
released 4/17/2023
In this 2018 lecture, Ken Myers compares an Enlightenment understanding of what reason is with a Christian view of reason, illustrating the consequences to human life and culture of each perspective. Surveying the influence of Bacon, Descartes, Kant, Locke, and others, Myers reveals how Enlightenment claims that one might be able to look upon reality with “absolute objectivity” lead ultimately to nihilism and alienation from the physical world and from God. In American culture today, Myers argues, most people cling unthinkingly to an irrational view of reason and an enslaving idea of freedom. In answer to the Enlightenment thinkers, he discusses the thought of Hamann, Betz, Gunton, Kreeft, and others, who show how reason originates from and participates in the Divine Logos. Myers then shows from Scripture how the concepts of light (that is, enlightenment) and Logos are intricately intertwined, and how both relate to reason (as the beginning of St. John’s gospel tells us, “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men”). Ultimately, everything in Creation has its order in and is sustained by the Logos — that is, Christ. Thus, the universe is intelligible.
This lecture is provided courtesy of the CiRCE Institute.
57 minutes
PREVIEW
The audio player for this program is restricted to MHA members and friends of the CiRCE Institute. Log in or sign up now to listen to it.
Related reading and listening
- Layers in “Logos” — Peter Kreeft on the metaphysical, psychological, and linguistic referents of logos
- Creation, in harmony with the Logos — Rowan Williams on the Logos and the diverse logoi that mirror it
- We are not “stochastic parrots” — In this essay, Talbot Brewer argues that our understanding of the nature of words and their relationship to human nature is “teetering” due to artificial intelligence chatbot systems and large language models (LLMs). (42 minutes)
- Mid-20th century intellectual consensus —
FROM VOL. 122 George Marsden discusses the influence of public intellectuals in America during the 1950s and their concerns for national moral consensus. (22 minutes) - God at the center of all — George Marsden discusses the unique philosophical and theological insights Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) had into his own era. (35 minutes)
- “Your life is a miracle” — In this lecture, L. M. Sacasas questions whether Byung-Chul Han’s critique of modern life as a “burnout society” is still accurate. (40 minutes)
- Necessary introspection — Ken Myers introduces listeners to liturgical music for traditional Holy Week services, music that encourages deep introspection and contemplation of sorrow. (27 minutes)
- Truth lives in language — Craig Gay reflects on how language is not merely a tool for humans to use, but is a part of our very being as creatures made in the image of the God who is the living Word. (52 minutes)
- How tech is making us less human — Christine Rosen argues that we must reckon with serious moral and ethical questions raised by the acceleration of “artificial intelligence” into almost every area of life. (31 minutes)
- A living tradition — In this lecture, James Matthew Wilson explores the nature of tradition as a “condition of possibility” that situates both reason and poetry. (49 minutes)
- Human beings as “word-bearers” — In this lecture, D. C. Schindler argues that misology — hatred for reason and contempt for language — is a deep cause of our current cultural crisis. (56 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 167 — FEATURED GUESTS: Nicholas Carr, Thomas Ward, Joseph Stuart, Steven Knepper, Robert Wyllie, Ephraim Radner, and Andrew Willard Jones
- Nietzsche, technology, and desire — Steven Knepper and Robert Wyllie discuss philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s thought on Nietzsche and on the effects of digital media on concepts of freedom, desire, and receptivity to others. (14 minutes)
- From Descartes to Nietzsche — Leszek Kolakowski on Cartesian rationality and modernity’s loss of meaning
- The desire for truth — In this article, Romanus Cessario, O.P., recounts the life, theology, and influence of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–1274). (38 minutes)
- When myth becomes fact — In this 1976 interview, Clyde Kilby (1902–1986) discusses C. S. Lewis’s critique of scientism and rationalism, his belief in the primacy of the imagination, and his mythic vision. (37 minutes)
- A great Reality at the core of things — Clyde Kilby on the nature and need for myths
- “A Myth Retold” — Literary critic Thomas Howard explains why he considers C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces to be one of the author’s richest and most rewarding works. (18 minutes)
- Paradoxes of “nature” and “culture” — Robert Spaemann, on the destructive consequences of a merely naturalistic understanding of nature
- Christian culture and the myth of the secular — Ken Myers draws on T. S. Eliot to argue that Western civilization has broken down, not into a multiplicity of cultures, but into a “post-culture.” (47 minutes)
- Disengagement from the world — Nicholas Carr encourages us to consider how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world and whether — like a good tool — they present a more inviting world or close us off from that world. (30 minutes)
- Modernity’s crisis of place — Craig Bartholomew reflects on the importance of place to our humanity. (58 minutes)
- Reason and the love of truth —
FROM VOL. 97 James Peters discusses historical understandings of reason and rationality and how they differ from the modern notion of rationality. (21 minutes) - A sampling of newly published lectures — Ken Myers introduces listeners to four recently released lectures, courtesy of our Partners. The lecturers are Jennifer Frey, Gary Saul Morson, N. T. Wright, and Andrew Kern. (27 minutes)
