Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Not Seeing Facts that Stare Us in the Face

The "hidden dimension" is only accessible to eyes that see. Alasdair MacIntyre in a recent article (his address to the Am. Cath. Phil. Assn. "On Being a Theistic Philosopher in a Secularized Culture") commented on the absence of such eyes in secular culture:

"The [secular] philosopher might say that if there is indeed such a thing as genuine awareness of the presence of God, then the question of whether or not God exists should have been settled to everyone's satisfaction long ago. To which the only possible response is that of C.S. Pierce, in his reply to the objection posed to his own personalist theism, that 'if there is a personal God, we must . . . be in personal communication with him. Now, if that be the case, the question arises how it is possible that the existence of this being should ever have been doubted by anybody.'

"To which Pierce replied that 'facts that stand before our face and eyes and stare us in the face are far from being, in all cases, the most easily discerned.' ('The Law of Mind' in Philosophical Writings of Pierce, ed. Justus Buchler, New York: Dover Publications, 1955, 352). To discern them we need not argument, but to be open to those facts as Newman was open, when he perceived his own existence and that of God as 'luminously self-evident.'"

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