Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:02am

“Sages, leave your contemplation;
brighter visions beam afar.”

“Pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that produce our creeds.”  William James, The Will to Believe

“Sages, leave your contemplation…” is the beginning of the third verse of “Angels, from the Realms of Glory”, the entrance hymn at Mass today (Epiphany) at our church.   Although there are beautiful, impressive versions of the alternate version of this hymn (sung to the melody of “Angels we have heard on high,” with the beautiful descending Gloria as the refrain–see here and here), our music director (and I) prefer the original Regent Square version, as below:

“Sages, leave your contemplation” hit me hard.  It’s the message I’ve been trying to communicate in my blog posts–that there’s more to the world than science and logic reveal, even though these intellectual tools can enhance our appreciation of God’s Creation.

The opening quote from William James’ essay, “The Will to Believe,” also gives the same message.  Since I have expounded on this in more detail in a blog post, “Why do we believe?” , I won’t repeat those arguments, but just say “even though truth is conveyed on the two wings of faith and reason–to use Pope St. John Paul II’s apt figure of speech–the essential wing is faith.”

 

 

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