Quote of the Day (Soren Kierkegaard, on Faith and ‘What Is Not Seen’)

“Faith always pertains to what is not seen, be it the invisible or the improbable.” — Soren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Writings, XV: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited and translated by H .V. Hong & E.H. Hong (1993)

Quote of the Day (Paul Tillich, on the ‘Riddle of the Present’)

“The riddle of the present is the deepest of all the riddles of time.” ―Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (1963)

Quote of the Day (Soren Kierkegaard, on Faith, ‘Paradox of Life and Existence’)

“Faith therefore is not an aesthetic emotion but something far higher, precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition; it is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence.”—Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, translated by Walter Lowrie (1843)

Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was born on this date two centuries ago in Copenhagen, Denmark. He did not live the happiest of lives. You wouldn’t, either, if your father, as a feudal laborer on church lands, cursed God in his youth, could never shake his subsequent guilt, and transmitted that depression like a virus to the family; if, for reasons unknown to others and even perhaps to yourself, you broke off an engagement to a vibrant young woman; if you became a laughingstock on the streets of your city for your physical oddities; and if you rebelled against the Danish church of your time.

It took the 20^th century, with all its terrors and shocks to the human psyche, to rediscover the prolific works he produced in only about a dozen years of feverish activity. Kierkegaard is now regarded as the forefather of existentialism. “Kierkegaard’s great contribution to Western philosophy was to assert, or to reassert with Romantic urgency, that, subjectively speaking, each existence is the center of the universe,” wrote John Updike in a New Yorker article eight years ago.

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard reinterprets the story of Abraham and Isaac for a rational modern age, introducing the notion of a “knight of faith” who can make a “leap of faith.” With his influence on the likes of Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Barth and countless other theologians, philosophers, and even novelists such as Updike, his thinking, born of torment, has been vindicated by posterity.

Quote of the Day (Archbishop Sheen, on Travel and Theology)

“Travel merely confirms the teaching of theology that humanity is one. The accidental differences of color and race and what jingles in the pocket are of little concern. The longer I live the more I become convinced that in the face of injustices we must begin to say I love. Kind deeds are not enough. We must learn to say I forgive.”—Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen (1980)

Quote of the Day (Rowan Williams, on Theologians and Economists)

“You say theologians don’t talk about the real world. But sometimes in recent years, it’s the economists that don’t talk about the real world.”—Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, at “Building an Ethical Economy,” a three-day conference held at New York’s Trinity Church, pointing to “more and more recondite, metaphysical, unreal forms of wealth,” quoted in Paul Vitello, “Archbishop of Canterbury Challenges Wall Street on Its Home Turf,” The New York Times, January 30, 2010

Quote of the Day (Fr. Michael Place, on the Right to Health Care)

“In Catholic theology, access to health care is a fundamental social good, because health is essential to human flourishing and the preservation of human dignity; as such, health care is an aspect of the common good. Society and the state have a dual obligation to protect the right to health care and to provide the means necessary for its fulfillment.”--Fr. Michael D. Place, “A Time for Reform: How the Catholic Tradition Can Shape the Health Care Debate,” America, August 17-24, 2009

Quote of the Day (G.K. Chesterton, With a Lesson Imparted by a Different Kind of Father)

“ ‘Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men’s real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil? But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren’t a priest.’
‘What?’ asked the thief, almost gaping.
‘You attacked reason,’ said Father Brown. ‘It’s bad theology.’”—G.K. Chesterton, “The Blue Cross,” in Father Brown: The Essential Tales, Introduction by P.D. James (2005)

Among the reasons we honor fathers on this day is for imparting values. With that in mind, I thought I’d look at a different kind of father today: the Roman Catholic priest immortalized by G.K. Chesterton—novelist, poet, journalist, essayist, friendly debater of George Bernard Shaw, and master of detective fiction.

The unassuming Essex prelate is taken for granted by nearly everyone, including the police and the criminals they try to catch. This series of detective stories by Catholic convert Chesterton can, of course, be read simply for the joy of unlocking a puzzle, just as you would a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot story.

But along the way, you’ll also enjoy Chesterton’s masterful insights into human nature, including his much-anthologized “The Invisible Man,” or views on faith that overturn conventional notions of faith, as in “The Blue Cross.”

Chesterton’s amateur sleuth became an unlikely movie hero in The Detective (1954), renamed Father Brown upon its release in the U.S. It’s not one of the more famous entries in the filmography of Alec Guinness (see the image accompanying this post), but I think it’s unjustly neglected. It’s as difficult for me to imagine anyone else in that role as to think of another actor taking over another role inevitably branded by Guinness, spymaster George Smiley.