint easier to make you can sing without a center modern fiction is full of great villains very rarely euros the things that tolki does well is give us heroes as well as villains alright the confessions of San Agustin I've never read a book the translation of which made more of a difference than the conventions I've been reading it in college saying this is a great book but the language it's so dead and wooden and I realized that the translators name was pine coffin serves his name but the translation by Frank she'd was sort of the British or the American rather full machine for one is Lois peg she'd has done an amazing job translating the confessions into English it is poetic it sings it is a eagle and it's clear in time oh if you read the infections get Frank cheating please the Summa Theologica is much more clear and much more practical and much more useful than most people think yes it's a genius and yes it's four thousand pages long and yes he gives you elaborate abstract arguments but he's utterly clear all you have to do is masters terminology technical and but to do that one language is almost the easiest of philosophers to read I wrote two anthologies of Aquinas one Kazuma is the main philosophical passages of aimed and edited and put noted but I thought this would go beyond the heads of both people and so spectacularly well surprisingly and almost everybody says you made an understandable on the other one called practical theology is an anthology of Aquinas is practical spiritual he's a great Saint as well as a great theologian and there's some one thing I think it's not just a theoretical work it's a great that I use it for devotional reading and I find it better than direct and over a third masterpiece of Christian philosophy much more contemporary I think is counts Ponce's when I teach the history of philosophy theology great book course this is always a book that students say is the most relevant the most life-changing the most grateful they are for for making the braided not a book it's a series of notes about a thousand of them which Pascal wrote to assemble into a book which was going to have a live Lord or a book of medics and God in His mercy struck past I'm dead before he could spite that he could spoil the book by arranging it in in an artificial order so these are our notes for a book that you have to assemble but the notes are like pearl sometimes raw pearls are more beautiful before you bring down on the spring Pascal by the way wrote that book when he knew he was going to die at the age of 39 and he had a rather large there's library and gave it all away except two books and the two these two books that influenced upon say what was the Bible the other was against this confession how about books that are written by contemporary well there's not too many that I'd recommend I don't know why but the great age of ethic writers mainly but the first half of the 20th century and here we are on the other side of the 60s how are other the books that we write today though very useful and there's some very good writers don't quite come up to Tokina and lewis engine so what else would I have for 30 minutes and I have about within minutes left that's just time enough for one more let me try to pull on those that are down there and my unconscious mind rise myself election hmm well as a teacher and as a Aksumite professor I think the most revolutionary book about education that I've ever read is onion renew means the idea of the University and if you want to create a truly Catholic University that's where you start and that will get you into Newman who is probably the greatest Catholic mind of the 19th century well that's enough I hope that your question will elicit many more inter purgatory is over you know into heaven questions I just had a question because I've started reading some Flannery O'Connor and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on sort of ugliness and like evil in Catholic literature and like what what's its place in like how does it I don't know because I mean the impression I get is that most Catholic authors when when there is this much ugliness and they're writing it sort of written almost lovingly like it doesn't have the final word I think Cormac McCarthy is an excellent example of ugliness well used like the road is a depressing novel but you'll never forget it Sunset Limited masterpiece little play the way dialogue about the meaning of life between out an outer and new was my professor masterpiece writers are I think so concrete and so sympathetic to sinners and enough to recognize themselves as sinners and do a good job the training centers Brian Greene comes to mind not perfect and some small faces even somebody like dick Joyce writes well and you can see even his his love-hate relationship with with the mind but the question of why Catholics tend to write about is that we we take very seriously the problem of evil if you don't you can't take seriously the problem of evil I mean without a firm graph that's but the bad news the good news isn't very good they're like if people ever see some of America Ned Flanders on the sentence who kind of action was nice sweater we take evil seriously and we're not afraid of it we also take objections and and atheist an opponent is why we we do wise things like way to Summa Theologica and foolish things like have an inquisition Thank You Ricardo wants to know how can the great books help us grow about you first of all because they'll make you a better reader and that makes you a better thinker and that gives you intellectual virtues all right found eight new the moral virtues if you read a good book in a good way you develop humility honesty and these are all intellectual and moral virtues together leave the great books are great because they present human nature they they hold a mirror up to your own nature all the aspect of it and without a firm grasp of the thing that God created even in its full-on state without a firm grasp of that you have nothing else which is why soccer he started with with the know thyself and never really got beyond it neasha wants to know on how should catholics approach books which may be inimical to our faith but have significantly shaped the modern context well in the same way i think in a milder form as you would approach an extreme example of that take hitler's mind comes faithful and destructive books ever written very useful to see that as when you see something in its extreme form you learn to recognize it more readily in its less extreme form your faith is firmly grounded you will have the discernment distinguish whatever is good from whatever is bad in there's nothing that god made I think that we make that you can't learn