Kierkegaard is truly wonderful, as a critic of Christendom and (or so it seems to me) the father of existentialism and psychology. The whole question of conscience and forgiveness is a fascinating one, especially in a God-denying society that is conscious of wrongdoing but has no one to grant forgiveness. What to do? Peter Hitchens makes some penetrating comments in this interview, and as with everything Hitchens says, there is naught for our comfort: for he puts his finger on what I have always believed to be great offence in the West since the 1960s (but have never had the courage to preach on): the Prevalence of Abortion and the great number of people complicit in this, either having an abortion themselves or procuring one. How, asks Hitchens, does one deal with a wrong such as taking a human life, without forgiveness? By universalizing it and declaring it no wrong. There is a closer link between modern atheism and the chaos of modern sexual libertinism than is often realised. Yet conscience has its revenge, as J. Budjizewski reminds us in his books. 200 years after his birth, the sage of Old Zealand has a lot to teach New Zealand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ATJ23ftuho
Kierkegaard is truly wonderful, as a critic of Christendom and (or so it seems to me) the father of existentialism and psychology. The whole question of conscience and forgiveness is a fascinating one, especially in a God-denying society that is conscious of wrongdoing but has no one to grant forgiveness. What to do? Peter Hitchens makes some penetrating comments in this interview, and as with everything Hitchens says, there is naught for our comfort: for he puts his finger on what I have always believed to be great offence in the West since the 1960s (but have never had the courage to preach on): the Prevalence of Abortion and the great number of people complicit in this, either having an abortion themselves or procuring one. How, asks Hitchens, does one deal with a wrong such as taking a human life, without forgiveness? By universalizing it and declaring it no wrong. There is a closer link between modern atheism and the chaos of modern sexual libertinism than is often realised. Yet conscience has its revenge, as J. Budjizewski reminds us in his books. 200 years after his birth, the sage of Old Zealand has a lot to teach New Zealand.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ATJ23ftuho
Martin