Christopher Dawson: The Christ Event Is the Center Point of History
"...the Christian view of history is not a secondary element derived by philosophical reflection from the study of history. It lies at the very heart of Christianity and forms an integral part of the Christian faith. Hence there is no Christian "philosophy of history" in the strict sense of the word. There is, instead a Christian history and a Christian theology of history, and it is not too much to say that without them there would be no such thing as Christianity. For Christianity, together with the religion of Israel out of which it was born, is an historical religion in a sense to which none of thew other world religions can lay claim - not even Islam, though this comes nearest to it in this respect.
Hence it is very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to explain the Christian view of history to a non-Christian, since it is necessary to accept the Christian faith in order to understand the Christian view of history, and those who reject the idea of divine revelation are necessarily obliged to reject the Christian view of history as well. And even those who are prepared to accept in theory the principle of divine revelation- of the manifestation of a religious truth which surpasses human reason - may still find it hard to face the enormous paradoxes of Christianity......
.......For the Christian view of history is not merely a belief in the direction of history by divine providence, it is a belief in the intervention by God in the life of mankind by direct action at certain definite points in time and place. The doctrine of the Incarnation which is the central doctrine of the Christian faith is also the center of history, and thus it is natural and appropriate that our traditional Christian history is framed in a chronological system which takes the year of the Incarnation as its point of reference and reckons its annals backwards and forwards from this fixed centre."
Dynamics of World History by Christopher Dawson,
Sheed and Ward, pp.234,5
Good stuff. Blessed John Newman told Hilaire Belloc (as a young man) "All human conflict is ultimately theological." So it comes down to belief or unbelief - who knows unbelief better? The believer or the unbeliever? I regard the unbeliever as I would a drunk - the drunk doesn't know he's inebriated but the one who is sober knows it and the believer is gifted in being able to understand what the unbeliever rejects.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Robert George recently gave a lecture at the Maxim Institute in Aukland. He quoted a political and culture philosopher who read the riot act to your political leaders as he deplored the low level of parliamentary debate. The man sounds like he would be a confrere of Belloc, Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Newman,and Dawson. Do you know this Maxim Institute? Or who this brave local hero is in your midst? I'd like to read his stuff,I think.
ReplyDeleteYes I do know of them. They have a presence in Christchurch and had a good reputation (in the choir) but then they stubbed their toe on a plagiarism issue from First Things Mag I kid thee not. Unfortunately I think they merely yell or preach to the choir - those days are long gone. I think they are a small group of evangelical thinkers who should really be Catholic. The have a website.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Jeremy Waldron, is he the real thing, the genuine article? Did his castigation of the political leaders have any effect?
DeleteNo I've not heard of him but that may just be because the msm haven't given him any air. Really the alacrity with which this Nation passed the Gay Marriage thing and the overwhelming majority it got (77 to 44 I think) tells a tale of a place obsessed with economics - NZ Inc. If the politicians think they smell votes / power they'll go for it. I've recently had two letters published by The Press here in Christchurch on issues connected to Faith - a small victory but really just a drop in the ocean. If the Catholic Bishops want to get their views across unless they paid for space they'd get precious little column inches in the papers and as for TV news, 80% gossip/crime or the bizarre. The police have to publicly justify any action such as being around when a chased stolen car crashes or they need to use a firearm or tazer. Okay it's not all bad but the number of teachers and other high profile folks being prosecuted over porn use or abuse of the vulnerable is appalling and yet people still go on wringing their hands over a solution - and as Flannery O'Connor said "evil is not a problem to be solved but rather a mystery to be endured." So we have the news choked with folk who demand tax money for this or that scheme which is somehow going to get rid of teen pregnancy, burglaries, white collar crime etc etc. Utopians :-/ I think I said it all in the preface to Rahnuk. The days of folk listening to the likes of Chesterton or Belloc are over. I'm sure if I asked young people today about Churchill, FDR or even Hitler or Stalin, there would be many ignorant of them or probably haven't even heard of them. As for world peace? Well I've long held the view that anyone who thinks this century will be any less blood soaked than the last is living in cloud cuckoo land and that's not taking into account some pandemic as yet unknown. We're well overdue for some sort of plague. Okay, I hope I don't come across as pessimistic, as you have said everything God made He saw as good and evil is merely Good corrupted - a parasite of the good and as every biologist knows, no parasite can eliminate its host without destroying itself - so the corollary is Hope will always outlast despair.
DeleteYes I know of them - they have a website and they used to have a weekly column in our local rag up until about 15 years ago when the columnist stubbed his toe over plagiarism, she being caught out using material from offshore including from First Things. I doubt they have much influence here since they seem to spend much time criticizing - complaining to the choir. To know what they're on about I would have to go searching and yet the attitudes they hold are certainly valid. I think they are a curious mix of conservative evangelical 'thinkers'. In Western cultures (I think) we need Dorothy Days and Mother Teresa(s) to make an impact.
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