something from in the greatest of evil you can always find some glimmers of good because evil is good perverted and you can always find the version behind the pervert Joseph wants to know deeper well depends on what kind of a laugh I want if I want a horse laugh what else if I want a smile and having studying in court translation I'm acutely aware of how much is lost there can also be gained through translation as everything involves a choice such the richness of language imagery character etc can be weakened / watered down change depending on the translators choice can you comment on reading in the original verses translation it takes immense effort on the part of anyone who isn't predisposed to and enormous ly equipped to learn new languages learning a whole language well enough to read a book in it takes a lot of time but it's worth it the culture is worth it obviously Greek and Latin and modern cultures Russian French German you don't know how much it's worth until you go through that experience you don't understand your own language except through understanding foreign language as you appreciate one gender only through the lens of the other if everything sounds like English you don't really understand the Englishness of English so it's almost always worth the effort yes yes thank you umm and it asks do you think we can hope that the works of the great thinkers at Catholic philosophy will ever be matched or surpassed in their greatness by the eh if you mean by our own age the culture that we now inhabit without a fundamental transformation my depressing answer is no you if you're asking whether it's possible that the race will still be alive on this planet a thousand years from now and learn from our current errors and progress as far beyond us as we've progressed in the last thousand years I say hopefully yes and if you ask me whether I think there will be in heaven that kind of progress and that kind of superior education and those superior great book oh yes I think there will be books in heaven because in the beginning was the word how adults know to turn the question rod on its head are there any books that you suggest Catholics no but warning labels may be good book should have warning labels on people who would be upset by the way final don't have warning labels this this apparently commotion is full of storms and you should have a life jacket on for waiting into the line of books that are time wasted unfortunately we don't know whether it was worth reading until we spend time in reading it until you treat a book as if it's worth reading you can't discover that it is or that it isn't so just take the advice of not just your contemporaries but of history which winnows out the not-so-great books and keeps the great book there is a a fairly universal agreement about the Canon of gradebook obviously you want to read the dialog later obviously want to read our style ethics and agustin confession and the city and boethius's consolation of philosophy and even great little classics like Oh aunt Olivia much more than just the argument so the number of books that reward rereading is so significant that it's almost always better to read a great book two or three times then do we need a average book once and there are so many below average books that are they worth CFOs was once asked whether he would have in heaven his whole library on earth and a large library and he both everything and he replied no I think I'll probably have only those books that I let out on earth and never got back a large heavenly library and your book that Christian asks what is the one thing such issue you think Catholic writers today should be writing about I don't want to answer that question because I don't think any of their mind is capable of answering that for you what you see as the problem there are many of them is what God has inspired your mind to see as the problem and you see that in an angle which I don't I think intellectually as well as morally all of us have a peculiar insight that we have to share with others and all of us have a blind spot after I never met anybody who wasn't severely handicapped in some area and wonderfully equipped in another area for instance I'm I'm pretty good I think at reading books and I'm horrible are using computers no we're so different that there's no possible universal answer that way I would like to see it Becky once she says a slight tangent might you comment on how Catholics can best engage with our Protestant brothers and sisters and how might great literature play a role in our engagements along another that's a large question so I'll just give you the central answer the more you are in love with Jesus Christ and the more you are totally dedicated to that love and to that service or you will understand Protestant separated brethren and the more they will understand you more you look to the baton of the conductor the more the instrument you're playing will harmonize with the instrument others are playing in his orchestra on a related note Adelita writes what book would you first recommend to someone that's just starting to be interested in the Catholic Church that's the official dated oh I think we should take a scientific attitude in the sense that or theories and hypotheses based on data and concerning divine revelation there is the official summary of melancholy is not a problem that has a solution I haven't has a problem he has an intellectual problem he's uncertain or the goats from heaven or hell and whether he should obey apparently the voice of his father and he has a moral problem and the assumption of which is that and his and in fact the fundamental theme of the it's this is the secret is that so James James asks what classical texts would you recommend Catholics read classical fare well obviously the Iliad and the Odyssey obviously the dialogues of Plato ology the Phaedo Republic this compose iam the Gorgon yes Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics and his politics is what early practical and his poetics not unfortunately his metaphysics or physics are well as lectures edited by students therefore they yes oh you were a teacher you would rephrase it in karidian by Epictetus on the nature of things by her agent and among Latin classics fortunately we have a lot of medieval Catholic I think taken classic maybe my Latin just isn't good enough but even though the Aeneid is a classic and a great book I never got into it that but there's more about me than did I think this hero comes across wonderfully well Cicero's Republic is a wonderfully practical book if by classics you mean just Greek and Roman fine you expand a little more into other cultures I would say the Icelandic Eddas break