David Bentley Hart on the Nihilism of the Western Notion of Freedom

"The issue for me is whether, within the moral grammar of modernity, any of these good souls could give an account of his or her virtue. I with, that is, to make a point no conspicuously different from Alasdair MacIntyre's in the first chapter of his After Virue: that is, what an odd bricolage ethics has become in the wake of a morality of the Good. As far as I can tell, homo nihilisticus may often be in several notable respects a far more amiable rogue than homo religiosus, exhibiting a far small propensity for breaking the crockery, destroying sacred statuary, or slaying the nearest available infidel. But, love, let us be true to one another: even when all of this is granted, it would be a willful and culpable blindness for us to refuse to recognize how culturally arid and spiritually impoverished our society has become - which any unprejudiced survey of the artifacts of popular culture will effortlessly confirm. How, after all, should Christians regard the present age when, in America alone, more than 40 million babies have been killed in the womb since the Supreme Court invented the right to abortion, and when there are many who see these deaths not just as tragic necessities, but as blameless consequences of a moral social triumph? When the Carthaginians were prevailed upon to cease sacrificing their babies, at least the place vacated by Baal reminded them that they should seek the divine above themselves; but our culture offers up its babies to "my" freedom of choice, to "me." Surely a Christian must doubt that any other society's moral vision has ever shown itself to be more degenerate."

"Christ and Nothing (No Other God)," in In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments

a brief word from Cardinal Newman

"Those whom Christ saves are they who at once attempt to save themselves, yet despair of saving themselves; who aim to do all, and confess they do nought; who are all love, and all fear; who are the most holy, and yet confess themselves the most sinful; who ever seek to please Him, yet feel they never can; who are full of good works, yet of works of penance. All this seems a contradiction to the natural man, but it is not so to those whom Christ enlightens. They understand in proportion to their illumination, that it is possible to work out their salvation, yet to have it wrought out for them, to fear and tremble at the thought of judgment, yet to rejoice always in the Lord, and hope and pray for His coming."

From his sermon, "The Lapse of Time"

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