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Modern philosophy acts particularly like a critic. In a manner that is more positivistic and scientistic in some, more rationalistic and idealistic i… - Henri de Lubac
" "Modern philosophy acts particularly like a critic. In a manner that is more positivistic and scientistic in some, more rationalistic and idealistic in others, its overall action remains corrosive. […] This whole work of thought, whose greatness we must not fail to recognize, is paid for in practice by the loss of the living God. The world then becomes a world of abstractions, when it is not absurdly reduced to a world of phenomena. In losing its mysterious innermost depth, it has lost its soul. Man is isolated, uprooted, "disconcerted". […] The world itself appears "broken". There is, at the innermost part of consciousness, a metaphysical despair.[…] It is then that substitute faiths inevitably present themselves to fill this tragic void. Such is the fourth and final period of the process. Man is not satisfied by ideologies cut off from any source of real efficacy: the hour must come when he is disenchanted with them. He lives still less from criticism and negations. He does not live by and neutrality. Inevitably something like a great call for air is produced in his inner void, which opens him to the invasion of new positive forces, whatever they might be. The latter conquer him all the more quickly, the more coarse and virulent they are. Cut off from a higher life, he gives in to the brutal pressures that, at least, give him the feeling of a life. Having abused criticism to make truth itself vanish, he now dislikes using it[,] to protect his mirages. A troubled credulity succeeds his faith. Rationalism has expelled mystery: myth takes its place.
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About Henri de Lubac
Henri de Lubac (20 February 1896 – 4 September 1991) was a French Jesuit priest who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and is considered to be one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century.
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Additional quotes by Henri de Lubac
To see in Catholicism one religion among others, one system among others, even if it be added that it is the only true religion, the only system that works, is to mistake its very nature, or at least to stop at the threshold. Catholicism is religion itself. It is the form which humanity must put on in order finally to be itself.
[A] transcendent destiny which presupposes the existence of a transcendent God is essential to the realization of a destiny that is truly collective, that is, to the constitution of this humanity in the concrete. Otherwise it is not really for humanity that the sacrifice is made: it is still, despite assertion to the contrary, for other individuals, who in their transitory outward form contain nothing that is absolute and do not stand for any essentially higher value than those who are sacrificed to them; in the last resort it is all for one generation of humanity—the last—which is yet no greater than the others, and which will pass away like the others.[…] "I have no wish to sacrifice myself to that terrible God called future society," exclaims a character in a contemporary Russian novel. That is a very natural protest, possibly inspired by egoism, but one which cannot be reproved by reason. For no unselfishness can be sustained in face of an absurdity, and to require a worthy object for one's sacrifice is not to transform the sacrifice into self-interest.
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Christianity, by those doctrinal aspects that we have just emphasized as well as by others, brought something absolutely new into the world. Its concept of salvation is not merely novel in comparison with that of those religions in existence at the time of its birth. It is a unique phenomenon in the religious history of mankind.<p>For what do we witness outside Christianity whenever a religious movement rises above the domain of sense and effectively transcends the limit of nationality? In every case, though appearances may differ considerably, the basis is the same—an individualist doctrine of escape. It was this that inspired ancient mysticism, whether it sought to escape the vicissitudes of the sub-lunary world or to pass over the outer circle of the cosmos and to penetrate into the realm of intelligible Essences or even beyond.
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