myths the NIEM illuminate I've been Augean the Welsh myths beyond that are in classics well that's just great I suppose you meant by classics has an excellent essay called on the reading of old books it's a good argument for the superiority of old books overdue books yeah they make mistakes like the new book to do but they're not the same mistakes as we do so we learned more from ooh now I must you're not a priest I'm not in confession but I must confess that first the first book that came to my mind is the one that I just finished I called symbol or substance is a trial log between j.r.r tolkien CS Lewis and Billy gray among the Eucharist not the best book ever written on the Eucharist that's the interesting best book on the Eucharist you know I don't have an immediate answer to that question there are some good ones by the stage Thomas Merton with a pretty good one other Benedict Groeschel wrote a good anthology of spiritual interest the universe is absolutely essential now why is it this is a good question why is it that no obviously great book seems to have been written on the Eucharist there are certainly great books on prayer the certainly great books on mystical experience there are certainly great books on divine confidence certainly great books on Catholic morality why not on the Eucharist that's the most amazing thing the thing standing miracle that God works the means of times a day on every Catholic older in the world well the only answer is because you haven't written one yet so go ahead um inorder asks what are your thoughts on some of the books written by the fall of popes any examples that are especially close to your heart written by home for Pope's always Phillip Fulmer Pope's on former Pope's oh oh well obviously obviously Gregory the Great and obviously John Paul the great he's tough slogging he's a philosopher that's one thing against then he's a phenomenologist phenomenal is just a very honest but they're very careful but they're worth it theology the body I think is a masterpiece and it's over George widel is the official biographer says it is namely a theological time bomb that to go off pretty soon as soon as everybody discovers it they jerked his definitive answer to be classical modern era say for sexual revolution but the books by Christopher West summarized the theology of the body in accessible terms are easier to read is a tremendous teacher resinous what's to know you have spoken quite adequate Mian overtly Christian works of literature the Catholic Church has always been appreciative of here the writings which is do you think is the greatest and most profitable for Catholics to read what is the contrast between what kind of literature and what works my secular writers well let's start with aggressively secular writers I think Albert Camus is an excellent writer and a very honest atheist and you can learn a lot from from just to learn a lot that sounds as if you're solving a puzzle or gathering data you couldn't you can derive in that's insight from my favorite is the plague that's here here you have a character who is a genuine saint a room a Christian Saint in fact though he's not a Christian like he's an atheist and he agonizes over that the fact that there is no God and clearly the meaning of life is to be a saint and it's impossible you think without God and one of those three propositions has to be false and neither Camus nor dr. root ever came out with the solution to that believe any one of the that's that's a very good in theory yes Emmett what starsk there's no doubt that involvement in academia has expanded greatly from the universities century do you think modern academic structures have supported or restrained production of truly great texts Oh restraint of course we're expected to be impactful prostitutes and to have status Envy and to help our university rise in the ratings by having our nose in a book in the library 20 hours a day and do research writing papers that nobody reads in order to get prestige no I think even even the structuring of universities in departments and into classrooms this is my farm is good I think if Socrates came back and and visited the modern University oh good you still have fossa me here you all do it and the answer was well no we do it in the philosophy department you have a love Department I think I think the university is due for a fundamental writing radically new so many of the greatest thinkers you know like Vincent wants to know what do you think is a place of spiritual such ethical works of non Catholics and Protestants like CSIS and classical artists in Catholics there's a lot of very good non Catholics first of all why are there an end and even in in other world religions Buddhist Dhammapada is wonderful psychology dudes down cage Inc is well I just finished reading a book by higher mark demoscene many stories to claims I think correctly that no pagan ever understood Jesus more clearly than in diversity unless you hate civilization you're not so earlier in life hmm well yes yes a very good book a great book a very good book my a very good Catholic writer world knocks belief is Catholic pushed me finally into the church at the age of 21 if I hadn't read that a lot earlier a couple of years earlier I would have very well and I discovered the love of my life earlier and avoided wasting a lot of time it's both way which I had you know I'm not into political hate speech or pornography or anything like that okay Elijah what's known he says thank you for this fascinating talk never before have had so many writers and so many tools to diffuse works sorry never before have so many writers and so many tools to diffuse works and ideas in our societies as we do today you seem to hold a generally negative view of our present thought and I still Andean quantity tend to move inverse inverse proportion and that's a truism of economics more money you have the cheaper it is I think the same is true of books Allman said in Ecclesiastes of the making of many books there is no end and what study is aware is see if Ecclesiastes I an academic theologian actually well vacationed in the Maine woods and he met a hermit at the general store who came out of the woods only once or twice a year and he conversed with this old hermit for hours and found that he had a wisdom that he had never encountered before and he asked hermit where did you get your wisdom and the hermit pulled a little copy of book of Ecclesiastes not the rest of the Bible there's the book of Ecclesiastes back pocket and he said here read this every day now there's an example of quality rather than quantity the focus the the depth the perception usually an inverse proportion to the bread we've got so much bread we're