- The inward eye, cosmic truth, and making well — Andrew Kern takes his listeners along an “interlinear” reading of a portion of St. Augustine’s Confessions that explores the differences between how God makes and how we create. (38 minutes)
- The epistemology of love — In this lecture, N. T. Wright examines the epistemology of love and how it counters the reductionism of Enlightenment and Epicurean ways of knowing. (63 minutes)
- Grace and Christian realism — Jennifer Frey explores Thomist elements in Flannery O’Connor’s theology and writing, with a particular emphasis on a Thomist understanding of art. (39 minutes)
- Divine love and human sexuality — Paul Tyson argues that views about sexuality are downstream from theological — or at least metaphysical — assumptions about human nature. (16 minutes)
- Rose without thorns — Ken Myers introduces various settings of “Ther is no rose of swych vertu,” a medieval carol that uses imagery of a rosebush to describe the Virgin Mary. (29 minutes)
- “Investigations of divine works” — Greg Wilbur explains how closely connected music is to the order of the cosmos and how it even reveals attributes of God. (56 minutes)
- Cultural superiority and Medieval romance literature —
FROM VOL. 164 Tiffany Schubert argues that Jane Austen’s novels subtly incorporate some medieval literary conventions in ways that enable modern readers to experience a sense of wonder, romance, and the benevolence of Providence. (30 minutes) - To be at home in the world — D. C. Schindler examines how rituals enable us to experience time in a meaningful way — how they actually make time habitable for us. (41 minutes)
- Nun komm der Heiden Heiland — Ken Myers looks at the history of an Advent hymn written by St. Ambrose in the fourth century, adapted by Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, and transformed by J. S. Bach and many others in the years since. (21 minutes)
- A letter from Ken Myers — Ken Myers examines the cultural implications of the Incarnation and the deep-seated dualism of modernity that divorces spirituality from our material experience. (22 minutes)
- The beauty of truth and goodness —
FROM VOL. 141 James Matthew Wilson talks about how cultivating the desire to perceive the interior life of things sustains the basic human capacity for recognizing truth, pursuing wisdom, and contemplating beauty. (23 minutes) - The experience of a “real presence” in sacred music —
FROM VOL. 126 Jonathan Arnold explores why people of no religious commitment pay money to hear specifically sacred music. (22 minutes) - How music blesses and teaches —
FROM VOL. 64 Theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie explores what we learn about time, theology, and the structure of Creation from the experience of music. (28 minutes) - Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 166 — FEATURED GUESTS: William Cavanaugh, Kent Burreson, Beth Hoeltke, Jeffrey Barbeau, Jason Baxter, John Betz, and Bruce Herman
- An icon of the whole world — Jason Baxter explains how Dante includes a panoply of characters and creatures in his Comedia, offering a prismatic view of all of Creation in its glory. (20 minutes)
- Moral reasoning and human flourishing — Tim McIntosh describes moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s intellectual conversion to a synthesis of Aristotelian ethics and Christianity, best embodied in Thomism. (44 minutes)
- The “sovereign uselessness of moral reflection” — Calling on the wisdom of St. Augustine, Oliver O’Donovan reminds his listeners that all knowledge participates in the eternal Logos of God and is rooted in love, not disinterested moral judgement.(Lecture 1 of 3; 52 minutes)
- Cosmic realities in the built world — Christopher and Christine Perrin discuss the implications of architect Christopher Alexander’s (1936–2022) discovery of patterns of building that cohere with the the created cosmos and with ourselves as human creatures. (59 minutes)
- Beyond a reasonable doubt — From a 1980 interview with Ken Myers, Mortimer J. Adler discusses his argument that belief in the existence of God is rational. (14 minutes)
- The “book” of Creation — Alan Noble explains why the modern world makes it profoundly difficult to experience Creation as revelation, and he encourages unmediated encounters with Creation that lead to meditation. (52 minutes)
- Life more abundantly — Jeanne Schindler advocates for a return to an understanding and prioritizing of sensory experience — real engagement with the real world — as foundational to learning and living. (35 minutes)
- Heaven and earth are full of His glory — Gerald R. McDermott examines the typological tradition of the Church, particularly through Jonathan Edwards’s thought, and he argues for a recovery of the Christian understanding of the universe as an “immense Trinitarian symbol.” (61 minutes)
- An invitation to a feast — Christina Bieber Lake explains how poetry is an invitation to experience the beauty and goodness of Creation as gift. (44 minutes)
- Stewarding God’s creation —
FROM VOL. 116 Fred Bahnson talks about how a Christian understanding of God’s redemptive work on the earth should influence our practices of growing and sharing food. (19 minutes) - “Earth-shaking” and “heart-breaking” beauty —
FROM VOL. 151 Junius Johnson warns that the pursuit of beauty is both perilous and an experience that points to the desire for God. (25 minutes) - Universities as the hosts of reciprocating speech — Robert Jenson on how the Christian understanding of Truth in a personal Word shaped the Western university