so confusedly full of data and information and facts and claims and theories that we have to get out of the spiderweb well I would say father Benedict Groeschel is an excellent spiritual guide and wonderful Catholic psychologist and very practical I don't call a single title of his books that think about the bathroom but they are all relative to it I would discourage kind of old-fashioned going down the list and and going through checkpoints that tends to a kind of parenthetical legalism I think the most important thing about confession is be mercilessly honest with yourself in the face of God and spend a lot more time preparing for confession in prayer then then you would want to comfortable great thank you resinous what are your thoughts on the analytic continental divide and philosophy especially with respect to the question of why one should do philosophy would you do what what are your thoughts on the divide between analytic I think I think both are necessary but ever since the founders of analytical has to be turned philosophy into a meaning operation over modest tendency to simply analyze language and analyze problems one by one and the aversion is to creating systems and meta-narratives and the obverse meant to metaphysics has has turned analytic philosophy into something that wasn't Socrates and requires for both great analytic philosophers highly logical highly clear highly alert to language and it's subtleties and its need for definition but they also focused on big pictures that combination of clarity and profundity is very rare continental philosopher tend to be very profound but very unclear analytic philosophers and to be very clear but very um profound so on the one hand you have what sounds like muttering Lucas and on the other hand you have something like Tripp fortunately ever since the Chunnel there has been more communication between English being in continental philosophers and that's that's healthy and the situation is improving the problem with analytic philosophy I think comes down to it's it's over love of science and mathematics and mathematical logic only 1/2 degree and the problem with continental philosophy is that it tends to be suspicious of of argument and and plastically those two wonderful thank you I think that's the end of the questions now very very grateful to you but now and before we go to complan I will just have a few announcements so next week's talk the newest society is by father Sebastian Jones who is the head of the Cardiff oratory information he's renowned canonist and also Catholic chaplain to Cardiff University and he next week for my diffusive say preliminary round of the oratory in Rome and one of the lesser-known they're known as great Saints of the counter-reformation along with st. Ignatius and say to reasonably and he'll be sharing with us the charity and the joy that we can learn from for this example in these in these times and then also another announcement next week we have poplin and quiz with the Companions of the Order of Malta on Saturday yeah we're not sure the exact details yet and so they'll be more in Liam's email over the weekend thank you so welcome everyone tonight prayer here in the Blue Room at the Chaplaincy and firstly just warmest thanks to dr. Creed for such an engaging talk given in such a generous spirit and just to my left dr. grieve just out of viewers is a Jesuit Father Nicholas King who was also teaching in Boston College and so it's nice to have that little link between the society here and and over in the United States so thank you for being with us and and our well done for animating so gracefully received so we begin our night prayer together but God come to our aid to help us glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit so at the end of this day on this great feast day is celebrated in England the Feast of the Ascension let's ask for the grace to recognize the blessings that we have been graced with in these in this day the spirit of humility let us also recognize what we have struggled with that we might commend it to the Lord's aid and confident - always in the Lord's mercy we can say together I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words in what I have done through my fault through my most grievous fault therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-virgin all the angels and saints and you my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the Lord may Almighty God [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] say together the antediluvian alleluia alleluia he dwells in the shelter of the Most High and arise my son my god which is he who free you from the snare of the Fowler who seeks to destroy you he will conceal you with his pinions and under his wings you will find thousands may fall at your side 10,000 at your sight right you it will never you it will never approach his faithfulness is buckler and shield to see you no evil shall fall the plague approach waved well for you as he commanded his angels to keep you in all your ways since he clings to me in love I will free him protect him for he knows my name when he calls I shall answer I am with you I will save him in distress and give Him glory saving power we be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit they will see the Lord face to face and his name will be written on their foreheads it will never be night again and they will not need lamp light or sunlight because the Lord God will be shining on them they will reign forever and ever until land hands Lord I commend my spirit Alleluia and so immense my spirit you have redeemed us Lord God of truth and story be to the Father and to the Son and the Holy Spirit save us Lord while we are awake as well we sleep that we may keep a lot of advice and rest with him in these vast all-powerful master you could leave to your servant to go in peace according to your comments my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared for all nations the light to enlighten the Gentiles and glory be to the Father and to the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as in beginning is not save us all there awake protect us while we sleep we may be washed with ice unless we have in peace let us pray this in this house we pray new Oh Lord drive far from it the snares of the enemy your Holy Angels stay here and guard us in peace let your blessing be always upon us from Christ the Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect [Music] Marilu young Russell Rexy sequel of deceit ha ha Pranav his name

Channel: Newman Society Oxford

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Id: ND0g6zYvjz4

Length: 69min 22sec (4162 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020